This week on Global Television’s Morning Show, Carolyn, Jordan and I chatted about pairing wine and cheese for Thanksgiving or a celebratory meal at another time of the year. Why are you suggesting we serve our guests a little wine and cheese? Certain pairings in life indicate that the world is a good place: peanut butter and jam, chocolate syrup and ice cream, wine and cheese. The separate ingredients enhance one another: each tastes better together than it would on its own. And the good news is that wine and cheese can be enjoyed with little preparation. The […]
Wine & Blue Cheese
Pairing Wine & Creative Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Carolyn, Jeff and I chat about pairing wine and grilled cheese sandwiches for Canada Day on the national edition of Global Television’s Morning Show. These aren’t your ordinary grilled cheese sammies: step it up on July 1 or 4, and create one of these for yourself and for your guests. Loblaw’s Executive Chef, Mark Russell, created these terrific grilled cheese sandwich recipes. The accompaniments are part of Loblaw’s From Our Chef line. Here are my favourite Canadian wines that I’ve tasted recently, plus wines from around the world in the spirit of international peace and diversity through food and drink! […]
Wine and Cheese Pairings to Celebrate the Holidays with Janet Fletcher
Introduction Should you try a cheese-only cheese course? Why are cheese and bread not necessarily great matches for cheese? Which underappreciated wine and cheese pairing should you try today? How does sparkling wine stack up with your favourite cheeses? Have you been serving cheeses the wrong way? Should you eat the rinds on cheeses? In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with award-winning journalist and author, Janet Fletcher. You can find the wines we discussed here. Highlights What shift can you see in the restaurant industry’s approach to serving cheese? Which mindset shift did Janet […]
National Wine Day Prompts These Thoughts
Introduction May 25 is National Wine Day and in honour of that, I think it’s worth exploring how wine, as a beverage, has influenced our culture. Wine has been an integral part of human history from ancient civilizations right through to the modern day. It has become deeply associated with culture, power and prestige in a way that no other beverage has. Most of what I’m going to share with you today is based on a magazine piece about wine and civility that I wrote two months after 9/11. However, the search for civility in everyday life has more resonance […]
Recipe: Blue Cheese Hamburger with Red Wine Pairing
In celebration of National Hamburger Day, pair this savoury recipe for Blue Cheese Hamburger with the full-bodied red wine, such as Shiraz, Cabernet or Malbec. Please feel free to share this on social media with the hashtag #nationalburgerday Prep time: 30 minutes Total time, including cooking: 2 hours and 30 minutes Serves: 6 Ingredients: 1.5 pounds of lean ground beef 2 ounces of crumbled blue cheese ¼ cup of minced fresh chives 1/8 teaspoon of hot pepper sauce ½ teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce ½ teaspoon of coarsely-ground black pepper ¾ teaspoon of salt ½ teaspoon of dry mustard 6 hamburger buns Directions: […]
The Wine that Came in from the Cold: Icewine
Not a breath of wind caresses the snow-blanketed vineyards. The tar-black sky is pin-pricked with stars, and a full moon sends shadows slithering out between the scarecrow vines. Stooped figures in Arctic gear coax their bare fingers to snap off bunches of frozen grapes. That’s what the annual icewine harvest looks like in Niagara at this time of the year. It results in a wine that combines the sweetness of lusciously ripe fruit with a silver edge of acidity that’s as crisp as the winter wind. Despite its modern association with Canada, icewine was actually discovered in Germany, by accident, […]
Tale of Two Niagara Wineries: Reif Winery Makes Big Impression
As a photographer, I capture many wonderful moments in life, with no two moments ever being quite the same. This weekend, I found out in my travels to the Niagara Region, the same can be said for its wonderful abundance of world-class wineries. This is my story about visiting two wineries in the Niagara region at opposite ends of the spectrum, one small and one large, to see just how different they really were with respect to service style, approachability, ambiance and overall experience. In Part One of Tale of Two Wineries, I wrote about my experience visiting Ravine, considered to most as […]
Wine and Cheese Meet Their Match: Together
CBC News host Marivel and I chat about pairing Canadian wine and cheese for Canada Day and beyond in the video above that was syndicated nationally (click on the arrow to watch). We are filming in the CBC studios head office in Toronto, which has an open atrium in the center the building, and is open to 15 floors. Down in the main court, you can hear the sounds of the band warming up in the background for a gala event that night. We just rolled with it ;) Beyond the tips we discuss, some interesting health-related tidbits include: Cheese […]
Matching Cheese and Wine for Entertaining
Sirius XM talk show hosts Christine, Kate and Sharon and I chat about The Great Canadian Wine & Cheese Match in the clip above (click on the arrow to listen) You can also watch clips from CTV News, Global Television, CBC News and CTV Morning Live with more pairings, as well as a radio interview on CJAD, Montreal’s most popular talk show. Matching Cheese and Wine for Entertaining Christine: Hi there, I’m Christine Bentley and I don’t think Kate Millers going to let me say one word here because we are talking about wine with Natalie MacLean. Hi there Natalie! […]
Pairing Canadian Wine and Cheese: Why are They so Natural Together?
Liza, Jeff and I chat about pairing Canadian wines and cheese on Global Television Morning Show. You can watch the video above by clicking on the arrow. We’re just a few weeks away from Canada Day, and what could be better than celebrating with a glass of Canadian wine, and of course pair that with some Canadian cheese. Here to show us how which wine and cheese pairings are is Natalie MacLean, the editor of Canada’s largest wine review web site. So why do wine and cheese pair well together? – both start as natural liquids and are products of […]
