“Wine, show me the art of seeing my own history; as if it were already a handful of ashes in memory.” – Jorge Luis Borges, 1964 By Greg Hughes April 17th is International Malbec Day and in Ottawa it was celebrated at the residence of the Argentine ambassador to Canada, Her Excellency Norma Nacimbene de Dumont. The mood was cheerful for the lucky twenty individuals invited to share this special day sipping wine and eating empanadas with Her Excellency in her home. There was special cause for excitement. This was the first Malbec Day to be celebrated for half a […]
Alcoholic Wine
Wine Witch on Fire Calls Out Sexist Wine Marketing on CTV’s The Social
Editor’s Note: You’ll find more media coverage for the book here. Our next guest as The Social’s resident wine expert but today she’s here in a different capacity, as an author! Her deeply personal memoir “Wine Witch on Fire” is about divorce, defamation, and drinking too much. Please join us in welcoming Natalie MacLean back to the show! Nat, we want to start with a toast to say congratulations on the book! We’ve all got a little bubbly, mine is non-alcoholic, so let’s do a cheers to you! Thank you so much, it’s great to […]
6 Low-Alcohol Wines That Taste Great
If you love vino but want to lower your alcohol intake, there are lots of wines out there that fit the bill. But which ones are worth giving a try? Here to recommend some of her favourite low-alcohol wines is Natalie MacLean, who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes. Lovely to see you, Natalie! Let’s start by explaining what is considered low alcohol in wine? • Most dry table wines are about 13% alcohol • Anything under that, I consider low alcohol and you’ll find that usually on the front or back label in tiny mice type Do low-alcohol […]
Does Wine Make You Fat? Looking Through a Glass Thinly
My dieting heroine is Bridget Jones from the movie of the same name—not because she was that successful in losing weight, but because she never abandoned her glass of chardonnay (and still managed to snag Colin Firth). For me, dieting is unbearable if I have to give up all the sweets and my wine. (And if I stopped drinking, I’d be out of a job.) The good news is that you can drink wine without getting fat. When it comes to both calories and carbohydrates, moderate wine drinking won’t ruin your diet. Wine has no cholesterol, sodium or fat, […]
Can You Drink Wine on a Diet? Are Dry Wines Better Than Sweet?
Continued from Part 1 Wine Calories Alcohol contributes more calories than sugar. For example, a six ounce glass of slightly sweet German riesling, with just 7% alcohol, will still have fewer calories (about 110) than a dry, robust Australian shiraz with 15% at about 175 calories. Over the past five years, the level of alcohol in many wines has been increasing steadily. This is particularly true for wines from warm climates such as Australia, Chile and California. Grapes are being picked later in the season when they’re riper and laden with sugar, and consequently get fermented into higher-alcohol wines. […]
Bridget Jones Chardonnay Diet: Pairs Well With Neuroses
Continued from Part 2 Wine Diet Within two weeks of announcing their new low-carb wines, Brown-Forman received orders for more than 200,000 cases. The beer market has had similar success: since Michelob Ultra low-carb beer was launched in 2002, it has become Anheuser-Busch’s fastest-growing brand ever. Low calorie light beers comprise about 40% of the U.S. beer market. Is it even worth trying to save a couple of carbohydrates by drinking these wines? While every carb may count for some dieters, carbs from wine represent a small fraction of the total 50 to 60 carbs recommended in the Atkins […]
A Fuzzy Vine-acular: 3,000 Descriptors for Drunkenness Makes My Head Spin
By Natalie MacLean Last night’s startling discovery: there are more adjectives for drunkenness than there are Inuit words for snow. And I’m not just talking about being intoxicated or inebriated, or even blotto, blasted or bombed. There are well over 3,000 descriptors—just looking at the list makes me feel tipsy. What’s more interesting is the difference between the words used for men and women, young and old, bodily and behavioural effects—and how expressions vary across cultures and languages to reveal both positive and negative views. I had lots of help researching this subject from friends who came up with a bandwagon […]
The Wrath of Grapes: How to Cure a Hangover
Do your eyelids creak when they open? Has your tongue been scrubbed with sandpaper? Is the Little Drummer Boy playing on your cerebral cortex? At this time of year, we make merry in haste and then repent in waste, the next day. Thousands of years ago, man discovered alcohol; the next day he discovered the hangover. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about what causes hangovers but not what cures them. Their effects are as immutable as Newton’s law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Of course, the only way to avoid a hangover is not […]
How Sweet is My Wine? What do Sugar Codes Mean for Wine?
How sweet is your wine? Have you ever wondered what those sugar codes mean on the liquor store shelf? There are several different sweetness charts and coding systems on the market, but they’re not that far apart from each other in describing the residual sugar level in wine. I believe that it’s critical to list the sweetness level of a wine with every review that I write to give more information about each wine to my readers, some of whom look for a bone-dry wine while others have a sweet tooth. Posting the sugar codes are also vital for health […]
Some Like It Hot: Do You Like High Alcohol in Wine?
My head pounds. My lips burn. My teeth sting. How could I have been so naïve? When the invitation arrived for “a tasting of one hundred blockbuster reds from the new vintage,” I was pleased, even a bit excited. Now I feel as though I’ve spent two hours with a drill-crazed dentist who thinks anaesthetic is for wimps. At this tasting, five local importers are showcasing their wines to a handful of writers. The room is thick with the sweet smell of alcohol. On a long table in front of me are 65 bottles of powerhouse Australian shiraz. The next […]
