Red, White & Bubbles with Big Head!

Looking up ‘Big Head’ in the dictionary, you’ll find all sorts of definitions for the colloquial term, including something along the lines of being “very boastful” and so on.  But Niagara’s Big Head Wines is far from that, and their name is derived from a more literal inspiration: Andrzej Lipinski, the winery’s Polish proprietor, has a big head (and according to him, so does his family and many other Poles) [Mike: being a Pole with a big head, I can confirm that this is an accurate and valid observation – no offence taken!]. Though the winery is firmly rooted in …

Stratus Finds Its Sparkle

We’ve had our pulse on all things effervescent in Niagara for a while now, and it goes without saying that the region is producing some exceptional, world class sparkling wines.  Stratus’ sparkling wine project has been something that we’ve heard a lot about (through the grapevine, if you will) over the years. Perhaps, you could call it Niagara’s worst kept secret. Luckily, Stratus’ foray into traditional method sparkling wine is no longer a secret with the launch of their 2013 Blanc de Blancs and its companion, the 2013 Brut Nature. The release of the 2013 Blanc de Blancs came to …

Cave Spring’s New Digs

This week we had the pleasure of attending an intimate, and physically distanced, winery tour and dinner at Cave Spring Vineyard’s new digs in charming Beamsville, Ontario. Over the past few years, one of Ontario’s most prolific and well loved wineries has worked diligently to move their tasting room from Jordan Village to where the magic happens… their vineyard and farm! Located at 4043 Cave Spring Rd, Beamsville, the new Cave Spring Vineyard tasting room is framed by the idea that the consumer’s experience is equally as important as the wines. We couldn’t agree more! To taste the wines in the …

Quarantine Talk with Thomas Bachelder

We interrupt your daily sparkling wine browsing with a special announcement: today, we’re going in depth on some exceptional still wines. That’s right: still wines. 😱 No effervescence, not a bubble in sight… unless you take into account the sparkling storyteller and prolific winemaker that is Thomas Bachelder. Last month, we sat down on Zoom with Thomas as part of a virtual tasting, and we discussed his latest release – “La Violette” – only the second release since being granted a retail license in 2019. Though we endured some technical difficulties which precluded us from creating a video of the experience, …

Gifts That Pop: Holiday Sparkling Survival Guide

It’s the most ✨sparkling✨ time of the year! And while we all know that sparkling wine should not be reserved solely for special occasions, there’s something about this time of year that most certainly calls for bubbles! 🍾 After all, you can’t spell “Happy Holidays” without “sparkling”. Actually… you can. But why the heck would you want to?! 😜

Holiday Wine 101: 10 Tips for Selecting Wine for the Holidays

Despite all the good cheer and festivity, the holidays can be pretty stressful – especially if you’re hosting and in charge of selecting the wine! So we’ve put together some helpful tips and tricks – call it Holiday Wine 101 if you will – to help take the stress and guess work out of selecting your wine for the holidays. Whether you’re hosting, or in need of the perfect host or hostess gift, these Top 10 tips will make your holiday wine shopping and experience as easy as can be!

The New 2019/20 Wine Country Ontario Travel Guide is Here!

The Niagara Peninsula appellation contains some of the most productive wine-growing areas in Ontario, shaped by the natural wonders of the Niagara Escarpment and the majestic Niagara Falls. According to Wine Country Ontario, the Niagara Peninsula provides ideal cool-climate conditions for wine growing and its diversity has resulted in the identification of 10 sub-appellations. Pretty cool, right? Some say that Niagara-on-the-Lake and the surrounding sub-appellation is the “Napa” of Ontario. While we tend to veer away from calling any place the “X of Y” because they tend to be less than meaningful, we do think there’s a little bit of …

Ring in 2019 with 19 Sparkling Wines under $19 dollars for NYE!

That’s right, you heard it here. You can absolutely ring in 2018 with plenty of quality sparkling wines that won’t break the bank on New Years’ Eve.

A Sparkling Recap of VQA Into the Bubbles

If there’s one thing we love, it’s sparkling wine. We could talk your ear off about the diversity of the category, and not to mention blog about it all day long. If you’ve seen some of our ventures with the Sparkling Winos project – like, our Sparkling Wine Map of Ontario – you’d have noticed that not only are we passionate about bubbly, but we’re totally enamoured with what’s happening in our own backyard. So, it was with immense pleasure, excitement and gratitude that we took on hosting duties for Wine Country Ontario’s VQA Into the Bubbles event on September 26, 2018!

Celebrating Ontario for Dinner with the LCBO

It’s the most wonderful time of the year in Wine Country Ontario… harvest season! And this year, we have lots to celebrate, as 2018 marks 30 years of VQA (the Vitners Quality Alliance, the provincial regulatory authority that administers Ontario’s wine appellation system) and 25 years of the iconic Food & Drink Magazine. And this past week, we had the incredible opportunity to celebrate these milestones with local winemakers, representatives from the VQA, LCBO staff, the Food & Drink dream team, and some of the magazine’s super fans at an intimate dinner. One of the best parts about Ontario is …