Introduction
Are you curious about the untold stories of the legendary women who helped create the Ontario wine industry and who also shaped its future? Wine might lead people to work in the wine industry, but what sustains a lifetime career beyond that? Why don’t we celebrate people while they’re alive, but instead wait to express those heartfelt thoughts in a eulogy, post-mortem biography or other memorials?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with author Jennifer Wilhelm.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Giveaway
Three of you will win a copy of Jennifer Wilhelm’s terrific new book Sharing a Glass: Inspirational Memoirs & Memories of the Women Who Shaped Ontario’s Grape & Wine Industry.
Three of you in Canada will win a bottle of the full-bodied, buttery-rich Chloe Chardonnay. The latter restriction relates to the cross-border shipping of alcohol and all the fun that entails.
How to Win
To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.
It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”
After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!
I’ll choose one person randomly from those who contact me.
Good luck!
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I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.
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Highlights
- How did two tables of broken wine glasses feature in Jennifer’s most memorable wine moment?
- What was it like hosting a wine event during a hurricane?
- How are camaraderie and support an integral part of working in the wine industry?
- What was Jennifer’s inspiration for writing Sharing a Glass?
- Why have women’s stories been historically underrepresented?
- What was the most surprising insight that Jennifer discovered while writing Sharing a Glass?
- Why did Jennifer start the book by profiling Debi Pratt?
- What risk did Debi Pratt take in joining Inniskillin?
- Which creative strategies did Debi Pratt use to educate people and promote Ontario wine?
- How has Inniskillin honoured Debi Pratt’s contributions?
- Who is Dr. Helen Fisher, and why did Jennifer want to feature her in the book?
- How did Donna Lailey’s advocacy for new growing methods help to move the Ontario wine industry forward?
- Why was Donna Lailey named Niagara Grape King?
- Where did Jennifer’s co-collaborator, Elena Galey-Pride, redirect her proceeds from the book?
- How did Dr. Linda Bramble overcome several obstacles to become a leader in the Canadian wine industry?
Key Takeaways
- What are the untold stories of the legendary women who helped create the Ontario wine industry and who also shaped its future? Jennifer’s new book is full of them. As she notes, we’re often no longer passing down the stories within our families and communities, and yet we learn from stories. That’s how we pass down wisdom and knowledge from our leaders.
- Why don’t we celebrate people while they’re alive, but instead wait to express that in a eulogy, post-mortem biography or other memorials? I think Jennifer’s book is inspiration for celebrating people while they’re alive. On a personal note, recently my mother visited from Nova Scotia and as the song The Living Years by Mike + The Mechanics played, we were both crying and hugging. Take a listen to it sometime if you’re not familiar with it. Have a box of kleenex handy.
- Wine might lead people to work in the wine industry, but what sustains a lifetime career beyond that? As Jennifer says, we all volunteer in the wine industry. We come together, we collaborate, we help one another. We want to see each other succeed. Wine might lead us to this industry, but it’s our relationships with the people that keep us here.
Start The Conversation: Click Below to Share These Wine Tips
About Jennifer Wilhelm
Jennifer Wilhelm has dedicated her career to Ontario’s hospitality industry. She is a certified Sommelier, and holds credentials from WSET, Prud’homme, Hospitality Management, and Human Resources with a focus on training and development. She taught at Niagara College for 17 years and was named 2010 Ontario Wine Educator through the VQA Promoters Awards. She received a Lieutenant Governor’s Community Volunteer Award for her contributions to the Ontario wine industry.
She is the author of Sharing a Glass: Inspirational Memoirs & Memories of the Women Who Shaped Ontario’s Grape & Wine Industry. The book is the first in Canada to comprehensively chronicle the significant contributions made by women in the grape and wine industry and discusses the challenges they faced and overcame. Jennifer wanted to celebrate these exceptional women and their legacy of mentorship, ensuring that their valuable insights and wisdom continue to inspire generations of people searching for strong, ethical, role models.
Bonus Interview – Andrea Brambila
Highlights
- How did Andrea realize she wanted to become a winemaker?
- Which type of glass does Andrea recommend with full-bodied Chardonnay?
- Why shouldn’t you judge a wine based on the first sip?
- Which foods pair well with the Chloe Chardonnay?
About Andrea Brambila
Born and raised in a small agricultural community in the California’s Central Valley it is not by chance that Andrea Brambila followed into the agricultural footsteps of her father and grandfathers.
Her love for winemaking began as a laboratory technician intrigued by the love of chemistry, the process of creation and the final results in the bottle. From there, Andrea joined the winemaking team, where she experienced hands-on training from grape to bottle. Getting to learn and love being a part of a team that evolves with the ever changing vintage with hopes of creating a beautiful product for others to enjoy. Her past 19 years in this industry have been an adventure and a celebration of art and chemistry.
Resources
- Connect with Jennifer Wilhelm
- Connect with Andrea Brambila & Chloe Wines
- Diary of a Book Launch: An Insider Peek from Idea to Publication
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- My Books:
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 172: Wine Supertasters, Food Pairings and Canadian Palates with XChateau’s Robert Vernick & Peter Yeung
- My new class The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
Tag Me on Social
Tag me on social media if you enjoyed the episode:
- @nataliemaclean and @natdecants on Facebook
- @nataliemaclean on Twitter
- @nataliemacleanwine on Instagram
- @nataliemaclean on LinkedIn
- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:00:00) – We all volunteer in the wine industry. We come together. We collaborate. We help one another. We want to see each other succeed. We’re at the mercy of weather. And we shared a glass and talked to each other about what was happening in your corner of the woods, then shared knowledge and insights and support. It was a great reminder that wine might lead us to this industry, but it’s our relationships with the people that keep us here.
Natalie MacLean (00:00:30) – That could be the subtitle for your book as well.
Natalie MacLean (00:00:32) – Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started.
Welcome to episode 289. Are you curious about the untold stories of the legendary women who helped create the Ontario wine industry, and who also shaped its future? Wine might lead people to work in the wine industry, but what sustains a lifetime career beyond that? And why don’t we celebrate people while they’re alive, but instead wait to express those heartfelt thoughts in a eulogy, post-mortem biography, or other memorials? Yep, we’re going deep. In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Jennifer Wilhelm, author of Sharing a Glass: Inspirational Memoirs and Memories of the Women Who Helped Shape Ontario’s Grape and Wine Industry. We’ll also hear how art and chemistry come together to make a great wine in an exclusive bonus interview with Andrea Brambila, winemaker for the Chloe Wine Collection in California.
