Category Archives: Wine

Who doesn’t love a long weekend? A day late, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Canada Day yesterday.

This is the 155th year that we celebrate Canada Day, which honors the anniversary of Confederation, when Canada became a country separate from the British Empire.   It was known as Dominion Day until 1982, which is why my home province of Newfoundland had a beer called Dominion Ale. And it wouldn’t be from Newfoundland without a picture of a moose on the bottle.

But today we are here to talk about wine!   Are you grilling this Canada Day?  It was a beautiful day here yesterday in Halifax so I fired up the grill last night. Did some ribs which I’m going to finish this evening. My favorite wine to go with ribs? Regular readers know what a huge fan I am of Zinfandel with ribs. Whether it’s a 100% Zinfandel, or Zinfandel is part of the blend, I’m a fan.

Cline makes a beautiful smooth Zinfandel. Natalie Maclean, Canada’s most prolific wine writer, gave this wine 92 Points. From Contra Costa County close to the San Francisco Bay area, this rich wine has notes of plum and black pepper, which makes it perfect for anything on the grill.

Robert Mondavi said it best “Wine, Food & Art – incorporating these three things will enhance your life”.  No wonder he was a legend.

Here’s my recipe for BBQ ribs.

• Take the membrane off the back of the ribs. It adds nothing to the ribs.
• I like to marinate my ribs. Brown Sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, liquid smoke, hot sauce, and some BBQ sauce.
• I also slow cook them first in a 275-degree oven for 2 – 3 hours.
• Then I finish them on the grill, adding more BBQ sauce. I like Bulls Eye Sweet & Sticky.
• They are fall off the bone delicious.

For my white wine drinking friends, a good hearty white wine goes great grilled food, like this one from Trinity Oaks.

With flavors of apple and pears, and delicately used oak, this is a great Chardonnay.

That’s it for me for today. Have a wonderful and safe long weekend.

Darlene

In my wine tastings I always include a little trivia. Fun facts about wine that most people find surprising and cute. Like did you know most people don’t know that authentic champagne uses both red and white grapes. The 3 grapes used are Chardonnay (white), Pinot Noir (red) and Pinot Meunier (also red). The color comes from the skins, so there is limited contact with the skins.

Do you know what the primary grape in Chianti Classico is? Or even just Chianti? Years ago before I studied wine, I’ll be honest, I thought Chianti was the grape varietal. But it’s a region in Tuscany Italy, where Sangiovese reigns dominant. I’ve heard people say they find Chianti dry, I think because the tannins in the Sangiovese grapes are so high. I really like the Super Tuscan wines, where Sangiovese is paired with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or other non-Italian grapes. Like this wine.

I almost bought this again last evening. It’s a great Italian Super Tuscan wine. Made with Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, it’s priced around the $20 mark. Another piece of trivia, Monte Antico means ‘ancient mountain’ and the husband & wife team of Neil & Maria Empson have put 40 years of passion and experience in this wine. Look for it in the Italian section of your closest liquor store.

I googled it, and discovered some mouthwash contains an alcohol level of anywhere between 14% and 26.9%.  Wine, unless it’s a port, on the higher end would be 14.5% for some reds while some white wines can contain as little as 6%.  Plus it’s no fun to swallow mouthwash and even less fun spitting wine.

Speaking of wines with a lower alcohol content, here’s a very popular one

Jacob’s Creek Moscato has an alcohol content of about 8%, and is affordably priced under $15. Remember, in the wine making process, yeast turns sugar to alcohol, so some low alcohol wines can be on the sweeter side, including this one.

I had the opportunity to visit the Napa Valley region in California in 2001, and I really really want to go back. It was amazing. I still love California wine and drink it on a regular basis. One winery I visited twice was Francis Ford Coppola’s winery, and here is a fantastic wine that my nephew gave me for Christmas this past year.

