The competition has been fierce, but so has the fun as wine lovers from coast to coast rally behind their most-loved wines. Get your final nominations and votes in today before we move to the finalist showdown phase!

In our second chat, Leanne and I discuss the economic value that domestic wines have in our economy, the dramatic rise of BC wines and how well Canadian wines pair with a variety of dishes, the focus of The Great Canadian Wine Match.

There’s still time to nominate and/or vote for your favourite Canadian wines. It just takes a few clicks and every wine is celebrated on the nomination wall.

Leanne also announces the launch of the wine of the week feature that I’ll be doing for CTV News starting on June 1. These will include both Canadian and international wines, available for purchase in Canadian liquor stores or directly from the winery. Cheers!

You can watch part one of our chat about Canadian wine and food pairing.

Posted with permission of CTV.

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 for #WBC13, as it is hashtagged on Twitter, and rooms available at either the Lakeside Resort or any of the motels along the beachfront strip.

Here’s the deal: for $95, citizen bloggers receive two lunches, two, dinners, several receptions, numerous parties, transportation to local wineries, as well as the famous Live Blogging event (better known as speed tasting.) Essentially, it provides all the wine one can possibly taste in a weekend and enough material for six months of posts.

It’s not all about tasting, though. There are valuable wine and tech-related symposia to sample. The only assumption is that bloggers will blog, tweet, pin, instagram, and You Tube their experiences in the Okanagan Valley.

Speeches

Past speakers have included author Janice Robinson, journalist Eric Asimov, Bonnie Doon’s Randall Graham, Sideways author Rex Pickett, writer Steve Heimoff, journalist Lettie Teague, AOL’s Barry Schuler, as well as Gary Vaynerchuk when he was still into wine. Only Rex Pickett drank through his presentation, which was an interview instead of speech.

This year’s keynote speaker is James Conaway, author of Napa: the Story of an American Eden and the recent Nose. I’ll be bringing my yellowed copy of Napa to get an autograph.

Sessions

These breakout sessions are about either wine or science – or both – and can be very interesting.

One session in Charlottesville, gave us packaged food items to sniff while tasting wines that embodied those flavors. In the Neuroscience of Wine session in Portland, we learned how our brains respond to wine aromas, and we performed tasting experiments on each other.

The 2009 Wine Blogger Conference was where I first learned how to tweet, and every conference has featured the latest social media.

The conference rooms are literally enveloped in social media. During the main events, screens project our #WBC13 hash-tagged tweets on the proceedings and everyone tries to outdo each other with one liners. It’s Twittertainment.

Mystery Tours

One afternoon or evening is spent on a luxury coach driving to local wineries for tasting and a meal. Each bus goes on a different trail of wineries and when you board you have no idea where you are going.

In 2009, the tour culminated at the remote, super-premium Antica winery in the shadow of Atlas Peak in Napa where we were treated to a fantastic, barbeque feast. In 2011 we toured the property where Thomas Jefferson attempted and failed to grow wine grapes, at a winery that carries his name. Last year, our tour was comically interrupted by an Oregon cop who forced us off our bus and into the nearest winery.

You just never know what will happen on the winery tours.

Live Blogging

This even is like speed dating, where the bloggers sit and take notes and the wineries float from table to table, pouring and pitching their wines for five minutes each. You have to think and drink fast to keep up.

Before 2010, Live Blogging was a one-shot, drink-all event. Then, organizers decided to split the event into a white tasting one day and a red tasting the next. Speed tasting is the closest thing to a sporting event at WBC.

Banquets

Dinners are usually preceded by blog awards from Mutineer Magazine or by comedic shtick from a local sommelier. But as far as the meal itself, last year’s dinner in Portland will forever be a hard act to follow. King Estates brought its own local food, its own chef, and its own team of servers to lay out a dinner of epic proportions. We knew their wines were excellent, having visited the estate twice, but this meal was an amazing showcase of culinary excellence.

The most bizarre dinner occurred at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, where 300 wine maniacs gathered for a garden tasting in 95 degree heat. We almost melted. The mansion was air conditioned, but no wine was allowed inside. It was still fun.

Receptions and Parties

In response to bloggers habit of bringing our own bottles to pour around, organizers have arranged an official BYOB event, which last year amounted to a lake of wine.

In addition to the sponsored receptions, Wine bloggers are known to roam the host city in search of wine. In Walla Walla, named for its wall-to-wall tasting rooms, attendees formed a downtown wine crawl. In Charlottesville, no restaurant on West Main was left unexplored by Rioja seekers. I hope Penticton is ready for us.

Then, hotel room parties carry on after the post-dinner events. It may be a private gathering or a sponsored soiree, but you can always count on tasting something interesting, if not a flight of six vintages of Jordan Cabernet.

