Roasted Vegetable Lasagna Recipe by: Courtney Flood This recipe is a great dish to feed a crowd. It can be prepared completely in advance and easily doubled without any extra effort. It’s also an easy wine-pairing dish. It is great to use some of the fall vegetable bounty. Ingredients: 1 large eggplant 3 medium zucchini (or summer squash) 6 red or orange peppers 1 jar of prepared tomato sauce (or make your own) 1 500g package of oven-ready lasagna noodles 2 500g packages of ricotta cheese 2 cups grated mozzarella cheese 1 cup grated parmesan cheese 1 egg 1 clove […]
Best Wines
Cream of Roasted Red Pepper with Bocconcini Soup Recipe Paired with Sauvignon Blanc
Cream of Roasted Red Pepper with Bocconcini Soup Warm up to Fall Shorter days. Colder weather. It’s enough to leave you feeling like you need a vacation. But if you can’t do that, why not try the next best thing: a hearty, heartwarming bowl of soup. This recipe for Cream of Roasted Red Pepper with Bocconcini Soup ain’t your grandma’s chicken noodle (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It’s a deliciously modern combination of soft and creamy Canadian Bocconcini and juicy roasted peppers, topped with a sweet tang of balsamic. It’s one of my go-to soups, and whether you’re […]
Romancing the Score: What do Wine Ratings Really Tell Us?
The biggest problem with wine scores is that they evaluate the obvious: how a wine tastes. What really matters is how interesting the wine makes your dining companion. Now that would be worth rating. Indeed, you have to wonder why we rate wine in the first place. After all, it is just a drink. We certainly don’t rate orange juice or lemonade; we don’t have beef shank critics talking about the region from which the cows hailed or syndicated cabbage columnists talking about how the September rainfall affected the leaf set. Perhaps this scrutiny is a testament to the way […]
Best LCBO Wines: Vintages Release September 13
You can access the 89 wines that I reviewed for September 13 as a text wine list with my complete tasting notes, scores, food matches and the stock for each bottle in their closest LCBO stores. You can also see my wine reviews for August 30. You can add my wine picks to their custom shopping list with one click and access that list on their smartphone. This is one of the benefits of becoming a Paid Member. Inventory stock numbers are usually posted online a day or two before the release based on the LCBO doing so. Here […]
Pairing Wine and Seafood, Shellfish and Steak with Sommelier Allison Vidug
Allison Vidug, sommelier at the Shore Club in Toronto, shares her tips on pairing wine with fresh seafood and shellfish, as well as great cuts of juicy steak. Tell us about the wine list at The Shore Club. Since I took over the wine program, my focus has been on creating a classic list with wines that suit the menu. The Shore Club’s menu is all about simplicity and quality of ingredients used in steak and seafood dishes. The wine list will include classics from the Old World, New World and, great Canadian wines — which I am most excited […]
Wine App Pours its Way to the Top of the App Store
Thanks to reporter Trish Crompton with the technology magazine Communitech for this terrific review of our new wine mobile app! Wine app pours its way to the top of the app store Natalie MacLean may have uncorked the secret to helping even the most amateur of wine drinkers to become their own sommelier. As an award-winning wine writer, MacLean is constantly asked for recommendations on the perfect wine. “I would get lots and lots of emails all the time,” MacLean says, and they were filled with questions like, “I want to buy an anniversary wine for my parents, I have […]
Best LCBO Wines: Vintages Release August 30
You can access the 66 wines that I reviewed for August 30 as a text wine list with my complete tasting notes, scores, food matches and the stock for each bottle in their closest LCBO stores. You can also see my wine reviews for August 16. You can add my wine picks to their custom shopping list with one click and access that list on their smartphone. This is one of the benefits of becoming a Paid Member. Inventory stock numbers are usually posted online a day or two before the release based on the LCBO doing so. […]
Wine Review of the Week: Sterling Chardonnay by Deborah Podurgiel
Our Wine Review of the Week celebrates summer with this classic Californian Chardonnay reviewed by Deborah Podurgiel. Deborah has completed the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Level 3, and is now a candidate studying for the WSET Diploma. She’s an active wine blogger in Vancouver, as well as a journalist who writes about food, wine and home decor for various magazines and newspapers. Summer Barbie parties are great, but how does one manage to have stellar wines without busting the budget? Well, you can rely on word of mouth from friends, or your very helpful and knowledgeable local wine store […]
The Rising Tide: Alcohol in Wine Creeps Up the Glass
Continued from Part 1 of High Alcohol Wine … Otherwise, drinkers have to wait years for all of the wine’s disjointed elements to knit together. They also claim that it’s unfair to judge New World wines by Old World standards. Wines from hot climates, they point out, are being true to their locale by being riper and more alcoholic. Grapes in these regions, such as zinfandel, shiraz and grenache, only start to express themselves at 14 or 15 percent alcohol. Similarly, chardonnay from these areas at 12 percent alcohol would taste green and stemmy, and is best at 14 and […]
Hot, Hot, Hot! What Does Alcohol Do for Wine?
Continued from Part 2 of High Alcohol Wine … So for every fifty samples I taste, I probably consume the equivalent of a glass of wine—and that adds up. As the day wears on, my spitting technique becomes less refined, more like dribbling. Between that and my increasing enthusiasm for swirling my samples, the purple-stained napkins are piling up around me. My voice rises, my carefree laugh floats across the room, until someone inevitably asks, “Enjoying yourself, Natalie?” Where was I? Oh yes, back in the vineyard, talking about grapes. “Ripeness is all,” as Shakespeare once said and a growing […]