I plan to bring you more of these winemaker interviews in the future. Got a winemaker to suggest? Email me at Natalie@natalie maclean.com
Three of you, no matter where you live, are going to win a copy of Jennifer’s terrific new book, Sharing a Glass. And three of you in Canada will win a bottle of a full bodied, buttery rich Chloe Chardonnay. The latter restriction relates to the cross-border shipping of alcohol and all the fun that entails. Hashtag hard pass. All you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’d like to win a copy of the book, or a bottle of the Chardonnay. I’ll choose six people randomly from those who contact me. If you haven’t won a bottle or book yet, now’s your chance and keep listening, as my goal is to offer lots more books and other prizes with every episode.
Speaking of books and bottles, have you read Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation and Drinking too Much? If yes, well, have you then ordered a copy for a friend or family member? Please consider doing that. If you’d like to support this podcast that I do for you on a volunteer basis to ensure continues. You can order the book for yourself or someone else online from any book retailer, no matter where you live. It usually arrives in a day or two. And of course, the e-book is instant. It’s a fast read and every little bit helps spread the message in this book of hope, justice, and resilience. You can send a copy directly to a friend or family member via the online retailers, and make their day when a gift arrives in the mail rather than a notice about a new cat grooming company, especially if they don’t own a cat.
I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/289. I also offer a free companion guide that has book club and wine group discussion questions that can also spark a conversation between two friends or a partner spouse. It asks questions like how you feel about your own relationship with wine, marketing tactics toward women and men when it comes to alcohol, and whether social media is still a good place to connect with others. That’s up for debate. The guide has wine recommendations, pairings and tips for organizing your own informal wine tasting. And you can get that at WineWitchOnFire.com
If you read the book or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you. If your book club or wine group plans to read it, let me know if you’d like me to join in via Zoom. Okay, on with the show.
Jennifer Wilhelm is a certified sommelier and she’s taught at the Niagara College for 17 years. She was named the 2010 Ontario Wine Educator of the year at the VQA Promoters Awards. She has received the Lieutenant Governor’s Community Volunteer Award for her contributions to the Ontario wine industry. Jennifer is the author of Sharing a Glass: Inspirational Memoirs and Memories of the Women Who Shaped Ontario’s Grape and Wine Industry. The book is the first in Canada to chronicle the significant contributions that women have made in the grape and wine industry, and the challenges they faced and overcame, and she joins us now from her home in Niagara. So great to have you here with us, Jennifer. Welcome.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:05:55) – Thank you so much for having me, Natalie. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be here.
Natalie MacLean (00:06:00) – Awesome. I can’t wait to dive into this. I mean, we’ve got so much to talk about. But before we do, tell us about some of your more memorable wine moments. Maybe starting with the time when you were in a restaurant and a server was opening a bottle of sparkling wine. What happened?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:06:15) – Well it was those early days of corkage fees and you could bring your own. And so a few of us in the trade had thought oh let’s meet after work and we’ll each bring a bottle. And so we did, and we were waiting. It was a busy night in the restaurant and our sparkling wine was on the table and we thought, oh, gosh, you know, we’re four sommeliers sitting here. One of us can surely open this bottle of wine. And so I said, okay great, I’ll open it. And our food had just been delivered and it was a busy restaurant. And I opened the bottle and it had been rolling around in the trunk of my friend’s car. It wasn’t cold enough. So all the evils that we wish not for our bottle of sparkling. And when I opened it, the cork ricocheted across our table, smashed all of our wine glasses, went across to another table and took out their wine glasses. And everyone just sat stunned, surrounded by broken glass and covered in sparkling wine.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:20) – Wow. Oh my gosh. I can just imagine. I’m surprised that people didn’t hit the floor thinking there was like gunshots or something, So how did you recover from that? Or are you still dealing with the trauma?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:07:33) – We still laugh about it. But you know, the server came over and she said, did you do that? You should have waited for a professional.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:42) – It was because you were amateurs [laughter}
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:07:45) – So we all laughed. But I tell that story to my students and I say when we’re talking about restocking fridges between busy sparkling wine days like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day and New Year’s Eve. I talked to them about inventory systems and make sure that you’re pulling the most stable, coldest bottles forward. So I think I kind of tried to look at it as a learning experience and let my students know this can happen even if you are a professional.
Natalie MacLean (00:08:14) – I love it. Great attitude, too. So tell us also, you had a memory from the 2013 International Cool Climate Chardonnay event known as I4C by the cool kids. I’m stumbling over it. I’m not a cool kid, but what happened there?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:08:28) – Oh, this is another example of best laid plans and what actually happens. And so in 2013, we were really excited to welcome the world to Niagara and celebrate Chardonnay and showcase our beautiful properties and all of our partner wineries that were involved. And it was July and it was hot. And not only was it hot and humid for the cool climate Chardonnay celebration, but we had a hurricane and it knocked the power out of Niagara. And most of the wineries that were hosting didn’t have power, didn’t have water, didn’t have any of these things that we think are so important. But the day of the event, the big grand tasting was taking place at a local winery, and this hurricane came in and lifted tents and knocked out power and guests were soaked. And we were pouring at the far, far end of this vineyard. And so the guests ran inside. But we had the wine at the far end. So, it was a in the middle of a hurricane. And you think about carrying cardboard boxes in a hurricane and you’re juggling them, and all of these bottles are falling out of the wet cardboard.
Natalie MacLean (00:09:52) – Oh my gosh. Wow. You brought everything inside then, did you?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:09:56) – We brought everything inside that we could. And it was a good example of people were there in good spirits too. Celebrate one another and beautiful wine. It was an example of the fact that in the grape and wine industry, it’s agriculture, and we are always at the mercy of the elements whether it’s spring frosts or hail or freezes or hurricanes.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:10:23) – And so you have to work with the weather.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:26) – Yeah, that’s a beautiful example of that. So even though everyone was probably a bit of a drowned rat, did they end up having fun in the tasting inside?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:10:36) – It was so much fun. And you know, people had boots on and the event was memorable, which is what we hope.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:43) – I’ll bet. Great recovery. Oh my gosh. Okay, cool. And in 2015, you also remember that event. The Air Force, for some reason.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:10:53) – The reason why I remember that and the reason why I’m bringing up I4C, but this could be any gathering within the wine industry where we all come together. And you mentioned me receiving the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Volunteer Award. We all volunteer in the wine industry. We come together. We collaborate. We help one another. We want to see each other succeed. We want events to be successful and memorable and full of good cheer. And again, it’s July, so we’re at the mercy of weather. And it was hot and we were almost throwing ourselves in the big troughs of ice where the wine was. But you’re drained and you’re tired. And the end of that night we came together. The chefs, the servers, the volunteers, the organizers, the visiting winemakers. It was everyone and just shared a glass and talked to each other about what was happening in your corner of the woods and what was happening in your corner of the world, and shared knowledge and insights and support. And we laughed and laughed and laughed. And it was just one of those examples of camaraderie and community and support and a great reminder that wine might lead us to this industry. But it’s our relationships with the people that keep us here are lovely.