I’m sad we can’t get Director’s Cut wine here anymore. Both the Zinfandel and this Cabernet Sauvignon were spectacular. My nephew lives in Labrador City and got this in Fermont Quebec, which is about 25 minutes away. We are both going to be home in October, and I’m going to ask him to bring me another one. Another bit of wine trivia, upstairs at the tasting room of his winery, Francis Ford Coppola has a display with something from each movie he’s made. And he has one of his Oscar statuettes on display. Plus he grows olive trees and produces and sells his own olive oil.

That’s it for me for this week. Have a wonderful weekend, Cheers

Darlene

Every year, I take one of my first wine blogs of a New Year and talk about upcoming trends in the wine world. I’m always reading about wine and so I find it interesting when they come to fruition. In the past, I have written about wine in cans, Rose becoming even more popular and online wine sales growing. Here’s a few trends to look for this year.

1. Chilling Red Wines

Putting light and fruity red wines into an ice bucket, just like you would white wines, has been a practice of Sommeliers in culinary hot spots like New York and San Francisco for years now. This trend has taken off everywhere. It’s no longer taboo to chill red wines, and people were once embarrassed for putting ice in red wine, but our room temperatures are too warm for red wine. This is a topic that comes up in every wine tasting. People admitting to chilling red wine. Well, I do too. I try to bring it down to 15-degrees Celsius. And your lighter fruitier wines like Beaujolais, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel taste much better when chilled. Here’s a wine you can try chilling and let me know what you think.

This wine has made a bit of a comeback in my wine rack. I’ve had it the last few Friday nights and I just love it. Smooth, easy to drink and much better when chilled. It’s $23 a bottle and available in just about every province in Canada. I enjoyed it while home for Christmas as well.

2. Low Alcohol Wines

People are choosing a healthier lifestyle and many people can be conflicted with choosing healthy and still enjoying their favorite beverage, whether it be with a meal or all on its own. Wine makers are listening, and more are coming out with low alcohol or zero alcohol wines.

Nova Scotia’s award winning winery Benjamin Bridge has come out with a non-alcohol version called Piquette Zero.

I haven’t tried it yet, but their website describes it as

“Piquette Zero is a lively and delicious alcohol-free wine-style beverage, offering a creative and unprecedented craft option to industrially dealcoholized wines that are so often stripped of their character.”

3. Cocktails will be popular and simple

I made this cocktail for guests last Christmas and have served it several times since. Easy. Cranberry juice, Prosecco, lime juice and fresh cranberries in the glass to give it a festive look, and a lime wedge. You could take it a step further by adding a liquor like Grand Marnier.

I have tried this beauty recently, and it’s appropriately called Beauty of Chaos. On sale right now, it’s under $17 a bottle. From the Columbia Valley in Washington State, this big juicy Cabernet is a great wine at a great price. Gorgeous berry flavors.

Well, the Omicron variant has hit Atlantic Canada hard. I did get to Newfoundland for Christmas, which was awesome. As the sign says, wine is the glue that is holding this shitshow together.

Stay safe everyone. Till next week, Cheers

Darlene

Last Saturday evening I did a wine tasting. It was my 4th tasting in this building. We had some first-timers and some familiar faces. We had a lot of fun, some great laughs and we tried some great wines. My challenge for this wine tasting was two fold. It was important I didn’t bring any repeat wines, and I wanted to mix it up a bit.

Some of you might feel intimidated at the thought of going to or attending a wine tasting. Don’t be! I’ve done wine tastings for as few as 6 people and as many as 30. Although last Saturday’s wine tasting was in the Common Room of an apartment building, I’ve done most in people’s homes. Get a group of friends together in your home, bring someone in that knows wine, and it will be fun and informative. Food is always a nice touch. Most people do a charcuterie board style with cheese, crackers and some meats.

So let’s talk some wine.

We kicked off the evening with a locally made Sparkling wine, from Grand Pre Vineyard in Nova Scotia. Champlain Sparkling Brut was named after Samuel de Champlain, the person credited with mapping Nova Scotia. This wine was made in the traditional method and is a gorgeous dry Sparkling wine.

Then we did comparisons, in both a white and a red. Let’s start with the white wine that won the evening.

