Martha Stoumen: “Drink when you’re getting in touch with the folks who fill up your cup (literally & metaphorically).”Photo credit: Martha Stoumen Wines California native Martha Stoumen exudes warmth and joy, then bottles that adventurous, sunny spirit in her fun-loving, highly sought-after, natural wines. An outspoken champion of transparent winemaking, Martha Stoumen Wines are taking Northern California in an exciting new direction with lower alcohol, fresh and beautifully balanced wines that shine a spotlight on the grapes and flavours of her preferred regions (Mendocino County, Contra ..read more

Scout Vineyard: a reminder wine is an agricultural product. Photo credit: Scout Vineyard The November 16thRAW WINE Toronto fair is your ticket to tasting amazing, naturally produced wines. One RAW WINE grower/winemaking team clearing Isabelle Legeron’s very high quality bar is Scout Vineyard, a wine farm on the southern border of the incredibly beautiful Similkameen Valley, in British Columbia. Launched in 2018, Team Scout includes Similkameen friends and neighbours Maggie and Murray Fonteyne and Carly and Aaron Godard. The farming foursome struck up a friendship when Aaron was working at the ..read more

The annual RAW WINE Fair month – the world’s largest gathering of “low-intervention, organic, biodynamic, natural wine producers” – is making its debut in Toronto on November 16, 2022 and it’s sure to be a tasty celebration for local wine lovers. Toronto is the 6th wine loving city to join the RAW WINE tour, a list that includes London (May 14/15), Los Angeles (Nov 6/7), New York (Nov 13/14), Montreal (19/20) and Berlin (Nov 27). According to the folks at RAW WINE, 77 growers and makers (aka: producers) will be sharing their wines in Toronto: 4 Canadians, a smattering of Americans and the res ..read more

Nk’Mip Cellars – framed against the wild and rugged Anarchist Mountain Range. Photo Credit: Nk’MipCellars In June 2021, the sunny and oh-so-spirited Justin Hall became the new, head winemaker at Nk’Mip Cellars in the southern Okanagan Valley (pronounced in-ka-meep). What’s remarkable about this bit of news is Justin is a proud member of the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB), one of seven bands that make up the Okanagan Nation in central British Columbia. That makes Justin the first Indigenous head-winemaker at the first Indigenous owned and operated winery in North America. Some impressive firsts. Of ..read more

The Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) in the southern Okanagan Valley of British Columbia owns NK’Mip (In-ka-meep) Cellars in partnership with Arterra Wines Canada. Photo credit: Nk’Mip Cellars Wine writers love to wax poetic about wines that speak to a ‘sense of place’. Yes, it’s a bit of a tired maxim, one that’s often overused and steeped in hyperbole. But when you actually, truly DO find a wine producer who delivers on ‘place’, it’s a pretty big deal. So what does it mean? ‘Sense of Place’ in its purest form, speaks to the character of the land: the geography, geology, climate, soils and ..read more

Avignonesi Winery owner Virginie Saverys and her partner Max De Zarobe. Photo: AvignonesiWinery Michael Lewis, one of my all-time favourite authors (Moneyball, The Big Short) says he knows he’s at the intersection of a great story and a great central character when his palms start to sweat. Usually, he adds, the story involves someone who doesn’t take the safe road. They follow some idealistic, quixotic path that inevitably provides a bumpy road forward. Yup. I’d say that pretty much describes the journey travelled by Avignonesi Winery’s owner Virginie Saverys, a spirited Tuscan force of natur ..read more

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22 and I can’t think of a better wine standard bearer, vineyard bon-vivant, herd-boss and planetary steward than Jason Haas (not to be confused with Adelita the Spanish Mastiff – the real herd-boss). You met Jason, the General Manager and Partner at Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles in my last blog post. He’s a bit of a rock-star and media darling in the wine press these days because of his visionary leadership in organic and biodynamic viticulture, piloting the exciting new Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) in wine. Not only has the Tablas Creek team pi ..read more

Dry-farming Rhone varietals at Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles. Limestone and healthy, nutrient-rich soils hold moisture throughout the growing season. Photo credit: Tablas Creek Vineyard When I called Jason Haas, the spirited, (staggeringly!) prolific General Manager at Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, California it was ostensibly to talk chalk. If you’ve driven the dry, winding, oak-strewn roads of the western Adelaida wine district of Paso Robles (I worked harvest there in 2017) you know there’s a white, dusty cloud of calcium carbonate that follows you everywhere. The chalky, min ..read more

Corison Winery: Kronos Vineyard in St. Helena Napa Valley. Photo Credit: Corison Winery I recently listened to down-to-earth rock star Alecia Moore – aka Pink – talk about how everything in her Santa Barbera vineyard made perfect sense after she dug her first soil pit. “I wanted to know why a vine here is vigorous, and next to it, not at all. Why some vines are healthy and others are struggling. I wanted to know what’s in my soil, what’s really going on.” That soil pit and the many more she’s dug since, provided a critical peek under the vineyard hood and according to Alecia, the wines are muc ..read more

Riesling deliciousness….soon. Photo credit: Cave Spring Vineyard Before we ‘taste’, let me be clear. I love all styles of Riesling. That said, it’s fair to say my previous purchase behaviour puts me squarely in the German feinherb camp (~10 – 20 grams/Litre Residual Sugar – RS). Feinherb – for those new to the Riesling game – is a German descriptor for a slightly off-dry/half-dry/ medium-dry/semi-dry style of Riesling (yes, all terms are used). The word feinherb translates to tart, tangy and delicate (although that definition, like everything else associated with Riesling is up for debate). &n ..read more