Natalie MacLean (00:12:19) – That could be the subtitle for your book as well. And you ended up talking till four in the morning or something like that.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:12:25) – Four in the morning. But then we went and served brunch at Ravine of course.
Natalie MacLean (00:12:29) – Yes, wine people don’t need sleep.
Natalie MacLean (00:12:33) – So the inspiration for your new book, Sharing a Glass, is clearly the women that you profiled. But what actually inspired you to actually publish a book about them, as opposed to writing a series of magazine articles? Tell us about that.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:12:48) – Rather than a series of magazine articles? That’s a good question. I love books. As a child, I found a lot of inspiration in books. I looked for role models in books. There’s something about holding a book, the longevity of a book. I love libraries. And so we spend a lot of time on screens. And as an educator, there are so many required resources and required textbooks. And I think it’s nice to have a book that you can sit down with set on the table, have a glass of wine. It’s easy on the eyes. You can gift it. Books are lovely to gift. There’s permanence almost in a book.
Natalie MacLean (00:13:32) – It’s true. Yeah. And you were quoting, I think, Ann Sperling, who said you might be remembered for one generation, but I think there is a legacy in a book or indeed perhaps a bottle of wine that continues vintage after vintage that will go beyond one generation. So at least that’s what I hope to,Jennifer.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:13:50) – Yeah, and that’s exactly it. You just hit it perfectly there.
Natalie MacLean (00:13:53) – And so what gave you the idea? I think I might have been hearing you on another interview, but at first you didn’t know if you were the person to write the book. But tell us a little bit about that.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:14:04) – Yeah, this is true. There were a few things that were happening around the same time, and one of them was, I’ve been teaching at Niagara College for 17 years, and I was talking in my classrooms about the mentors that I had had and encouraging the students to find mentors and talking to them about Debi Pratt and Donna Laily and all of these people. And as the years went by, some of the students didn’t. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is a travesty. I have to share these stories. And then we were at a funeral for Lloyd Schmidt. And Lloyd was so impactful in this industry.
Natalie MacLean (00:14:46) – And what did he do?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:14:49) – Lloyd Schmidt was he originally in BC and then brought his expertise here to Niagara. He has a history with Ann Sperling and her family as well in the Okanagan. But he was a leader in the grape and wine industry here.
Natalie MacLean (00:15:08) – He was a winemaker.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:15:09) – A grape grower and a trailblazer and a mentor to many. So when Lloyd passed away, his two sons, Brian and Alan, who most people know from Vineland Estates, Brian being the winemaker and Alan being the president of Vineland Estates. People were getting up and talking about Lloyd and they were saying, you know, oh he impacted me this way, and I’ll never forget this instance. And his sons were very moved by that and said I don’t think my dad knew that. Did you tell him that? I wish he knew that. And I thought, oh my gosh, a few things here. One, we don’t tell people while they’re here how we feel and the impact that they’ve had. And two, I looked around in that room and it was all industry leaders. All of them were my mentors, you know, men, women, students. That inspired me. The room was full of so much positive energy and so much leadership and so much history. And I said to Debi Pratt, my gosh, look around at who’s in this room and the stories that are being told in these groups of people chatting and celebrating Lloyd and celebrating one another. And I said to Debi, somebody needs to write these stories. I actually pitched the book to so many people that were writers. And finally I said to Debbie, I think I could do it.
Natalie MacLean (00:16:37) – Wow. Absolutely. And you did. And what an inspirational story. I hadn’t heard that it was at this funeral. What a great, great genesis for the book. Because it’s true. Like, I got goosebumps when you were telling me we don’t tell people just how wonderful they are until they’re gone. So remarkable. That’s great. So why do you think women’s stories, in particular in the Niagara wine industry or elsewhere, have been overlooked for so long?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:17:06) – Well that’s a tough question. It’s a bit political for sure. I think that there are many answers to that, many reasons for that. I think if we’re going far back to women and girls were meant to be seen and not heard. We weren’t supposed to be disruptors. We weren’t supposed to draw attention. We weren’t supposed to win the races and be the fastest or the strongest or the smartest because we might make men uncomfortable. So that’s been ingrained in a lot of us for generations, maybe less so, thankfully, in the younger generations today. But for sure, in older generations we do see that. And so, not only were these women in many cases not going to go and shout about their accomplishments and tell people, you know, they might make men uncomfortable. They might make other women not like them. You know, there’s so many layers to this. And then there’s also the fact that if they were achieving all of those things, that meant they were busy. True, they were busy.
Natalie MacLean (00:18:14) – And they probably had a family on the side, that sort of thing.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:18:18) – Right. So, we’re not just each one dimensional. If we have our jobs and we have our careers, we probably have friends and family and homes to look after. And, all the maintenance that goes into that. And so we don’t have time.
Natalie MacLean (00:18:34) – Absolutely. And media coverage, I find at least my perception is that it’s often about up and coming young women in the industry. Why don’t you think there’s more media coverage? Maybe not so much books, but media coverage of older women and their contributions. Of course, a lot of that will tie into what you just said. But any further thoughts on that? Why the focus does tend to be on younger women?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:18:55) – Yes. I think that a lot of it does tie into what we just talked about, but it’s also the fact that we are often no longer passing down the stories within our families and within our communities. And we learn from stories. You know, it’s easy to forget facts and data and stats. I mean, it is for me anyway. But for a lot of people we learn from stories and the stories stay with us. So even within societies, that’s how we pass down wisdom and knowledge and lessons and leaders. That’s how we remember heroes and heroines and all of those things. So when we stop doing that, those stories stop being told. And the people who were those trailblazers, unless someone is writing a book or there are songs about them or poems or they’re in history books, they’re forgotten. It’s true. The stories are forgotten.
Natalie MacLean (00:19:55) – Everyone needs a boss. Well, to they’re Samuel Pepys or whatever. Someone needs to chronicle the stories. These are some of my theories that I’ll just throw out. You don’t have to agree or disagree or even comment. But sometimes I perceive that a lot of media coverage is also geared toward up and coming young women because we do as a culture love youth. We like things that are shiny and new. And also there is perhaps an underlying threat of misogyny sometimes in that young women are also very attractive, but they’re also less threatening. They’re not as established in the industry. That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep profiling young women, because if it helps them step up in their careers, let’s do it. I just see the absence of older women’s stories as partially resting on that foundation of not so shiny, not so attractive, maybe a little bit threatening now that they have perhaps power or real contribution.
