This chat with CBC radio in Ontario was one of 26 interviews with the morning and drive-home shows on Friday about terrific (and surprising) pairings for Canadian wines with barbecued food. We also kicked off The Great Canadian Wine Match: BBQ Edition. Got a wine to nominate? Or maybe you’d like to see which wines others have nominated and vote for them. Check out the race so far here with lots of great ideas for July 1 barbecue wines. Read more about the wine competition here as well as prizes for those who nominate wines, including a $3,000 Weber Summit […]
Social Media and Wine
The Great Canadian Wine Match: The BBQ Edition
In May 2013, we launched the first People’s Choice Wine Awards with The Great Candian Wine Match. Thousands of wine lovers from coast to coast (and around the planet) voted for their favourite Canadian wines online and via social media. This friendly (and increasingly social ;) competition brought wine drinkers and winemakers together to celebrate the best of what we produce in this country, and garnered considerable media recognition for both nominees and winners. We’re building on that success this year with The Great Canadian Wine Match: The BBQ Edition, pairing Canadian wines with your favourite grilled or barbecued foods, […]
Win a $3000 Weber Summit Gas Grill + Prizes in The Great Canadian Wine Match
Nominate your favourite Canadian wine in The Great Canadian Wine Match: BBQ Edition, and you could win the Grand Prize, The Weber® Summit® S-670™ gas grill, Weber’s top-of-the-line grill worth more than $3,000! You could also wine one of 25 Weber Cookbooks or one of 5 sets of grilling utensils. Nominate your favourite Canadian wines today! Grand Prize: Weber® Summit® S-670™ Gas Grill The Weber® Summit® S-670™ gas grill takes normal grilling up several notches with Weber’s innovative Sear Station™ technology. The Sear Station™ is a dedicated area in the middle of the grill which reaches temperatures of 800 to […]
Android and BlackBerry wine mobile apps
I would love to create a wine app for every smartphone platform on the market, or even most of the major ones. But the reality is cold hard cash. I’ve invested $30,000 in the iPhone platform alone to create the existing app. Apple continues to lead the app market by a margin of 10 to 1 when it comes to their smartphone users actually using apps and to supporting those who develop for them. That said, to date, I have invested another $25,000 into each of the Android and Blackberry platforms. I’ve also created a mobile site that works on […]
Drinkin’ the Green: Matching Vegetables with Wine
Matching Green Food & Wine Green food and green wine go well together: vegetables dance with wines that have herbal, grassy aromas, such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. In fact, if there were an award for Veggie Wine of the Century, it would go to this one. Not only does it have complementary aromas of asparagus and canned peas, but it also has bright citrus notes that complement most vegetables. While white wines often work better than red wines with vegetables, light reds like Pinot Noir and Gamay also work because they have soft tannins, juicy berry flavors and good […]
Top 10 Most Influential Wine Bloggers on Twitter
A Twitter storm erupted today, so I clicked through to to see what the fuss was about … how we love top 10 lists, no matter how encouraging or provocative. Cision, a global firm that tracks and reports on the top social media sites and conducts media research on key influencers, published its list of the Top 10 Most Influential Wine Bloggers on Twitter today: “This list includes the most influential wine bloggers on Twitter, ranked by number of Twitter followers. Using Cision’s media database, we compiled the list based on Cision’s proprietary research. All numbers were pulled on January […]
Twitter’s Profound Impact on Wine Purchases
Twitter has a powerful influence on the way make buying decisions, according to a new study published this week. The research firm DB5, which conducts studies regularly about Facebook, Google and other social media companies, found that: – 55% of people discuss gift ideas on Twitter, including wine, books and electronics – 66% of respondents said they learned about new brands on Twitter – 64% said they have bought a product because of something they saw on Twitter – 50% of survey responders said they check Twitter while in a retail store The Infographic below is a compelling visual representation […]
Wine and Social Media: Do Wineries Need Social Media?
Our video chat features social media tips for the wine industry from Marc Saltzman, tech columnist for the Toronto Star, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, CNN and Gear Guide, viewed by 6-7 million people every week at Cineplex movie theatres across the country. What about the concern that many wineries have: they don’t have the time to do it or the budget to hire someone? What’s the real upside in being on social media, especially if you already have a web site? How do you know which social media channels to focus on? Is it all about Twitter […]
Canadian Wine Sites: New Ratings Worth Toasting
Update: As of December 3, 2013, our site has moved up in its ranking from 760 to 608 (the lower the number, the closer to the top), continuing to be the only Canadian wine site with more traffic than the LCBO, SAQ, BCLDB and other liquor stores in the country.August 22, 2013: Our team is thrilled with the new rankings for Canadian wine sites from Alexa, the leading provider of web metrics that measures and rates Canadian site traffic and audience engagement. Alexa is considered the Nielsen ratings for the digital world, and has been quoted frequently by those in […]
Atelier Restaurant Ottawa: Food + Wine Video Review
When we decided to make reservations at Atelier Restaurant in Ottawa, we discovered that we’d have to wait several weeks for a Friday evening reservation. Such is the popularity of this award-winning restaurant that specializes in molecular gastronomy, and is one of my favourite restaurants in this city and across the country. I had written a profile of the superb sommelier Steve Robinson several months ago for Ottawa Magazine, the sister publication of Toronto Life. Now it was time to revisit and try the new summer menu with Steve’s pairings. It was spectacular, with whimsical dish names like “You’ve Got […]
