This past Saturday night I realized a career-long dream of hosting a wine dinner in my work boots. Having grown up on a farm in Southwestern Ontario, I don't get many opportunities for country wine dinners. So when organizer Katie Worobeck started planning a Maple Syrup Celebration dinner for Mariposa Farm in Plantagenet, about 45 mins east of Ottawa, I was immediately on board. Katie's plan was to round up 3 of Ottawa's best young chefs and have them join Mariposa Farm's Chef Matt Shepard to each prepare a Maple Syrup inspired dish for a big dinner. The rest of the lineup included former Mari ..read more

Between the winemaking team and the always visiting chefs or sommeliers, there is usually a fair amount of talent hanging around the winery at Norm Hardie's, but yesterday was a bit extraordinary. Most of the chefs, winemakers, speakers and organizers from Monday's annual Terroir Symposium descended upon Prince Edward County for a kind of day-after party, a hedonistic afternoon of culinary collaboration. The Terroir Symposium crowd at Norman Hardie Winery Terroir is an annual hospitality industry conference organized by Arlene Stein. A huge amount of work goes into organizing this one day eve ..read more

It’s not a secret to everyone, but most mainstream California Cabernet lovers have never heard of them. This is beyond the level of Caymus, Cakebread, or Opus One. Stylistically Diamond Creek is in the traditional more Bordeaux-esque realm of Heitz Cellars or Dunn from Howell Mountain. They’re the OG California ‘Cult Cabernet’ and they’re one of my two favourite wineries overall in all the US. They’ve flown a little below the radar over the decades vs the mainstream big names in the cult cab world (Screaming Eagle, Harlan, etc). But Diamond Creek was the first exclusively Cabernet Sauvignon vi ..read more

Lifford is looking for an energetic and engaging person for an on-premise, licensee sales position to join our Ottawa team, someone who is passionate about wine and wants to build a great career in the industry. The new addition to our team will build their own sales and work collaboratively with our 2 existing Ottawa team members as well as the rest of the Lifford team throughout Ontario. A successful candidate will have: -Excellent people skills with positive and inclusive values. -Superior work ethic. This is not a micro-managed sales position. Candidate must be organized and self-motivate ..read more

You may have heard that Champagne can only be called Champagne if it comes from Champagne. This is true, and too often people incorrectly use “Champagne” as a blanket term to refer to any kind of sparkling wine. Champagne is specifically from Champagne, but there are several different styles of sparkling wine made throughout France and around the world. Here’s a very quick rundown on the main differences between the 3 main styles of sparkling wine. CHAMPAGNE METHOD Sparkling wine sparkles by trapping the C02 that is produced by fermentation and absorbing or dissolving itself back into the juic ..read more

This is just a quick little resource for understanding wine distribution in Ontario. An explanation of some terms and ordering processes we use so you can understand how you wine will be arriving! In Ontario there are 2 main channels for wine sales: 1) LCBO retail: This includes the LCBO General List in stores, LCBO Vintages section in the stores, and also the LCBO Classics catalogue that focuses on the small lot collector wine releases. They are all under the LCBO retail umbrella. 2) LCBO Specialty Services: Within Specialty Services there are 2 main systems for wine importation and sales: Co ..read more

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Telmo Rodriguez’s wines. I rave about them often, and there’s usually at least one of his wines in any list of recommendations I make. But that’s easy to do, because he makes so many different styles of wine from around Spain: light, fresh, complex whites from Rueda, massive Tempranillos from Toro, crazy interesting field blends from Rioja, floral and sweet Muscat wines from the mountains of Malaga. I always refer to Telmo as a Terroir Hunter, of sorts, considering the way he seeks out old abandoned vineyards across Spain to revive and make traditional ..read more

As natural wine continues to gain popularity, more an more people are asking about it. It’s a bit of a complicated topic to explain, so I figured a primer on the whole realm of organic, biodynamic, and natural wine might be useful to help understand and put it all into context. ORGANIC Let’s start with the basics: organic wine. Organic wine is simply wine made without the use of any synthetics, anything un-natural. No chemicals, fertilizers, or other additives. But each jurisdiction has it’s own definition of what exactly is disallowed in it’s organic certification—you might have seen stickers ..read more

So here we are. In our 5th week of self-isolation and quarantine. Everyone is staying home, making sourdough, creating Tik Tok accounts, and lining up outside grocery and liquor stores to maintain social distancing. Strange times indeed. If you don’t want to put on gloves and masks to lineup for grocery shopping, you can just have them delivered to your house…so why lineup outside the LCBO for wine? Let us keep you stocked up with great wine and contact-less delivery without leaving your home! Check out our Home Delivery page for a rundown on Consignment Wine along with some FAQ’s, but essent ..read more

There are few places left in the world of wine that are producing something so traditional and natural as the Jura in France. When I visited a few years ago, we were all surprised at how insular the wine community is there, and how removed from the mainstream of French wine culture they are. Speaking with many producers and restaurateurs along our trip throughout France, few had much knowledge of Jura's wines outside of their famous Vin Jaune. Maybe because of the incredibly rustic profile of these wines, they never found their way into the favour of major critics or subsequently the mass mark ..read more