Drink. Learn. Laugh. Repeat.
I love tasting and writing with tongue in cheek. Here’s my column in More Magazine about so-called women’s wines. Personally, I can’t resist a pink label or cuddly squirrel. I guess I’m just at the mercy of those intrepid marketing teams … it’s like they read my mind after I had been drinking too much of Two Hands Gnarly Dudes Shiraz … More articles about women and wine. You go girl!
Wine, women and … the movies. As we celebrate the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF 2014), here’s a look at some of the cameo roles that wine and women have played in film as terrific co-stars. In The Seven Year Itch (1955), Marilyn Monroe, moves into a Manhattan apartment above Tom Ewell, a married man whose family has gone to Maine for summer vacation. When the two get together for an innocent glass of champagne, the bottle explodes—and he gets his thumb stuck while trying to stop the overflow. That makes for lots of double-entendres about pent-up pressure […]
I’m looking forward to hosting a wine tasting at the Women’s Executive Network Summit on Wednesday. More than 500 power drinkers … should be fun! Here are the speakers throughout the summit … an inspiring group of women and topics. Canada’s Most Powerful Women Summit Speakers Arlene Dickinson CEO & Owner Venture Communications Arlene Dickinson is a judge on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, the television phenomenon that has ignited a national conversation about entrepreneurs in Canada. Dickinson — aggressive but fair, kind but practical, serious but fun — is the show’s marketing expert, its lone female judge, and one of […]
Why did you start a blog and then publish a book about women and drinking? It all started with a night of…drinking. We are neighbors, friends and fellow writers who often enjoy sharing a bottle of wine (or two) over dinner at home with our husbands and children. The other thing we share is that both of our mothers have struggled with alcoholism. Yet we both love to drink wine. This contradiction seemed ripe for digging deeper, and we found that—other than descending into a church basement—there was no forum for women to share their stories. So we started one. […]
By Hollie Shaw Wolfgang Blass says women are his long time weakness and the secret to his success. In a recent interview with the thrice-married raconteur behind Australia’s Wolf Blass wine label, females were a frequent topic, both for a good bon mot — he repeats his oft-quoted trope, that his wines “make strong women weak, and weak men strong” — and detailing a canny business strategy. Mr. Blass, 78, was in Toronto last week to support the brand’s extensive film festival sponsorship, and chronicled how he left war-torn Germany at age 23 to pursue winemaking. Now the fourth largest […]
The latest study on social media from Forrester Research surprised me: women are the majority of users on Twitter and Facebook. I expected this to be the case for Pinterest, now the fastest growing social media site, but not for the two largest social media communities. All three social media sites are terrific for sharing wine info, whether it’s a great bottle that you tried recently or a pairing that really worked. Here are those stats… 17 out of 24 social media sites (71%) have more female than male users. Most male-dominated site? Slashdot (87% males), followed by Hacker News […]
I’ve been an avid reader of More since it first started publishing its classy, smart magazine five years ago. With the fifth anniversary, they did a complete redesign and I was happy to sign on on the wine columnist. On Thursday, I’ll join four women I admire immensely for a panel discussion that’s part of the celebratory activities: Rosey Edeh, ET Canada Host; Lisa LaFlamme, CTV National News Anchor; Suzanne Timmons, The Hudson’s Bay Company Director; and Bev Thompson, Canada AM Host. (I’ll be chatting with Bev earlier that day on her show about wines for Mother’s Day.)
For too long, oenology (een-ology, the study of wine) was considered off-limits to the average American consumer. Wine knowledge was a carefully guarded male stronghold of stuffy sommeliers, grumpy English professors with big, red noses and the wealthy. But in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the wine industry began selling its products in the United States with a more inclusive approach. A methodical marketing scheme began with easily understood White Zinfandel. Wineries started selling people on Chardonnay and then Merlot, varietals that were easy to drink, whose names had a ring of sophistication. People took notice. It was a […]
The July issue of Chatelaine has a terrific article by Anne Kingson on how women connect over wine: it brings them together for conversations (and wine-fuelled confessionals) and connection through shared emotions. She says that women, who now account for 80% of wine purchases, tend to browse when buying wine and are more open than men to trying new things. They’re also far more likely to think of wine-food pairings and other social factors. Recent Stats Can numbers say that white wine sales have increased 50% and red wine sales have doubled largely because of the increase in female buyers. […]
Introduction What’s the hidden meaning behind the opaque ribbed glass at the bottom of a McConnell’s Irish Whisky bottle? What made the opportunity to revive McConnell’s Irish Whisky important enough to leave a long and secure career behind? How does a master distiller notice that something is off long before anyone else can spot it? In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with John Kelly, CEO of the Belfast Distillery Company, responsible for reviving one of Belfast’s most famous brands, McConnell’s Irish Whisky, which actually dates back 250 years this year to 1776. You can find the wines […]
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