We had great fun chatting about bargain wines on Global TV’s The Morning Show recently. We focused on Niagara wines and why they truly are such a bargain. Got a favourite? Cheers, Natalie (I really should learn to brush the back of my hair … looks like I slept in a medieval cellar.) Posted with permission of Global TV.
Book: Unquenchable
Want a wine bargain? Consider South Africa and Canada – Providence Journal
Looking for some wine advice for Thanksgiving? Or any part of the holiday season? Check out Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines now in paperback. In it, sommelier and award-winning wine writer Natalie MacLean shares her expertise to reveal wines that aren’t commonly considered but that many will find stunning. Basically, these wines are affordable because demand doesn’t drive up their prices. Argentinean Malbec, for example, doesn’t have the cachet or brand awareness of Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, so producers have to compete aggressively on price. Its flavor falls somewhere between the two noble red grapes. […]
Iconic Voices in Unquenchable – Fairmont Magazine
Meet top authors as part of the Random House Iconic Voices series at select Fairmont Hotels, including Natalie MacLean (Unquenchable: a Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines) and Clarissa Dickson Wright (A History of English Food). You can read more reviews of my new wine book Unquenchable here.
How to Taste Wine in 5 Steps Video
In this video, I read a few short sections from Unquenchable, including the parts about meeting Wolf Blass in Australia and Charles Back in South Africa. We also do a quick wine tasting with the 5 steps to tasting wine. It’s tongue-in-cheek but will give you the basics for getting more from each glass. What’s your favourite wine for tasting, or drinking? You can also watch a shorter wine video of the Airmiles Gold event at Willow Park Wine & Spirits. 10801 Bonaventure Dr SE Calgary, Alberta T2J 6Z8 Phone: 403.296.1640 http://willowpark.net
Huffington Post Wine Column
I’m excited to be starting a new weekly wine column for the Huffington Post. This online newspaper has a broad reach and so it’ll be great to share my passion for the grape with new readers. Let me know if you have suggestions for future columns. Here’s the second one … Here’s the full text of the article… Top 5 Wine & Book Pairings for the Holidays By Natalie MacLean I’m already savouring the books I plan to dive into this holiday season as much as the wines I’ll enjoy. Just for fun, I’ve paired some of this season’s bestsellers […]
Taste Canada: Wine, Food and Books
It was a spectacular evening celebrating Canadian wine, food and books at the Taste Canada awards November 5 at the Arcadian Court in Toronto. Here are some pictures of the event courtesy of Laura Berman, Greenfuse Photography I’ve posted a short video below with Alison Pryor, owner of Canada’s best culinary book store called the Cookbook Store in Toronto near Yorkville. You can find my first post about Taste Canada here. The food that evening was terrific … a full-on, dazzling display of culinary delights by a number of the country’s top chefs. That’s Bonnie Stern above, the […]
Celebrating Canadian Wine, Food + Writing – Taste Canada
Monday evening was a terrific celebration of Canadian food, wine and writing at Taste Canada―The Food Writing Awards. According to Quill & Quire, the magazine for the Canadian publishing industry, the competition drew 73 book submissions this year, “a brilliant snapshot of the vibrancy and diversity of Canadian culinary publishing.” Karen Gelbart, National Chair of Taste Canada, commenetd, “The selection and diversity of the publishing and the cuisine in this country are breathtaking. Our judges were in the unique position of spending time with each of these books — reading the narratives and studying the presentation — to finally decide […]
Unquenchable Paperback Published: New Chapter with Book + Wine Pairings
The paperback edition of Unquenchable has just been published and is in bookstores and online (both paperback and e-book versions). It includes a new tongue-in-cheek chapter on wine and book pairings … you can get a taste of them in this video. You can also get personalized, signed bookplates that you can affix to the book as a holiday gift for someone or for yourself. Just e-mail me your receipt for the book(s) at [email protected] and I’ll mail you the bookplates signed to the people you like … Pair it with a wine for a thoughtful book-and-bottle gift set or […]
Wine and Book Pairings: Breakthrough Research Published in Unquenchable
This decidedly tongue-in-cheek video interview below focuses on the new chapter in the paperback edition of Unquenchable, which hits stores October 23. Find out why wine and book pairing is the new food and pairing and the reason I’ve dedicated my life to this field of research. (Many have tried, but no one makes fun of me like I do.) Here’s the link to online booksellers. In addition to paperback, Unquenchable is also available as an e-book for Amazon’s Kindle, Sony e-Reader, Indigo-Chapters Kobo, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple iPad. Dorothy Parker said it best: “There’s a […]
Wolf Blass Wine Tasting: An Unforgettable Evening
What a spectacular evening we had in Toronto last week at the Wolf Blass tasting! A full-house of 90 guests packed the waterside restaurant Against the Grain. As I interviewed Wolf about his experiences, we tasted his wines and some delicious tapas. More details on the event as well as the Canada AM clip below … Here’s the clip from Canada AM … Wolf has a great sense of humour and such a long history in the wine industry. Wolf talks about the wines we’re tasting as did the current winemaker Chris Hatcher. […]