It all makes you crave a frosty ale. Cindy Molchany at WBC Headquarters says that both pre-conference excursions are full, but registration to the general conference is open until June 7th.

Moreover, she says, even if someone isn’t specifically a wine blogger, but are interested in social media, learning about blogging or if they enjoy wine, great food and good company, they are welcome.

Register: 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference

Again, it’s only $95 for two days of wine, food and technology. What a bargain!

Here’s the agenda: 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference in Penticton, BC

Thursday, June 6
4:30 – 7:00 PM  Registration and Tradeshow 7:00 – 11:00 PM  Opening Reception with Great Estates of the Okanagan

Friday, June 7
9:00 – 10:00 AM  Registration
10:00 – 10:15 AM Conference Opening
10:15 – 11:15 AM Keynote speaker – James Conaway
11:15 – 12:00 PM  Current State of Wine Blogging – Survey Results
12:00 – 1:30 PM  Lunch with Wine Country Ontario
1:45 – 2:45 PM  Breakout Sessions
- Session 1: Google Plus Workshop
- Session 2: Creating Compelling Content
- Session 3: Wine-related content with Wines of South Africa
3:00 – 4:00 PM  British Columbia Live Wine Blogging – white wines
4:00 – 8:00 PM  Excursions to Penticton-area wineries
9:00 – 11:00 PM  Evening Reception with the Oliver-Osoyoos Wineries Association

Saturday, June 8
7:30 – 9:15 AM  Breakfast in the Park with Downtown Penticton Association
9:30 – 12:00 PM  Block Sessions
- Session 1: Wine Country Videography, Photography, & Podcasting Workshop
- Session 2: Learn to be a Wine Judge via an In-Depth Look at BC Wine
12:00 – 1:30 PM  Lunch with Wines of Uruguay
1:45 – 2:45 PM  Breakout Sessions
- Session 1: Positioning Your Blog
- Session 2: Search Engine Optimization
- Session 3: Drink Them Before They’re Famous
3:00 – 4:00 Liquid Gold: Inniskillin Icewine Tasting
4:15 – 5:15 PM British Columbia Live Wine Blogging – red wines
5:30 – 7:00 PM  Pre-Dinner Reception with New Wines of Greece
7:00 – 7:30 PM Wine Blog Awards Presented by Mutineer Magazine
7:30 – 9:00 PM  Banquet Dinner with Destination British Columbia
9:00 – 11:00 PM  The World of Wines Evening Party
Mari Kane is a wine writer and blogger from Sonoma County, now living in Vancouver. Her wine blog is Tasting Room Confidential and you can follow her on Twitter.

In the first part of our chat on CTV News, Leanne and I talk about the great groundswell of support that The Great Canadian Wine Match has received across the country, as well as the regional rivalry between east and west coast wines.

Get some great wine picks and pairing tips for the Victoria Day weekend … and find out how you can get involved before we move to the finalist showdown phase this Tuesday.

Watch part two of our conversation about this Canadian wine competition.

Posted with permission of CTV.

Enjoy,
Natalie

Sale Ends: May 26, 2013

Sale Price: $9.95 | Save: $1.00 (Usually $10.95)

Natalie’s Score: 87/100

Cusumano Syrah

Incredible for this price point! Luscious and full-bodied with layers of fleshy-rip dark fruit. Smooth and tasty.

Drink: 2011-2013
LCBO Code: 145490
Sugar Code: Extra Dry

Find this wine  in your closest LCBO stores now. Feel free to share this thrifty wine find on Facebook or on Twitter for Wine Wednesday #WW with thirsty friends.

Know others who prefer not to pay more than they have to for pleasure, at least when it comes to wine? Please forward this to them and they can get my weekly wine bargain bottle.

Love this! Wine Blogger Joe Hache took the initiative to create this video about the 6 Prince Edward County Wines that he’s nominated for The Great Canadian Wine Match. It’s awesome to see the people behind the labels… however, you don’t have to live in wine country, as Joe does, to create a simple video of your favourite wines.

Download the free YouTube app on iPhone, Android or Windows and take a quick video clip from your smartphone of your wine(s), or do it from your laptop using your built-in video camera and YouTube recorder button. Either way, just takes a few clicks – no special expertise required, and it’s fun!

You can also try the nifty new Vine app from Twitter for iPhone. If you create a video, I’ll post it here and share it with 30,000 wine-lovin’ friends on social media.

This is truly a grassroots groundswell for Canadian wines … let’s keep it rolling!

Cheers,

Natalie

We talked about how the contest involves wine pairings for six food categories with voting done online with real-time results reflected in the number of votes for each wine and its relative ranking in the competition. Full engagement of social media is at the heart of this food and wine pairing competition.

Posted with permission of CBC.

The Canadian Press (CP) news service syndicated this story to newspapers and web sites across the country on May 2.

OTTAWA – Oenophiles can vote for their favourite food and wine pairing with a new online competition that launched Thursday.