Also the roles I think – and we’re going to get into this with some of the women that you profiled – sometimes they were less glamorous. They weren’t always out there being the high profile rock star winemaker. Perhaps in some cases they were, as you said, the glue holding things together in the background, but just as vital if not more so. Sometimes these operations wineries would have fallen apart without them. But I don’t know if you have any comments or we’ll just move on.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:21:17) – Yeah, I do agree with that. And I think oftentimes they were behind the scenes. They were behind the scenes in so many cases and they had roles that were impactful, but possibly not always in the limelight or even outside of the home. But they were still very impactful. I think of some of the most instrumental people that I know as women, and many of them were homemakers, and that is one of the most valuable jobs that we see. Those roles are falling by the wayside. We’re still picking them up as females on top of the other things in many cases. But, there are many, many ways to have an impact. And it’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book the way that I did, which we can talk about.
Natalie MacLean (00:22:02) – Yes. Like now. What a big lead up. Well, let’s talk about the book itself. What was the most surprising insight that you discovered while researching or writing it?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:22:13) – One of the most surprising things that I discovered while writing this book was that each of these women were so incredibly humble, and they, in many cases, didn’t see themselves belonging in this book. And that to me, that was astounding. And Walter Sendzik, last week on our CKTV interview, we had Linda Bramble with us, and he said to her, Linda, gosh, you’ve mentored so many of us. You’ve done this and this and this. He said along the way, did you know the impact you were having? Did you plan to have that impact? Did you know that you were making history? And she said, no, I was just doing what I thought was the right thing to do. And each of these women said that. Did you plan to make history? Did you plan to have that ripple effect? Did you plan to make that big of a splash or a disruption or a contribution? And the answer is no. A lot of this happened one day at a time.
Natalie MacLean (00:23:16) – Right. Wow. Reminds me of. I don’t know if it was Oprah or somebody said just take the next right step, one step at a time and keep going. But yeah, you’re right. A lot of humility among these women. What’s the most interesting thing that someone has said about your book?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:23:33) – Oh, one of the most interesting things. And I didn’t think about this at all until it was mentioned. But one of the most interesting things was, in many cases, you see the women building the men up and the women talking about the men. And I didn’t do this consciously, but in the tribute sections the men are talking up the women and paying homage to them and praising them. And I didn’t think that I was flipping the tables like that. It wasn’t actually my intention to do that. But what was wonderful is that so many of the male leaders and mentors in the Ontario grape and wine industry wanted to celebrate these women and said, it’s time. Let’s do this. Donald Ziraldo was so quick and happy to volunteer and say, oh my goodness, I want to talk about Debi Pratt. Inniskillin would never have unfolded and evolved and been as successful as it was without her. And each of these women has these co-collaborators in their lives that are men, are women, are family members, are friends, are colleagues that also, in that same spirit, want to support and lift them up and celebrate them. And I think that says a lot about the women too, right?
Natalie MacLean (00:25:01) – Yeah. I love the tributes. We’ll get to those too. I like that you made it a section at the end of each chapter. So you profile seven women in the book. We’ll start with Debi Pratt, whom you’ve just mentioned. It was a former legendary public relations manager. Why did you start with her?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:25:17) – Well, there were a few reasons. The book moves through the 70s and the 80s. And so, you know, chronologically, it made sense to start with Debie at Inniskillin. In 1974 and 1975 they were one of the first wineries and…
Natalie MacLean (00:25:36) – They were one of the first wineries to be established in Canada, to get a commercial license after prohibition ended in the 30s, but there hadn’t been any commercial wineries since then.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:25:47) – Right. So they were granted a temporary license in 1974 and then a permanent in 1975. And so, at that time, there weren’t a lot of people using the words premium Ontario wine in the same sentence. But you had three people here, Debi Pratt, Karl Kaiser and Donald Ziraldo that believed in this vision. And so, the three of them really fuelled on ambition, adrenaline and dreams, laid the ground for the Ontario grape and wine industry.
Natalie MacLean (00:26:27) – They sure did, Donald Ziraldo being sort of the businessperson, the promoter. But Debi was still PR, but Donald was in a different capacity in terms of promoting the winery. And then, of course, Karl Kaiser, who has since passed away, was the winemaker. But the three of them really did put Canada, the whole Canadian wine industry on the map. As you note in the book, by being at the Wine Expo, which is kind of the Oscars for Wine Awards and winning, I think they were up against 4000 wines, their ice wine. Was it the 1989 ice wine won in the 1991 competition or something like that?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:27:04) – And what Debi did there. As the public relations manager and with her team, as a teacher she understood that first we start with what people don’t know and we help them to understand. So when you’re at an expo and this is at this time, and there are all of these people that are wine aficionados and connoisseurs and experts, and here we are, Canada, and I say we – I mean I wasn’t there but you know – we as an industry here is a Canadian winery that has just won best wine in the world.
Natalie MacLean (00:27:44) – Wow. Was this in France Wine Expo or was it. Yes. Oh, the heart of benchmark wine.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:27:51) – Yeah. And so Debi said, let’s start with the facts and let’s help them understand. And here she had a map of the growing regions of the world. And she said, here we are in Ontario and the best wine regions are between 30 and 50 degrees north and south latitude and some of the very best are between 41 and 44. And guess where Ontario is? It’s exactly there. So let’s talk about why this works. And we’ve got the Great Lakes and we have the escarpment. And there was no opportunity for misunderstanding because you looked at a map and you said ah…
Natalie MacLean (00:28:26) – So telling.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:28:26) – … she’s right.
Natalie MacLean (00:28:27) – Yes. Because everybody thinks when they think of Canadians and Canadian wine. Oh, it must be up in the tundra somewhere. But we’re right along the border with the US and on that latitude that’s similar to, well, depending on which region you’re looking at in Canada, Italy or Burgundy, Bordeaux or whatever. So it’s the same grape growing latitude as these major benchmark regions. That’s remarkable. Now, you mentioned Debi was a former school teacher. Why was it such a big risk for her to leave her job teaching and join Inniskillin in at that time?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:29:04) – Well, there wasn’t any precedent set that there could be or was success to be had. She was leaving a job that was traditionally rewarding for women. It was conducive to a family life in its hour and it offered security in terms of wages and benefits and a pension. And the wine industry offered none of those things in the 1970s or 80s.
Natalie MacLean (00:29:36) – It’s true. And people even doubted that, as you say, premium Ontario wine could even be made. Wow, what a jump. That took tenacity. And then you also said she’s transferring these skills from her teaching profession to wine. Start with what people don’t know. She did some other things that were really creative, like how did she host tastings at the winery?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:29:59) – Gosh, she just is full of brilliant ideas. So she really wanted people to taste things blind, which is helpful because then we drop a preconceptions about wine when we don’t know what we’re tasting.
