The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them. – John Buchan Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca Taste is the common sense of genius. – Victor Hugo Beauty fades, but dumb is forever. – My Grade 5 Teacher Here’s the previous round of wine quotes if you’re thirsting for more.
Wine Writing
Best Places to Learn About Wine: Toronto Star
We were thrilled to be featured on the front page of the Toronto Star recently in a story on the best places to learn about wine, along with George Brown College which offers the sommelier certificate program and The Independent Wine Education Guild that teaches the respected Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) courses. Want to expand your wine knowledge but can’t afford the classes? Sign up for Natalie MacLean’s free e-newsletter and learn all about finding the best wines for your taste and budget. Natalie is a certified sommelier and has been named the World’s Best Wine Writer. Her […]
Posting Wine Reviews and Tasting Notes: Quick Tips
Here’s how to post your wine reviews and use the site features to share them with friends, create your own tasting journal and track your progress over time. Let me know if you have other tips to add here. You’ll also find tips on writing wine reviews. Here’s a short video to get you set-up quickly and optimize your profile: Quick Start: How do I post a wine review? First, download this custom wine toolbar for your browser to make finding wines and adding reviews fast. It works on all browsers except Safari, so if you use that one, skip […]
Wine Reviews and Tasting Notes
Here are some quick tips on writing wine reviews and tasting notes. I’ll be adding new tips to this list regularly. Got one to add? Please post it below. You can also find tips on posting your reviews on this site and how to get the most of the site features to organize your reviews. Have fun! Cheers, Natalie What information should be in every tasting note? The smell and taste of the wine are essential: aromas and flavours. This doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it gives people a sense of the style of the wine. The Wine Aroma […]
Wine Blogger Conference Comes to Canada
In two weeks, the city of Penticton, BC will be flooded with intrepid wine bloggers swarming the area with glasses in one hand and iphones in the other, tweeting and instagraming the Okanagan Valley into Internet fame. In case you haven’t heard of it, the Wine Bloggers Conference is a combination press junket, wine expo, and MacWorld, with shades of Meetup in between. After five years in the States, the Wine Bloggers Conference will finally cross the Canadian border, and Penticton organizers are working in overdrive to make sure the blogger’s impressions are favorable. There is still time to register […]
Pairing Wine and Cookies Video Tips
Pairing wine and cookies? Oooh yes! In this video chat, Laura Englander and Leah Kuo, the founders of Cookies n Corks, talk about how you can match cookies and wine. They discuss the types of cookies that work best with white wine, red wine and sparkling wine — and they have great ideas on how to host a fun tasting party with friends. How did you came up with this idea? What were the challenges in starting this business? Don’t cookies make dry wine taste bitter? How did you adjust the recipes for the cookies to go well […]
Funny Wine Quotes + Sayings: Liquid Laughter 5
My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle. ~Henny Youngman How come if alcohol kills millions of brain cells, it never killed the ones that made me want to drink? ~Author Unknown Take life with a grain of salt, a slice of lime, and a shot of tequila. ~Author Unknown They speak of my drinking, but never think of my thirst. ~Scottish Proverb Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune. ~Giuseppe Garibaldi Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness. ~Seneca Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors… […]
Wine Terms: Learning the Liquid Lingo
By: The Drink Wine and Giggle Gals “To have a second language is to have a second soul.” Charlemagne For some time, it has been the collective goal of the Drink Wine and Giggle Gals to be able to order wine in the native tongues of the top wine-producing countries in the world. In our book Drink Wine and Giggle we have an activity called Learn the Lingo in which we explore a new language and surround ourselves with the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of its home culture. Wine is the wellspring of Learn the Lingo because nothing captures […]
Top 3 Wines for Bad Customer Service: More Magazine
Much as I try, I can’t get stuffy about wine. Anyone can match an expensive Bordeaux with filet mignon, but which wine do you drink when you’ve been on hold with customer service for an hour? There’s the rub. Here are my top wine picks for the most commonly terrible customer service experiences from my column in More Magazine. Got one to suggest? D’arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz 2007 Mclaren Vale, South Australia Big black bruiser with dark fruit, savoury bacon, dark spices and mint. Full-bodied and smooth. Big “bang” for your buck. 981183 $49.95 Score: 91/100. Rosehall […]
A Letter to My Readers about My Wine Reviews
Dear Reader, Whether or not you’ve been following the recent debate on quoting third-party wine reviews, you deserve to hear my thoughts on it in the interest of balance and fairness. To summarize, I’ve always been open and consistent in my manner of attribution, but I realize that it should change and I am doing that now, and my reviews are not influenced by whether or not wineries subscribe to my site. When I was approached by a fellow writer about how I quote other writers’ wine reviews, I didn’t realize that there was an issue since I had been […]
