Wine selections:

TOMMASI CHIARETTO 2008
VINTAGES 685057 | $12.95 | Veneto, Italy
(paired with homemade bruschetta from Luciano’s Fine Foods, 106 Preston Street)

VILLA RUBINI SCHIOPPETTINO
Consignment only - $19.95 (contact us if you’re interested in ordering)
(paired with Pingue Prosciutto, available at fine food shops including La Bottega, Nicastro shops, and The Piggy Market)

SANTERO BRACHETTO D’ACQUI
VINTAGES 119495 | $16.20 | Piedmont, Italy
(paired with "Turtles" - chocolate pots de crème with caramel and nuts, homemade at Pasticerria Gelateria Italiana, 200 Preston Street)

Read on for our wine picks.

Stacey’s picks:
Cono Sur Viognier ($9.95, LCBO 64287, Chile)
A medium to full bodied white with juicy, ripe tropical fruit flavours and a mouth-filling texture.  Pair it up with grilled scallops topped with Niagara peach salsa.

Freixenet Brut de Noirs Cava Brut ($12.95, LCBO 352369, Spain)
A rosé bubbly that’s crisp, refreshing and food friendly.  Perfect for welcoming guests, or pair it up with chorizo sausage or other simple tapas and charcuterie.

Candidato Oro ($7.95, LCBO 523811, Spain)
A blend of Tempranillo and Grenache creates an easy-drinking, spicy-fruity red wine that’s medium in body and a great match for grilled burgers, sausages, or spiced chicken or pork.

Rod’s picks:
Marques de Riscal Rueda Blanco ($12.35, LCBO 36822, Spain)
Made from Verdejo grapes, this white is fresh but full of ripe fruit flavour - a great choice for summertime.  Pair it with seafood paella, light tapas, or grilled chicken with lemon and herbs.

Remy Pannier Rosé d’Anjou ($11.95, LCBO 12641, France)
Intense strawberry flavour, refreshing acidity, and light body combine in this rosé from the Loire Valley in France that is delicious on its own as well as with any manner of grilled fare - Rod even enjoys it with steak!

Montalto Nero d’Avola/Cabernet Sauvignon ($9.95, LCBO 621151, Sicily)
Big body, big flavour, and perfect for your grilled red meats this summer.  Nero d’Avola is a grape native to Sicily that creates spicy, full-bodied reds that are often priced to provide incredible value.

We documented the 5 restaurant dining tour last night.  Stay tuned for updates.

Click here for the second installment:
 
We taste and talk about Southbrook Cabernet Rosé (Canada’s first certified biodynamic wine - you can read more about that below) and Rosehall Run Pinot Noir from Prince Edward County.  You can tune in to the LiVE 88.5 Start-Up to hear more installments through the spring!

If you happened to miss the Ontario wine fair, here’s your chance to take in some of the highlights!  I was lucky enough to hang out with radio hosts Katfish Morgan and Dave Schellenberg of the LiVE 88.5 Start-Up and we tasted our way around the wine fair, microphone in hand.  So thanks to LiVE 88.5, you can listen in on our tasting!  Click here for the first installment…

…during which we taste and talk about Wildass White from Stratus Winery and Henry of Pelham Baco Noir Reserve.  You can tune in to the LiVE 88.5 Start-Up to hear more installments through the spring!

Listen to the Podcast!

I had the opportunity to sit down, chat, and taste wines with the man himself – Grant Burge. 

He truly is a living icon in the wine world and has a passion for keeping his 150-year-old family tradition of winemaking alive. 

Click below to listen in on our Podcast conversation or download the mp3 file to listen later.  Then read the tasting notes for some of my favourite Grant Burge wines that are available in the LCBO and well worth seeking out. 

Henry of Pelham Wines to Try:

Cuvée Catharine Rosé Brut
LCBO 004051 $30.15
An award-winning bubbly made from traditional Champagne grapes Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. This wine is crisp and refreshing with a lovely balance of citrus and berry aromas and flavours, with a touch of toastiness. Perfect with seafood, including oysters and caviar.

2005 Baco Noir, Reserve
VINTAGES 461699 $24.95
This classic Niagara grape gives its best expression in this wine. It’s deeply coloured with rich, jammy blueberry and blackberry flavours, perfectly balanced with crisp acidity and a rich, long finish. Paired up with sausages or game meat like venison and you’ve got yourself some perfect Canadian comfort.

2002 Cabernet-Merlot, Speck Family Reserve
WINERY ONLY
An excellent choice for your cellar, this Cab blend offers concentrated dark fruit aromas and flavours, especially black raspberry. Produced only in vintage years this wine will age for at least 10 years. Can’t wait to open it? Decant and serve with a rich meal of braised lamb shanks.

To help us figure out the tricks behind hosting a great cocktail party, we have Angie MacRae joining us again today. Angie is Chef and Co-host of Food Network Canada’s national tv series This Food That Wine, and she also works as a private caterer so today we are going to learn from her experience – welcome Angie! 

Cocktail parties – it seems like they’d be less work than having a proper dinner party, but it never seems to turn out that way does it?

Listen now or download to iTunes.

If you haven’t seen our show, we explore the ins and outs of wine and food matching in each episode with a guest on the show who is hosting a party of some kind.  Angie figures out the menu and teaches the guest how to put it together, and then I do the wine matching.

One of the things we did quite often on the show is using wine as an ingredient in the cooking, and it turns out that this is a great trick in making a perfect wine match for your meal.  So let’s talk a little bit more about cooking with wine.

 Listen now or download to iTunes.

When it comes to wine and food, there are so many things to talk about.  But I know one of the questions I get asked the most is how do I know what wine goes with what food?  And of course there’s no one answer so let’s start there.

Tune into our wine and food pairing podcast or subscribe via iTunes.