Natalie MacLean (00:30:12) – Right. So the labels are covered. You don’t know who made the wine.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:30:16) – That’s right. But what Debbie, again, back to those transferable skills and understanding that everyone has a different learning style and every opportunity to show what we are doing and to impact premium wine made from premium grapes right here. She made sure that people past the vineyards where those grapes were grown so that when they were tasting the wines and they said, my goodness, these wines are amazing. Like, where did you grow these grapes? And Debi could say, right here. Here are the grapes. Here’s the wine. So that was really important for people to understand that sense of place and to pull it all together.
Natalie MacLean (00:30:58) – Right. And she did a lot of side by side tasting so people could see the differences. I don’t know if she was throwing in ringers from Europe at the time or what, but really open people’s eyes and taste buds to just how good Ontario wine can be.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:31:12) – Yeah, she absolutely did. And she was very wise, even in the way that she would sell wine. So she understood that when people were leaving with that wine – and this is something that has stayed with me for my entire career – they were leaving with bottled memories. They weren’t just leaving with wine. When they went home and opened that wine and shared it, they were uncorking the experience again and the emotions that they had with Debi or with Donald or with Karl or with anyone that they had tasted with at Inniskillin and they relived it and those emotions were tied to that wine.
So there was a connection. So Debi and Madame both understood that connection very early on. And Debi poured older vintages because they want to move through their wine because they’re holding and that’s capital that could be sold. But Debi would pour older vintages and say okay this is how the wine evolves. So if you like this now the way that it’s drinking, you’ll want to buy a case of the next vintage. And open it and taste it as it evolves and follow its journey. And she really got people invested in understanding and opening and comparing and seeing what they like. And then people would come back and say, oh gosh, we loved that wine that we bought here three years ago or last year. Can we buy some more of it? And Debbie would say, no, unfortunately, that’s gone. But here’s what I could encourage you to do or here’s what I suggest. So it wasn’t uncommon if you had an experience with Debi to leave with a case or more of wine because you wanted to reenact that, and you wanted to share that with the people that you were sharing the wine with.
Natalie MacLean (00:33:07) – Absolutely, people do. They want a story. And, you know, this reminds me so much of how books are sold too, Jennifer. And that they’re sold one at a time. It is a hand sell, so to speak. So when you have a book event and people have a connection or a story and they can share that story of what the experience was at the wine tasting, at the book event with others. That’s the most powerful way, I think, that books and wine can be marketed as opposed to like just blasting on social media. It’s just it’s nowhere. It pales in comparison in terms of the effectiveness and the deep roots that you can really implant through a genuine relationship.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:33:50) – Very well said I like that, yeah.
Natalie MacLean (00:33:52) – Thank you. So how has the winery since honoured Debi and her contributions?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:33:57) – Oh, Debi’s family, when she goes back there, she is welcomed. We were at Enniskillen yesterday to plan another book signing for June 2nd, which will be exciting and is open to everyone. But she’s family. She’s a founding member and there is a vineyard that’s named after her, the Debi Pratt Vineyard, and it’s laid out in the book. There are pictures of Debi online. So you know that vineyard and the continued growth, generation after generation after generation, speaks to the mentorship and the ripple effect that Debi has made a point of having.
Natalie MacLean (00:34:37) – Yeah. And you mentioned in the book too that I think it was Debi who said teachers usually don’t have a school named after them, but she has a vineyard of 98 acres that will be in her name, will be on these labels year after year after year. That’s so nice. I mean, just awesome. Let’s talk about Doctor Helen Fisher. Who was she? And why is she in your book?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:35:01) – Doctor Helen Fisher is a force. I think when you read Helen’s chapter, whenever anyone reads Helen’s chapter, I get messages from them and they say, I’ve just fallen in love with Helen Fisher. And I said, yeah, you and the rest of the world. She is absolutely brilliant. She’s a scientist. She’s a grape grower. She’s an agriculturalist. She’s an educator. She’s a professor. She has a PhD. You know, she was one of the first women to teach in a science and agricultural department at a Canadian university. Wow.
Natalie MacLean (00:35:38) – And she was at Guelph, right?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:35:40) – She was at Guelph. And she’s taught at several universities and several colleges. She’s been with the Niagara College Winery and Viticulture Technician program since its inception. Since the very first year, Helen’s DNA runs through generations of students. It runs through generations of vineyards. There are many people that believe that if we didn’t have Helen understanding the importance of site selection in vineyards, the importance of soil, the importance of rootstock, the importance of winter hardiness that we would not have, the thriving grape and wine industry that we have today, not just in Ontario, but across Canada and across North America.
Natalie MacLean (00:36:23) – Wow. And you say that she mapped out L’Acadie in Nova Scotia, which is one of the leading grapes there. Of course, they have to have more winter hardy grapes there, but is that correct? She was like fundamental in sort of tracing the history of the L’Acadie Blanc grape?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:36:38) – She was. Yeah. And also what’s important with Helen is that when a lot of people were talking about making changes from Lumbrusca to hybrid and then even further into vinifera, there were a lot of people saying, this is going to be way too much work. This isn’t going to be possible.
Natalie MacLean (00:36:57) – The classic grapes, when we talk about vitis vinifera like Cabernet, Chardonnay. People just didn’t think it could be done or as you say, too much work in Ontario to switch over from the more rustic grapes, shall we say, that were planted back then?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:37:11) – Yeah. And Helen was determined and she was diligent in her research, and she was boots on the ground. She connected the right people. She really believed in a premium grape and wine industry here. And she did literally the work in the ground, the ground work to make it happen, whether it was weeping tiles or drainage systems or rootstock. I mean, gosh, Helen is ground up.
Natalie MacLean (00:37:40) – Wow. She sounds like she’s out there in the fields and yet describe her stature as a woman.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:37:48) – She’s very unassuming. Helen is short in stature.