Hands down the winner of the evening. Vinho Verde is a region in Portugal that is putting out some great wines at even greater prices. It is not a grape variety, it is a region. Most have some effervescence, this one had very little. Vinho Verde means green wine or young wine. Beautiful wine with great acidity and priced at $13.99. Pick one up this season to enjoy with family or friends. Great food wine.

As I mentioned earlier, we did a comparison of a couple of expensive wines, with reasonable priced wines, to show people that great wine doesn’t have to be expensive. We tasted them blindly, I had the wines in paper bags and we tasted them side by side. The lower priced wines won both times.

The top photo is the Heritage Chateauneuf du Pape, priced at $55. Almost 3 times the amount of the Cote du Rhone in the bottom picture. Most people liked the bottom wine more. Both from France, both from the same region, Cote du Rhone, and both made with the Grenache grape. The Cote du Rhone on the bottom also has Syrah added. It’s less than $18 at $17.78 and what a deal. Spectacular wine. And a great wine to have with your favorite comfort foods, now that the temperatures are dropping.

That’s it for me for this week. Till next week, Cheers

Darlene

If this statement is true, I must be a freaking genius! I know wine can be responsible for some witty come-backs and awesome dance moves. We are going to have a bit of fun in this week’s wine blog with some fun facts about wine and I’ll tell you about a couple of new wines I tried this past week.

Did you know grapes are the most planted fruit in the world.

Now, grapes are used in making more than just wine. Some people eat them as is (boring!), they can also be used to makes jams, jellies, and juice. My favorite way to consume a grape, happens to be in a glass. A tonne of grapes can also produce 720 bottles of wine, so here’s to a tons of grapes.

Wine is mentioned in the Bible

There are all kinds of references to wine in the bible. The Bible also speaks of wine in general terms as a bringer and concomitant of joy, particularly in the context of nourishment and feasting. One of my favorite quotes “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart”

During the early Roman times, it was forbidden for women to drink wine.

Officially, by Roman law, drinking wine by a woman was a crime and even the death penalty was sentenced. In addition, at Roman “parties”, the closest ones could kiss the girl on the lips to see if she had not been drinking before. Thankfully I wasn’t born back then. Whew! Hey, if you’re kissing my lips, there’s going to wine on them. Just a heads up.

 “Aroma” is the term for the fragrance of young wine, while “Mellow” is for old wine.

When I was studying to become a Sommelier, I learned the importance of smelling wine. Smelling your wine, is an important part of the tasting ritual. Wine tasters will stick their noses deep into a glass (an important reason not to fill it too high) and inhale deeply, then angle the glass this way and that as they continue to assess the wine’s aromas. In blind wine tastings, the aroma was very important in identifying a grape variety. My instructor used to say, you identify by your nose and confirm by tasting. And swirling the wine helps release the aromas. As a matter of fact, you’ll see me smell the wine first, swirl and smell it again. We learn the different aromas that are released by swirling.

Spitting wine can be acceptable.

But honestly, why spit. When I was studying to become a Sommelier, we tasted many wines each evening. One night it was up to 50. In a case like that you have to spit. At a wine-tasting event, it is also acceptable to spit the wine out. It is OK to take a sip of wine and hold it in your mouth for a few seconds and then decide to swallow or spit it out. This allows people to taste many different wines without getting drunk.

My friends Fred & Arla got home from Alberta recently and we got together to have a glass of wine with Angie and Joan. We shared a wine that was given to me by my niece and her husband, when I had them over for dinner last Sunday.

I met Doug Gilmour briefly at the Radio Station I work at, when he was in for an interview while visiting Halifax. He was such a gentleman, kind and gracious to the staff. At the time, I had no idea he was such a wine lover. Apparently, wine has long been a passion of the Maple Leafs legend. I definitely would have chatted about that if I had known. Doug Gilmour 93 comes in both a white and red, and we enjoyed the red the other evening. It was a very interesting wine. It’s a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir, and I can honestly say, it’s the first time I have had Pinot Noir mixed in with a traditional Bordeaux type of blend.

That’s it for me for this week. Happy Halloween!

Darlene