Instead of experts weighing in with their choices, The Great Canadian Wine Match lets ordinary wine drinkers from coast to coast vote for their favourite wine and food pairings.

Natalie MacLean, who has combined the old world of wine with the new world of technology and social media with an app, blog and website, will moderate the competition, including coast-to-coast video chats using Google + Hangouts.

Until May 20, people can nominate and vote for their favourite pairings via social media and real-time, online voting. The Twitter hashtag is #GCWM.

After that, one wine from each region in Canada will vie to be named the best wine with a particular Canadian dish.

The six Canadian food categories are cheese, chicken, beef, seafood, pizza and dessert.

Winners will be announced June 2, giving Canadians suggestions for the country’s best wines to sip at summer gatherings.

“This is a coast-to-coast toast to celebrate our own wine and food,” MacLean said. “I think we can all drink to that.”

MacLean is also the author of “Red, White and Drunk All Over” and “Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines.”

For more information, visit www.nataliemaclean.com/canadian-wines.

Posted with permission of CP.

That’s the question being asked by Canadian wine writer Natalie MacLean who has worked up a time-sensitive way to pit region against region in The Great Canadian Wine Match, the object of which is to pair your favourite wine with a particular type of food, eventuating in a winner at the end to be voted on by participants in the social media campaign.

Crowd-sourcing competitions like these have flourished in recent years, Canadian Idol notwithstanding. CBC has managed to turn reading into a contact sport with its Battle of the Books reality program. Natalie’s new project takes a similar tack, collecting votes until May 20 at which point the wine with the most votes from each region of Canada will take on the others in a final showdown, to be determined by the wisdom of the crowd on June 2.

The regions are: Western Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and Eastern Canada. The food pairings are: beef, chicken, cheese, seafood, pizza, and dessert. No poutine, which is a disappointment. I will conduct that competition as a separate, private event.

I chatted briefly with Natalie MacLean via email.

What do you figure technology and social media brings to the experience of drinking wine that we didn’t have previously?

Technology and social media allow us to share the pleasure of wine with so many other drinkers who may not be at the physical table with us. On Twitter and Facebook, for example, there’s constant banter back and forth about a particular pinot noir or cabernet that someone has just discovered. Then someone else will suggest a food pairing or how long to decant the wine before serving. You could say that wine and technology pair as well together as a robust cabernet and a juicy steak: one enhances the other.

You are timing this to coincide exactly with the Stanley Cup playoffs. Is this some kind of ploy to take people off their game when they should be concentrating on winning? Or do you see it as complementary?

Contrary to how it may appear, The Great Canadian Wine Match is not a ploy to distract Canadians from the Stanley Cup. In fact, wine pairs well with watching the game. Which wine depends on how your team is doing: if they’re winning, I’d recommend zesty, uplifting Riesling paired with potato chips. If they’re losing, then how about a robust cabernet with a long bitter finish?

In the end, the finalists will appear in a Google+ hangout with Natalie, the moderator, to implore others to push their candidate wine over the top to social media victory.

Start your engines here.

Posted with permission of CanTech.

Wine, Cheese and Brunch make the Perfect Trio

Running out of dinner party ideas? Change things up by inviting your friends over for brunch instead. It’s less stressful than planning a dinner and gives you a whole afternoon to chat and catch up.

If you’re looking for something different to make, this recipe for Berry, Mascarpone, and Oat Crisp Salad is just the thing. With Canadian Mascarpone cheese, it’s deliciously refreshing and very simple to prepare. In fact, it’s bound to become a staple in your brunch rotation.

And to complement the wonderfully creamy taste of the cheese, you want something fruity and sparkly, like the rosé cava wine Freixenet Cordon or a sparkling rosé champagne like R. Pouillon & Fils. Pour yourselves some bubbly and drink to the long afternoon of laughs that lies ahead.

Ingredients

¼ cup (60 ml) rolled oats
1 tbsp (15 ml) whole wheat flour
2 tbsp (30 ml) brown sugar
1 tbsp (15 ml) soft butter
½ cup (125 ml) Canadian Mascarpone
¼ cup (60 ml) milk
2 tbsp (30 ml) brown sugar, honey or maple syrup
3 small cantaloupes, halved, seeded and diced
1½ cups (375 ) strawberries
1½ cups (375 ) raspberries
1½ cups (375 ) blueberries or any other fruit of your choice

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375oF (190oC).

Mix rolled oats, flour, brown sugar and butter. Spread onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Cook about 10 minutes or until golden and crunchy. Let cool.

Whip Mascarpone with milk and sweeten with brown sugar, honey or maple syrup.

Using a spoon, scoop out the cantaloupe flesh and dice. Mix berries with the cantaloupe, divide into cantaloupe halves, garnish with Mascarpone preparation and oat crisp, and savour.

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