Natalie MacLean (00:37:55) – Five foot two, I think you said.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:37:56) – Exactly. She is mighty. You’re not going to find Helen, you wouldn’t have found Helen walking around in heels. She would have been in boots or Blundstones. So when we say she put on her boots and she kicked down barriers, there are a whole group of friends of Helen’s and colleagues that will say she put on her Blundstones as she put on her Birkenstocks and kicked down those barriers in sandals. Because she did.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:25) – Was she a beer drinker? Did you say she was?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:38:28) – Yes. Yeah, she was a beer drinker.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:32) – Okay, interesting. She made so many contributions. Yeah, that’s true dedication when it’s not even your drink of choice.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:38:39) – But she made it a point to always gift Ontario wine and pour it and celebrate it. So her drink of choice would have been a beer. And from her English heritage, it wouldn’t have even been a cold beer. But she was a strong promoter and champion of wine made from Ontario grapes.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:59) – That’s terrific. So we’re going to keep motoring along. We’re not here till 6 p.m., but next up is Donna Laily. So tell us a little bit about her.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:39:08) – So Donna Laily was a teacher also and fell in love with her in-laws farm on the Niagara Parkway. And she transformed, transformed that farm from orchards and tree fruit into grapes and vinifera as well. At a very early stage, she first was selling her grapes for juice, and then she was selling to local wineries. But she believed in premium wine here. She believed in Pinot Noir specifically, and she worked in those vineyards. She was the one who was trellising. She was the one who was planting. She was the one who was out there for leaf removal and harvest and walking those roads.
Natalie MacLean (00:39:59) – And she really advanced this Scott Henry trellis method, didn’t she, for training vines.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:40:05) – Right. And that was you know, I am not a viticulturist, but for Donna to really grasp that as first of all she’s brilliant. And she was an educator, so she believed in teaching and learning. And so when she learned about these trellising systems that made it possible to grow grapes. She said, let’s implement it and there weren’t a lot of people doing that then. But Donna said, I believe in this, and I’m willing to try it.
Natalie MacLean (00:40:37) – I know neither of us are viticulturists, but just for listeners who might be curious, is it just it trains the vines along the wires between the posts, but does it give better sun exposure benefits like that to the grapes?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:40:50) – Right. And it trains them to grow in a different way than a vine would naturally grow on their own.
Natalie MacLean (00:40:56) – Right. It would be like a bush shrub.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:40:59) – Right. If we think about years and years ago, generations ago, a grape vine would not have been handled much in its life. It would have been handled at planting, and it would have been handled at harvest, and it would have been left on its own for the rest of the time to be wild and put into too many berries and too much leaf. And Donna really understood that there could be a training system here that could work and provide more premium fruit and concentration, and looked at yields and all of those things.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:28) – That’s fantastic.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:41:29) – There’s a line in the book that says she got known for her juice because it was premium. She had good juice.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:36) – Yeah. And then in 1981 she was named the Niagara Grape King. Was she…
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:41:43) – Yes, yes, yes. So first female, first female grape king.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:47) – First female. That reminds me of Jancis Robinson, the British wine writer being named Decanter’s man of the year. It’s like, okay, I think we need some revision here to catch up with reality, but was it just a vote to become Grape King?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:42:03) – So it’s a nomination by peers. So it is dedication to your vineyards, dedication to the industry, dedication to producing premium grapes. And so there hadn’t been a man doing that. And so in Donna’s case, when she was named Grape King, and a subsequent year long tour that comes along with that, there were many instances where people said to her, oh, are you standing proxy for your husband? Oh, and she said, no, I’m the grower. I’m the farmer, right?
Natalie MacLean (00:42:37) – Wow. Okay. I love that image. Linda Bramble is next. And I think, correct me if I’m confusing this with somebody else, but I think I love the way she’s described in one tribute as with just the right amount, a right touch of acidity.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:42:52) – Yes, yes, that’s Elena Galey-Pride is my co-ollaborator and visionary on this book as well. And editor. So you know that was a tasting note that she wrote in tribute to Linda. As Elena and I were both students of Linda, both in the classroom and of life, and just adore her. So Elena wrote that tribute many years ago and found it and we included it.
Natalie MacLean (00:43:17) – Oh, that’s wonderful. And while we’re on Elena, you mentioned some of the proceeds of this book. What did Elena do in terms of the proceeds for her part of the income or whatever?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:43:29) – Yeah, Elena is one of the most generous and thoughtful individuals. She’s always finding ways to celebrate others and pay it forward. And she continues to do that every day. But, in a very generous way, she redirected the proceeds that I would have paid her as the editor of this book and she donated them to a bursary for female students at Niagara College.
Natalie MacLean (00:43:58) – Wonderful. Wow. That’s great. All right, let’s go back to Linda Bramble. Who is she and what obstacles did she have to overcome in her career?
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:44:07) – So Linda’s a sommelier and educator. She has a PhD in leadership. So when we think about this, she has a whole teaching career in leadership and entrepreneurship that she has used those transferable skills as a simile and as a mentor within the wine industry to build up future leaders. So she was a single parent. She knew that she needed to become educated, to get some credibility and legitimacy in the wine world and in the teaching world, in academia. So she went after and earned all of the credentials that she could, you know, a master’s degree, a PhD.
Natalie MacLean (00:44:50) – While she had two children. Young children.
Jennifer Wilhelm (00:44:53) – Exactly. She was born in the States, and there were more opportunities here in Canada. And she came here like, you think about what everything that she did, and she just said, okay, one day at a time, one foot in front of another. I’m just going to keep learning. I’m just going to keep developing myself. And she did. And in the process, she led and developed so many of us in this industry.
Natalie MacLean (00:45:19) – That’s fantastic. She’s a great writer to read her pieces on wine in various magazines and so on. But yeah, she has a gift with words as well.
Natalie MacLean (00:45:34) – Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Jennifer. Here are my takeaways. Number one, what are the untold stories of the legendary women who helped create the Ontario wine industry, and who also shaped its future? Jennifer’s new book chronicles seven of them, as she notes, were often no longer passing down the stories within our families and communities. And yet we learn so much from stories. It’s how we passed down wisdom and knowledge from our leaders.
Number two. Why don’t we celebrate people while they’re alive, but instead wait to express those heartfelt thoughts in a eulogy, post-mortem biography, or other memorials? I think Jennifer’s book is inspiration for us all to celebrate people while they’re alive. On a personal note, I dedicated my most recent book, Wine Witch on Fire to my mother, Anne. She taught me how big my brave is and to let the words out. And recently she was here visiting from Nova Scotia and as the song The Living Years by Mike and the mechanics played, we were both crying and hugging by the end of it. Take a listen to that song sometime if you’re not familiar with it, and have a box of Kleenex handy.
And number three, why might lead people to work in the wine industry, but what sustains a lifetime career beyond that? As Jennifer says, we all volunteer in the wine industry. We come together. We collaborate. We help one another. We want to see each other succeed. Wine might lead us to this industry, but it’s our relationships with people that keep us here. I will raise a glass to that.
