The Grape Nut

with Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson

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• Canadian sommelier makes history

  

  Véronique Rivest has made wine-related history, becoming the first woman and the first Canadian to land on the podium at the 14th Contest of the Best Sommelier of the World, held over the past few days in Tokyo, Japan. Rivest was the runner-up at the contest, besting an impressive collection of palates from around the world.

  View Full Post 03/29/2013 9:51 AM 0

• Local breweries on a roll

  If we can't have grape wineries here in Manitoba, we should at least be thankful we've got some decent breweries in our 'hood (although we could always use more). Both Fort Garry Brewing Co. and Half Pints Brewing Co. have new brews out there worth trying — especially if you're after alternatives to mainstream, uninspired beer...

  View Full Post 02/23/2013 10:31 AM 0

• Are you Manitoba's best wine taster?

  Have a nose for discerning certain grapes in a wine? Is your palate is pretty fine-tuned to where a wine comes from and when it was made? Not sure, and want to put your senses to the test? Think you've got what it takes to taste wine with (or like) the pros? Then the First Annual Manitoba Wine-Tasting Championships should be right up your alley.

  View Full Post 02/19/2013 9:21 AM 0

• Vinho Verde: The white wine you should be drinking

  View Full Post 02/7/2013 5:01 PM 0

• Wine clubs — the gift that keeps on giving

  I get a fair bit of PR-type emails (and the occasional bit of snail mail) from wineries and wine associations, much of which I read with passing interest before deleting. But last week I got an email from Nova Scotia's Benjamin Bridge winery that piqued my interest, in that it was sent to me and tailored to the Manitoba market.

  View Full Post 12/9/2012 9:40 AM 0

• Beaujolais Nouveau — comme ci, comme ça

  

  Every year on the third Thursday in November, Beaujolais Nouveau is released. It's a tradition that was invented by négociants in the region to promote wines from Beaujolais as well as to offload some of their more ordinary juice.

  View Full Post 11/15/2012 2:29 PM 0

• California, final entry: Zinned out

  Saturday morning in San Francisco was the ZAP trade tasting. ZAP stands for Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, and is a festival devoted solely to the grape.

  View Full Post 01/30/2012 2:13 PM 0

• California, days 4 and 5

  So when I last wrote it was Thursday morning and we had yet to hit our first winery. I've made plenty of stops between then and now - in fact, the rest of my traveling companions have gone home, while I'm staying an extra day to explore San Francisco and see Wilco tonight at the Warfield. Thanks to a crazy schedule that often left us with barely enough time to check in to our hotel before dinner, it seems I've got some catching up to do. So, in a nutshell:

  View Full Post 01/29/2012 7:07 PM 0

• California, Day Three: meeting the Mondavi matriarch

  Day three, and yet again I’m up before 6 a.m. – which would be a huge problem if it weren’t for the fact that I’m going to bed at 10 every night. Shift those times over to the Central Time Zone and it’s though I never left home. But it’s amazing how much you can get done in the morning – I’m more of a writing-at-night kinda guy, but working in the morning means there’s a finite time; you have to stop, because the bus is going to head to the next winery without you, so you need to get it done.

  View Full Post 01/26/2012 9:30 AM 0

• California, Day 2: From Livermore to Napa

  Well, once again I find myself up way too early, drinking mediocre hotel room coffee, so I might as well sum up what we did yesterday here in California.

  View Full Post 01/25/2012 9:14 AM 0

• California, Day One: Paso Robles' big reds, etc.

  It’s a good thing I’m such a poor sleeper on the road, otherwise I have no idea when I’d have the time to submit any sort of update at all for my humble little corner of the Free Press website. So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop at 5 a.m., blasting out as quick of an update as possible about what we did yesterday.

  View Full Post 01/24/2012 9:20 AM 0

• A taste of California in downtown Winnipeg

  Here's a quick plug for my friends down at the Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe: they're hosting a California-themed food and wine night this Thursday (December 1) starting at 7:00 p.m.. Guests will enjoy six Cal-themed hors d'oeuvres (including lamb, beef, pork, and seafood dishes) paired with wines from the Golden State. The tentative list of wines, as chosen by The Winehouse:

  View Full Post 11/29/2011 2:21 PM 0

• Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé

  Beaujolais Nouveau, for those that don't know, is a red wine from the Beaujolais region of France that is released on the third Thursday of November (today). Made from the Gamay grape, it's a young, fresh wine that doesn't bring a lot of tannin, can be served slightly chilled, and is a decent pairing with a traditional Christmas dinner.

  View Full Post 11/17/2011 2:04 PM 0

• Deadline doldrums: MacLean event cancelled

  Imagine my horror on Thursday morning when I got an email from my friend Mike at Banville & Jones, informing me that the Burge Family Winemakers 2005 Garnacha I reviewed in this weekend's column had sold out shortly after the visit by Mr. Burge a couple of weeks back - when I originally tasted the wine. The column was already printed - the Detour section is one of the first to be printed, as there's not usually any "breaking" news in there - and it was too late to substitute another wine.

  View Full Post 11/11/2011 3:00 PM 0

• New liquor laws in effect to start November

  With a new month come new liquor laws in Manitoba, and while some of them won't directly affect the average imbiber, there are a few changes that consumers will be be interested to learn about.

  View Full Post 11/1/2011 11:32 AM 0

• Good Drinkin' Tonite... and tomorrow, and the next...

  My inspiration for the title of this post? I was interviewed by none other than Terry David Mulligan this morning – yes, he of Good Rockin’ Tonite and Much West in days gone past.

  View Full Post 09/7/2011 3:12 PM 0

• B.C. bounty

  Life has been nothing less than a nuts for me so far this summer. After my two-week stay in Australia, I was home for a fortnight before turning around and heading to judge at the International Value Wine Awards in Calgary. I returned home from that competition, then headed to the Okanagan Valley last Friday. I got back from easily my best visit to the Valley yet on Thursday, and have been processing everything I saw, heard and (especially) tasted while I was there. As I mentioned in my column, it was easily my best visit yet.

  View Full Post 07/16/2011 4:49 PM 0

• Down Under adventures, Part 1

  It's 9:15 on a Tuesday night here in Australia's Yarra Valley as I write this, which is around 6:15 on Tuesday morning back in Winnipeg. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the time difference, and have had a tough time adjusting to being fifteen hours out of my normal routine (as well as being away from my family, sleeping in strange beds, etc). I'm hoping tonight I'll get more than four hours of sleep, which would be a first for this trip that started on Friday night in Winnipeg.

  View Full Post 05/17/2011 8:40 AM 0

• The rest of the fest / heading Down Under

  It seems, dear readers, that I left you in the middle of the 2011 Winnipeg Wine Festival — at least blog-wise. Apologies, my friends, but the last few days more hectic and tasting-filled than previous years — I'm still reeling...

  View Full Post 05/12/2011 2:04 PM 0

• Wine Fest, part deux

  When we last spoke, I was getting ready for Tuesday night's Winnipeg Wine Festival ancillary events. The first was a VQA wines of Canada tasting in the lounge of the cityplace Boston Pizza. I'm a big booster of Canadian wines, and for $20 this tasting might have been the deal of the week.

  View Full Post 05/5/2011 5:40 PM 0