{"id":27568,"date":"2016-09-16T08:08:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T12:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/?p=27568"},"modified":"2016-09-16T10:49:05","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T14:49:05","slug":"jim-cuddy-wine-tawse-winery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/jim-cuddy-wine-tawse-winery\/","title":{"rendered":"Red, White and Blue Rodeo: Jim Cuddy launches his own Wine with Tawse Winery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2010<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jim Cuddy,\u00a0lead singer and guitarist of the band Blue Rodeo, didn\u2019t grow up in a wine-drinking family. In fact, his first alcoholic drink of choice was beer.<\/p>\n

\u201cW\"Tawse<\/a>hen you start playing in bars, you get paid in beer,\u201d Cuddy explains. \u201cAt first, I was excited: free beer! But after five years, I couldn\u2019t take any more beer. That\u2019s when I got into wine.\u201d
\nAnd into it he is.\u00a0Cuddy has partnered with Niagara\u2019s Tawse Winery to create a new wine brand, Cuddy by Tawse<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoray and Joanne Tawse are friends of mine,\u201d Cuddy says. \u201cI had played at their winery several times, their wines are top-notch and I like their biodynamic approach. I didn\u2019t want to make a banquet wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuddy didn\u2019t just lend his name to the new wine; he was involved in making it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be easy: just select the best parcels of grapes, blend them together and you\u2019re done,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s much more nuanced than that. [Tawse\u2019s winemaker] Paul Pender showed me that one block of grapes can overwhelm another. Blending is about creating a harmonious experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"2010<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Was he concerned about the bad rap that celebrity wines get?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou answer that concern with what\u2019s in the bottle. I think we\u2019ve done that.\u201d\"Tawse<\/a><\/p>\n

Cuddy is one of the country\u2019s most iconic musicians: over the past thirty years Blue Rodeo has sold more than four million records, released 14 albums and won twelve JUNO awards. By adding a wine to his portfolio, he joins the ranks of fellow musicians Madonna, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey, Olivia Newton-John, Barbra Streisand, Sting, Cliff Richard and M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce\u2019s Vince Neil.<\/p>\n

Cuddy’s wine education happened on the road.\u00a0In 1991, when he\u00a0and the band\u2019s manager Kevin Douglas bought several wine magazines and\u00a0 some first-growth Bordeaux at $50 a bottle. Today, those wines sell for more than $500 a bottle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fantastic vintages of 1985 and 1988 were on the market,\u201d Cuddy says. \u201cWe\u2019d read up on the wines on the tour bus, then in the next town where we were playing, we\u2019d go into the liquor store and buy the wine. We\u2019d take it to the back of the bus and pour it into our plastic cups.\u201d
\n\"Jim-Cuddy-at-Tawse-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cuddy and Douglas started to detect the wine aromas described in the magazines: \u201cAh, there\u2019s cigar box and cedar!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuddy\u2019s wine education continued on the road as he toured in Europe, Australia and across North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a better memory for wine than for musical instruments,\u201d he adds. \u201cI think of instruments as utilitarian, but wine\u2019s sensory experience lodges in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuddy appreciates the craftsmanship of both wine and music. He\u2019s fascinated with how wine ages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWine becomes more nuanced with age; the characteristics change, like that petrol smell you get from mature Riesling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, his own craft as a musician has changed with time. He notes that he\u2019s become more open and vulnerable with his lyrics, adding: \u201cMusic is one art where they don\u2019t kick you out when you get old.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best wine advice he ever received?<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t judge wine; just accept the experience,\u201d Cuddy says. \u201cNew York wine expert Tom Eagan told me not to rate the wine, but rather appreciate it\u2019s unique merits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Summer<\/a><\/p>\n

So does that mean that Cuddy doesn\u2019t believe in scoring wine?<\/p>\n

\u201cI like reading other people\u2019s wine scores, I just don\u2019t do it myself. I prefer to understand a wine through its culture and food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in Sicily, the wine was served at room temperature\u2014 30\u00ba C \u2014with salty, oily fish. Then it all made sense how wine and food from a certain place go together.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if he could share a bottle of wine with anyone, who would that be?<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul McCartney, but he\u2019d probably want a joint,\u201d Cuddy says laughing. \u201cI\u2019d also like to share a bottle with Tom Waite, Leonard Cohen and Kris Kristofferson, not because they know wine, but because they\u2019re great musicians I admire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the real-life encounter between Cuddy and Geddy Lee, lead vocalist for the rock band Rush, when they supposedly shared $30,000 worth of wine at Toronto\u2019s Splendido restaurant. To paraphrase Kristofferson\u2019s song The Pilgrim, that story is a contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was celebrating my birthday so I took my best wines to the restaurant,\u201d Cuddy says. \u201cThe staff lined them up for us along the counter, but down a bit farther, I could see a line of the finest vintage Burgundy and Bordeaux wines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked them, \u2018Who the hell is here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"HyperFocal:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I found out, I went over to Geddy\u2019s table and we shared some great wine that night, but maybe $10,000 to $15,000 worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt another tasting with Moray Tawse we had what he considered the ten best wines in world. So if you add the value of the two tastings together, you probably get $30,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Cuddy is more focused on the experience of wine, rather than on its price tag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like what happens to people who are sharing a bottle of wine: they talk, loosen up and enjoy each other\u2019s company. That\u2019s not what happens at formal tastings with small samples where everyone is focused on evaluating the wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to complete that experience, which songs would he pair with his wines?<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay the sad songs with my red wine, and the happy ones, like Kristofferson\u2019s Me and Bobby McGee, with the white.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Jim Cuddy,\u00a0lead singer and guitarist of the band Blue Rodeo, didn\u2019t grow up in a wine-drinking family. In fact, his first alcoholic drink of choice was beer. \u201cWhen you start playing in bars, you get paid in beer,\u201d Cuddy explains. \u201cAt first, I was excited: free beer! But after five years, I couldn\u2019t take any more beer. That\u2019s when I got into wine.\u201d And into it he is.\u00a0Cuddy has partnered with Niagara\u2019s Tawse Winery to create a new wine brand, Cuddy by Tawse. \u201cMoray and Joanne Tawse are friends of mine,\u201d Cuddy says. \u201cI had played at their winery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1248,214,231,280,946,1116,107,384,372,29,394,1092],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biodynamic-wine-wine-articles","category-cabernet-sauvignon","category-canadian-wines","category-celebrity-wines-wine-articles","category-chardonnay","category-niagara-wine-wine-region","category-ontario-wine","category-price-wine","category-red-wine","category-taste-wine","category-white-wine","category-winemaking"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27568"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28880,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27568\/revisions\/28880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}