All right. Now here’s the bonus interview, an exclusive one with Andrea Brambila, winemaker for the Chloe wine collection in California. In addition to blending the art and chemistry to make a good wine, we also explore topics such as when and how did Andrea realize that she wanted to become a winemaker? Which type of glass does she recommend for a full bodied Chardonnay? Why you shouldn’t judge wine based on your first sip? And which foods and delicious recipes pair well with Chloé Chardonnay. Andrea Brambila is director of winemaking at The Wine Group, and she’s been part of the wine industry for 19 years.
Natalie MacLean (00:48:01) – She was born and raised in a small agricultural community in the California’s Central Valley. After attending California Polytechnic State University, San Luis. She followed in the agricultural footsteps of her father and grandfathers. Andrea began her career with a passion for chemistry as a laboratory technician at another California winery. She was intrigued by the entire winemaking process as well as the final results in the bottle. In 2010, she joined the winemaking team at the Wine Group and then in 2023 was thrilled to take on the role of winemaker for the Chloe Wine Collection. She loves the challenges and challenges that each vintage bring, the adventure of blending art and chemistry, and takes great pride in creating these delicious, thoughtfully crafted wines. Andrea, welcome! It’s so great to have you with us here.
Andrea Brambila (00:48:55) – Thank you. It’s great to be here today to talk to you about wine.
Natalie MacLean (00:48:58) – All right. My favorite subject, and probably yours. All right, before we get into the tasting, what was the exact moment you realized you wanted to become a winemaker?
Andrea Brambila (00:49:09) – So it really was my first season as a winemaker, as you mentioned. I started out as a lab tech, which piqued my interest for winemaking. I mean, learning about the chemistry. But really, my first memorable moment was that first harvest getting to be hands on from the start of the process to the end and getting to really work with other members of the team who help create the beautiful blend that is Chloe. And again, back to agricultural. You’re taking this raw ingredient and creating something beautiful from the grapes that are on the vines every year. So it’s kind of a mix of nature and science. It’s beautiful thing.
Natalie MacLean (00:49:50) – It is a beautiful thing and I just love how wine brings that all together. I’ve long said you could do a liberal arts degree with wine as the hub, and I think a lot of college students would love that actually. But it brings together your art, your science, your commerce, your geography, your history, everything. So you’ve said you see art and chemistry coming together in the creation of a great wine. Is there anything that would surprise us in the way that those two aspects of wine blend together?
Andrea Brambila (00:50:16) – Nothing surprising. I mean, I always like to explain it as it’s you’re taking ingredients like if you were baking cookies or making a sauce or something like that at home. I mean, it’s the same thing with wine. You’re taking this grape and you’re learning what spices you have on the rack. So it’s working with yeast companies and oak companies, and it’s a blending. It’s a magical. It’s like you’re marinating something and that’s what you’re doing with these wines is. You’re taking that grape, that varietal, and wanting to enhance the beauty of that grape and create something special for people to enjoy on a daily basis, for celebrations, just everyday life to make you feel good and to bring a smile to somebody’s face.
Natalie MacLean (00:51:03) – Absolutely. And I think that’s what we why we watch cooking shows because we can see those raw ingredients. And then the amazing transformation wine has a challenge in that it takes a whole year. So you’d have to do time lapse photography. But it’s the same concept. It’s like these raw grapes, even like vine seeds, whatever. And then you’ve got this wine in the bottle. All right, let’s taste. So we are tasting this beautiful Chloe Chardonnay from the cool climate region of Monterey, California. Why did you choose this wine, Andrea?
Andrea Brambila (00:51:35) – This wine. I mean, Chardonnay is a classic varietal. It is very easy to drink. The California Chardonnay is the white wine of choice. And this is just a beautiful description and blends of what California grapes bring.
Natalie MacLean (00:51:52) – Absolutely. California is it’s a signature wine for sure. Flagship. And I poured my wine into two glasses. Which type of glass would you recommend? I’ve got sort of the bigger bowl, and then I’ve got sort of a more standard tasting glass, not the ISO but you know. Which one would you go with?
Andrea Brambila (00:52:13) – I would go with the standard glass. But the other thing I would say is I think with wine people will take the first sip and decide whether they like it or not. On that first sip, I would really encourage somebody who maybe takes the first sip and isn’t very excited about the first sip to put your glass back down, take another second and take it a second sip. I think it’s really important that you give the wine a second chance. One, it’s going to open up. It’s going to breathe a little bit more. And then what I always like to tell people is wine is a memory, right. Your memory, your senses. And so maybe what I’m going to smell, maybe not what you’re smelling, but that’s because it comes from our memory banks. When we were little and growing up. Aromas, flavours that were used to smelling and tasting. So wine should be, I think, enjoyed by everybody. And it shouldn’t be where you think you have to know exactly what the person is tasting.
Natalie MacLean (00:53:06) – Absolutely. I love that, Andrea. Unpacking a few things that you said. My partner Daniel, I always say wait till the second or even third sip before you make a decision on this wine. Because when you first come to wine, no matter what wine it is, your mouth hasn’t even – speaking of chemistry – hasn’t calibrated to the natural acidity of the wine, the flavours and so on. So it’s a bit of a shock in a good way, and you have to almost condition your palate with that first sip and then give it a fair chance. It’s it’s also like people. First impressions can be, you know, misleading. Give it a chance. Get into it.
Andrea Brambila (00:53:44) – Exactly.
Natalie MacLean (00:53:46) – And then you got on to memory, which is one of my favourite topics when it comes to wine. Aromas and flavours, they are tied to our emotional brain. And that’s why, you know, Proust it all starts with eating the Madeleine. it’s actually even not the taste of the cookie, it’s the smell of it that takes him right back to his childhood and remembrance of things past.
Andrea Brambila (00:54:08) – I would definitely say when we’re blending as winemakers, we each talk about what we smell, and it’s amazing to hear where people go because it is totally about what you remember and what you love and what’s familiar about it. So that’s what I love about wine, because it’s unique and any individual can get something different than what you’re tasting.
Natalie MacLean (00:54:34) – And I’ll taste or smell some wines, and I’m right back to the first time I tasted it years ago. And I remember where I was, who I was with, what we were eating, even what they were wearing, what I was wearing. It’s kind of odd, but it’s such a deeply rooted emotional memory smell and and then also taste. So speaking of smell. Yeah, you know, I love that. Chloe. The word Chloe translates in Latin to blooming because I find this wine is blooming in my glass with like beautiful aromas of golden and green apple and freshly baked bread. But I want to hear from you. How would you describe this wine? This Chardonnay?
Andrea Brambila (00:55:11) – This wine to me is definitely the apple. Get kind of like a caramelly smell, which could translate into that vanilla. So I think about caramel apples and that is we’re trying to bring out the aroma of vanilla in this with captivating the apple that the grape brings to this wine. And it’s just really smooth, not too over the top because there’s some buttery Chards. I think this gives a great mix of the fruit, plus the oak that’s used in this blend to create that harmony, and a really well balanced Chardonnay.
