Tag: Wine Writing
Book review: Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th edition
If there’s one book I recommend all wine enthusiasts possess—no matter their level of knowledge or interest in wine—it’s the Oxford Companion to Wine (OCW). Yes, it’s an encyclopedia: bloody heavy and astonishingly comprehensive. It’s […]
Vancouver Island wine & spirits
The thing about being an editor for an alt weekly paper while maintaining a full-time day job is that it’s really difficult – okay, almost impossible – to get enough ahead on your writing that […]
Digging through the archives: Edmonton’s liquor history
A couple weeks ago I holed up in Edmonton’s municipal archives to see what I could dig up on the city’s booze history. It culminated in this week’s Vue Weekly cover: an annotated timeline of […]
Is Edmonton’s Wine Industry Lazy & Entitled? (Northern Lands Fest)
I knew it would piss off a lot of people. My most recent cover story in Vue was about the Northern Lands Canadian Wine Festival, which is a super exciting event happening this weekend and […]
The Definitive Ranking of Wine Gadgets
Wine aerators are the worst. No other wine gadget has been able to pique my involuntary hate reflex as much as these things. (And yes, I do seem to be on a bit of a […]
The Shiraz Effect
I’m so fucking sick of Malbec. I’ve been fucking sick of Malbec for a while now; in fact I published the original version of “The Shiraz Effect” on my old blog back in 2010. As […]
The Wine Epiphany
I have a confession to make: I never had a wine epiphany. No single bottle slapped me in the face and announced, “Nice of you to finally notice me. I will now dominate a large […]
Mega Purple? Mega No Thanks.
It was a shocking shade of purple and there was no way it was natural. Ever seen a wine that seemed to defy the laws of nature? Carnivor Cabernet Sauvignon is one of them. It’s […]
Edmonton’s 2014 Food Year in Review & Predictions for 2015
You’ve seen enough annual year in review lists; here’s one more. I put together a collection of food trends over the past year, concentrated on local Edmonton stuff but with an eye to the greater […]
Offbeat Wine Countries
An Israeli wine made the Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2014. Bet you didn’t even know Israel made wine, did you? A little while ago I wrote a Vue wine column about a handful of […]
Exploring Biodynamic Wine with Benziger Family Winery
A ram’s horn filled with manure and buried under the full moon: it sounds like some kind of archaic ritual, but it’s actually a practice carried out by thousands of contemporary winemakers. Biodynamics is essentially […]
So you want to be a Sommelier?
When I tell people I’m a sommelier their typical reaction is usually one of both admiration and confusion. “A sommelier?” they ask. Then, “Wow! But what exactly does that mean?” (There was also that memorable […]
