The holidays are right around the corner. So here with her tips to make your holiday entertaining a breeze is Natalie MacLean who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes at nataliemaclean.com. What’s your first tip? Keep it simple. I’m not sure why many of us turn into frantic mini-Martha Stewarts at this time of this year, wanting everything to be perfectly matching, preparing everyone’s side dish, stocking our cellars with more wine than we could possibly drink in a month, but we do. So take a breath, relax and start with bubbly. Sparkling wine is a great aperitif […]
Bubbly
How to Sabre Champagne + Sparkling Wines
Leanne and I chat about sparkling wines and Champagnes for the holidays. Click on the arrow to play the video above. Napoléon visits the Moët & Chandon cellars in 1807 Napoleon is credited with inventing the sabering technique and is famous for his phrase: “In victory we deserve Champagne, in defeat, we need it.” The famous Champagne maker Veuve Clicquot, who lost her husband when she was just 27, was a wealthy young widow. She would entertain Napoleon’s officers (early day sampling program). They, in turn, tried to impress her by sabering the tops of the Champagne bottles […]
5 Best Father’s Day Book-an-Bottle Gift Sets
Father’s Day is this Sunday, and you might like to toast dad with a glass of wine or two, but what should you pair with your vino beyond BBQ? How about some terrific books? Here with her tips is Natalie MacLean, who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes at nataliemaclean.com. What are you recommending first? I have Hockey 365, The Second Period: More Daily Stories from the Ice by Mike Commito. Remind dad of why he loves hockey every day of the year, not just during the play-offs. Whether you are a Canadiens fan or a long-suffering […]
Pairing Bestselling Books With Best-Cellaring Wines
We’re back with Natalie MacLean. You can watch our first segment on book and bottle pairings here. This time we’re going outside the wine category of books with these pairings. What do you have for us first? We’re starting with one of my favorite authors, Candace Bushnell, who wrote this book, Is There Still Sex and the City? a fantastic follow-up to her blockbuster hit, TV series, several movies and now a theatrical production. I’d pair this book with this Rosé sparkling wine from La Marca because it’s just fabulous, as the four women in the […]
Books & Wines With Great Structure & Finish
We often chat about pairing wine and food, but what about pairing bottles with books? You can also watch part two of our book and bottle pairings from CTV yesterday. What’s the first pairing you recommend? We’re starting with one of my favorite wine books, The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil. It’s sold more than a half a million copies worldwide and is a go-to reference book that’s also engagingly well-written. Karen lives in Napa Valley, so I’d pair this book with this full-bodied, complex Cabernet Sauvignon from Charles Krug, Napa Valley’s oldest winery […]
Galentine’s Day Wines for Your Besties Get-Together (Video)
Valentine’s Day is coming up, but what if you’re not in a relationship? There’s a special day for you, too. It’s called Galentine’s Day and it happens every year on February 13th. On CTV News, we chat about terrific wines to drink on both days. Let’s start with what is Galentine’s Day? – It’s one of those made-up micro-holidays, like Friendsgiving just before Thanksgiving, that’s a reaction against the day that commercializes romance and instead celebrates platonic love/female friendship and the bond that lasts longer: women and wine! – As one embroidered pillow on Etsy read: Happy […]
6 Best Proseccos, Cavas and Sparkling Wines versus Champagne (Video)
On The Social, we chat about terrific sparkling wines for the holidays. Most people think of champagne as the drink of choice for this season. But when the price of an entry-level bottle starts at $ 60, you might want to consider other bubblies, which offer great taste for a fraction of champagne’s price. Natalie, let’s start with what’s the difference between champagne and other sparkling wines? Although champagne only comes from the Champagne region of France, almost every other region of the country and many other countries around the world produce sparkling wines, often using the […]
6 Best Wine Gifts and Gadgets (Video)
A great bottle of wine is an obvious first choice for the wine lover on your gift list this holiday. But what if you want to pair that bottle with a useful and imaginative wine gadget? Here with her tips and sips is Natalie MacLean, who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes at nataliemaclean.com Welcome Natalie. What is the first useful gadget you recommend? Unless you have a wine closed with a screw cap, the most essential gadget is a corkscrew. This is called the Waiter’s Friend Corkscrew. It’s named that because it’s […]
11 Best Wines to Pair with Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner
No other holiday celebrates the gift of wine like Thanksgiving. But which wines to pair with turkey and all the side dishes? Here with her tips is Natalie MacLean, who offers Canada’s most popular online wine pairing classes at nataliemaclean.com What’s your top tip when it comes to pairing wine with Thanksgiving dinner? Wine is a taste of the harvest along with all the delicious dishes on the table. But actually choosing a bottle can feel like a thankless task, especially with so many flavors to match from sweet creamed corn to more bitter greens and veggies, plus […]
Pairing Comfort Wines with Comfort Food (Video)
As the weather cools, we enjoy heartier dishes, including comfort food. But which wines should you pair with them? Here with her tips is Maritimer Natalie MacLean who offers Canada’s most popular online wine classes at nataliemaclean.com. Welcome Natalie. First off, are there such things as comfort wines? After much research on this topic, I concluded there were no “uncomfortable wines” since I found them all of great comfort ;) However, I found that certain wines tend to pair better with comfort food than others. Great! Tell us about your first pairing. Comfort food tends to have rich, robust flavours. […]
