Toronto isn’t known for being a particularly friendly place. When I made the decision to move cross -country, the response of “why are you moving there?” became repetitious. To be Canadian is to hate Toronto. Once you’ve lived here for any period of time - well - you start to understand why. The ego? Aggressive. I liken it to years of stress wearing its residents down to jaded, self righteous, all knowing authoritarians plagued by Stockholm Syndrome. Sure, it’s naive and ignorant presuming it’s “the best place in Canada”, but it’s also a quaint delusion they assume everyone agrees. I’ve calle ..read more

Credit: Matt Braden Photo Cidermaker, wine buyer, cook - Samantha Chamberlain is a woman who appears to do it all. Sam is that friend - the type who effortlessly whips up a loaf of foccacia, the best you’ve ever tasted - fermented and baked with haphazard effort with but a microwave oven as her only tool. (This actually happened, and was the favourite dish of the dinner party we attended later that day. She’s now stored in my phone as “Focaccia Mommy”.) Sam’s foray into winemaking began with a tasting room stint on Vancouver Island in Comox, BC circa 2016. It wasn’t her ideal, but working wit ..read more

Jeff Burling and Tiffany MacIsaac, co-proprietors of Baby Sweet Coffee, didn’t initially set out to be in the business of coffee roasting. It was their company, Toronto Micro Weddings, that serendipitously provided an opportunity to sell wedding favours in addition to their primary services. Eventually, word spread on the quality. Though generating additional profit had been the goal, a passion had been unearthed within Jeff, who now oversees roasting, selling and marketing. I came across their project through my partner, who met Jeff while working in hospitality - a part-time job he still ke ..read more

Lightning Rock winemaker, Sébastien Hotte Recent changes at family owned winery, Lightning Rock in Summerland, BC, presented an exciting opportunity: a chance to succeed inimitable winemaker Jordan Kubek. Kubek recently branched off with husband Tyler Knight, to focus full time on their project, Pamplemousse Jus, a collaboration with James Langford Smith. Kubek and Knight established Lightning Rock as a premier winery in Canada, known for benchmark traditional method bubbles. It takes equal parts skill, experience, and a healthy dose of crazy to attempt to fill the shoes of as talented a wine ..read more

Credit: Pacina Pācina was purchased 100 hundred years ago by the Borsa family’s great great grandfather, and sits in the southern part of Chianti.  The famed Chianti hills lend protection, while maintaining an aspect perfect for filling the vineyards with light and wind. The land is comprised of 65 hectares, of which only 10.5 is planted to vines. A monastery and farm built in the 10th century remain, now respectively the family’s home and tasting room.  The soil, known as Tufo di Siena, is the result of sediment dating back to the Pliocene sea, some 50 millions years ..read more

Credit: Mason Vineyard The wine industry is incredibly incestuous, yet it never ceases to amaze me how interconnected we all are. I moved to Toronto in 2019, and was lucky enough to become friends with the proprietors of winery, The Farm. It was apparent early on that these wines held a certain level of prestige among those in the know. The Farm produces some of the best pinot noir and chardonnay in not only Ontario, but Canada. Never mind that their marketing is pure genius: they only open their cellar doors once a year, and when they do, they throw a killer party. So many wineries rely on ..read more

Dear Crushable, I see a lot of talk on social media about mousey wine, including tons of memes making fun of it. I don’t really understand what it is, just that some wines taste off because of it, and that a lot of people defend it for reasons beyond me. Why would anyone want to drink wine that tastes like funky spunk? Ew. Thanks, Funky Spunk Dear Funky Spunk, Your guess is as good as mine. Modern winemaking has become rife with fault apologists. Sometimes, it can be attributed to laziness and a lack of accountability. Like - you made the damn thing, don’t you want to improve and learn from y ..read more

Goddess Gwenyth Paltrow Dear CRUSHABLE, How do I become one of those people who host those effortlessly chic dinner parties with amazing food, ambiance and company? How do some people seem to just know, where other people fall short? What are the secrets? Regards, Martha Stewart Hopeful Dear Martha, We all know those people - it’s as though they’re the alumni of some sort of GOOP sorority, equipped with knowledge mere plebeians never think about, like, how to organize a Staub collection by size and colour. They house myriad details in their brains, minutiae setting the most impossible standar ..read more

How can you be sure the wine you’re buying will be delicious and of sound quality? Endless studies have shown the majority of consumers select wines based solely on label. Other research has identified a correlation between attractiveness of label to better tasting wine. This would be akin to thinking a pretty label makes pasta sauce taste better. Sounds ridiculous, right? Why, then, does this happen with wine? Lest you expect me to start railing on about ignorant consumers - this trend happens just as much with wine professionals. Mere minutes scrolling on Instagram points to a plethora of a ..read more

"Real men" only drink full bodied reds Wine professionals often generalize big, bold styles as "Dad wines". For whatever reason, a large contingent of people who buy the category tend to be men. I used to delight in intentionally not pouring red wine for these types who'd come into the winery where I was working at the time; until they tried something else, only then would I give them an opportunity to taste the reds they came looking for. This phenomenon has been proven time and again hearing stories from my Dad, whose many affluent, doctor type bros refuse to drink anything but hyped up, cul ..read more