Natalie MacLean (00:55:46) – It is. It’s really balanced. So it’s luscious, but because it’s also grown in the cool climate of Monterey, California, that preserves its vibrancy, it’s little natural acidity. Both have to be there for that balance that you’re talking about. So this is just delicious. Making my mouth water even as I talk about it. So I got to try not to drool during the interview. So that could be construed as a compliment. So let’s talk about what you would pair with this wine, Andrea.
Andrea Brambila (00:56:15) – So I mean thinking again about Chardonnay, you’re thinking about butter. You’re thinking about nutty. So salmon, a Caesar salad, anything that has a rich, buttery, nutty character, I would say pairs really well with Chardonnay.
Natalie MacLean (00:56:28) – Absolutely. And there’s some amazing recipes on the Chloe site that I’m just going to take a moment to share right now. There have been some different pairings with these dishes, but I think this Chardonnay would also work. We’ve got the Chicken Florentine. Let’s see. Here we go. There’s the chicken Florentine recipe. And for those who are listening on the podcast, we will put links to these recipes. But I just absolutely like this is two chicken breasts. And for those who are listening can’t see this delicious recipe with sea salt. And you know, they’re just got this Dijon mustard and a dry white wine.
I wonder which one we would use in the recipe so you can cook and drink with the Chloe Chardonnay. We have a couple of other recipes here that I’ll just share as well for those who are able to see them, but again, we’ll put the links in. Here’s the pappardelle pasta with wild mushrooms would be wonderful as well. That’s on your your site. And even the Zella salad with it’s a very tomato based dish would be pretty amazing. Now let’s go back to Chloe in terms of its availability. If I understand correctly, it’s now both in the LCBO and SAQ for $19.95, which is an incredible price. It’ll also be featured on a time limited offer in June in the SAQ and in the LCBO in August. I also want to mention, though, that the Chloe Pinot Noir, also from Monterey County in California, will be coming out in late fall to both liquor stores. So did you want to say a quick word about the Pinot noir?
Andrea Brambila (00:58:06) – Again, the Pinot. We’re bringing it in a cool climate area. Really wanting to pull what’s from the grape varietal itself, not try to over blend, create something simple, something delicious, something juicy. Plum, cherry. I mean a little bit of oak. Not a tonne to me. Pinot Noir is a simple, easy to drink red. And the climate is very important to how the grape comes in to our facility and is processed.
Natalie MacLean (00:58:37) – Yeah, it loves a cool climate. I would say extraordinary value at $19.95 and then there’ll be some limited time offer some deals on those later this year. So to wrap up, Andrea, this is wonderful. What’s your ideal setting to enjoy a glass of wine?
Andrea Brambila (00:58:54) – I mean, it really depends on the day. Chloe is a brand that’s geared towards women. And when you think about it, with the bow and everything, we look at it as a treat for a woman. I mean a modern woman. We have modern women who are working, modern women who are raising families, some who are balancing both. This is a treat to have, whether you’re sharing it with your girlfriends, sharing it with your family at a celebration, getting home from work, and just wanting to pour yourself a glass for something sweet and delicious to enjoy. That’s I think where you would drink Chloe. The celebrations and life moments. I mean, everybody’s life is different. But again, Chloe is for women and getting that treat, that taste on a maybe nightly basis for some people if that’s what you’re looking for. I think Chloe really delivers that. It’s about treating yourself to something you really enjoy. So absolutely, that’s what goes behind this brand.
Natalie MacLean (00:59:54) – And it’s a great value. I mean, just the taste quality ratio is pretty off the charts. Do you have a tip on enjoying wine that you’d like to share with our listeners and viewers?
Andrea Brambila (01:00:05) – As I said before, I mean, I think wine should be enjoyed by everybody. And I think when you try one for the first time, if you don’t enjoy it take a second sip, take a third sip, and then really continue to explore. There’s so many things in life that we explore daily, so many adventures we put ourselves through. And I think wine is that same adventure. It’s just trying to find what you really enjoy and then continuing to, once you find one, keep looking around at other wines and tasting other wines and seeing the beauty of what somebody is creating. Because that’s what we love about wine making, is seeing people pick up a bottle at a grocery store or have a bottle at dinner. When they’re out at a restaurant, take these bottles to celebrations with their families and friends and really enjoy it. And it makes you happy. And it makes us happy to see that people are buying it and enjoying it with friends, family, and even just for themselves.
Natalie MacLean (01:01:04) – Absolutely. Well, congratulations on creating such a lovely wine.
Andrea Brambila (01:01:09) – Thank you.
Natalie MacLean (01:01:10) – Yeah, it’s been great chatting with you, Andrea. I’ll raise my glass and toast to you and and Chloe.
Andrea Brambila (01:01:15) – Thank you.
Natalie MacLean (01:01:15) – I look forward to the next time we can chat together.
Andrea Brambila (01:01:18) – Thank you very much, Natalie. It was great to talk with you.
Natalie MacLean (01:01:21) – Okay. Take care.
In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversations with Jennifer and Andrea, links to their websites, wines and books, the video version of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now no matter where you live. You can also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me, called the five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever. Happily Ever After at nataliemaclean.com/class.That’s all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/289.
Email me if you have a SIP tip question, or would like to win one of three copies of Jennifer’s terrific book, Sharing a Glass, or one of the three bottles of the luscious, lovely Chloe Chardonnay. I’d also love to hear from you if you’ve read my book or are in the process of reading it at [email protected]
If you missed episode 172, go back and take a listen. I chat about wine, super tasters, and great food pairings with the hosts of the X Chateau podcast, Robert Vernick and Peter Yeung. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.
Natalie MacLean – Wine ties together art and geography and science and commerce and history, even religion. And then we get the five senses the taste, smell and so on. So it’s a full sensory experience layered on top of that. And I think what makes wine different from food, and this gets short shrift, is that it’s a drug. Now, I know in excess it’s dangerous. But I think there’s a power in the fact that there is a buzz and you can get these mind altering states. You know, Michael Pollan has just started writing about that, Omnivore’s Dilemma, How to Change Your Mind.
Exactly. And I think we overlook that with wine often. Anyway, wine brought it all together for me. It was a full bodied experience from, you know, mind to heart to full body.
Natalie MacLean – You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with Jennifer Wilhelm. If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about Ontario and California wines. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on their favourite podcast app or they can listen to the show on my website. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps even a flight of Chardonnays from Niagara to Monterrey that celebrate the women behind the labels and the women who drink them.
You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
