We’re ringing in the new year early at the WineCollective office today! To toast the last week of 2012 and our amazing year, we celebrated with bubbly. (Fortunately, we had a chilled bottle of Adami Garbel Prosecco on hand.)
Naturally, the celebration called for a bit more flair than usual; we decided to saber the bottle.
If you’re not familiar with the practice, sabrage is the process of opening a bottle of Champagne (or Prosecco in our case) with a sabre. We used a butter knife, and any flat, hard edge will usually do the trick. For a complete tutorial on the art of sabrage:
“…calmly lay the saber flat along the seam of the bottle with the sharp edge (either side works as well) ready to slide firmly against the annulus (glass ring) at the top. Your firm sliding of the saber against this ring is aided by the internal pressure of the bottle, so that the cork flies dramatically away and usually with one stroke of the sword.
When performed correctly, as noted above on a suitably chilled bottle of Champagne, the cork and glass ring will fly away, spilling little of the precious wine and leaves a neat cut on the neck of the bottle. Now, the Champagne is ready to be enjoyed. Not to worry, the internal pressure (100 psi) of the Champagne bottle always ensures that no glass falls back into the bottle making it safe for consumption.”
Cheers!
(CEO Matthew taking over after I loosened it for him.)
Like many of you, we’ll be saving the Champagne for midnight on the 31st, but we welcome your thoughts on sabrage techniques, and your Champagne for the new year.
Thank you for a fantastic 2012, wine lovers, and we look forward to sharing great wine with you in the new year!
Here is a simple way to calculate how much wine you will need for your Holiday soirée. Of course, some important factors that aren’t mathematically calculated will come into play. Are your friends wine-o’s or beer-o’s? Will there be a professional pouring the wine (the conservative 6 glasses per bottle) or will Cousin Daryl be filling every glass to the brim?
After taking into consideration your crowd and their partying past, follow these easy steps to ensure no glass goes empty.
One bottle of wine is 24oz
A standard glass of wine is 4oz
There are 6 glasses of wine per bottle
The general rule of thumb is to assume each guest will consume one glass of wine per hour. So, multiply the number of guests (if you know some people will not be drinking, do not include them) by the number of hours you are hosting. If you aren’t afraid of having a few extra bottles, add 15% more to make sure you won’t run out!
Kenaston Wine Market gives you some more suggestions depending on whether you are having a cocktail event, sit down dinner or planned tasting. The drink calculator from Evite, is a quick and easy way to decide on how many bottles depending on the ‘level of drinkers’ at your party. If you really want to be prepared, visit Table & Vine to break-down the types of alcohol and how much of each to purchase.
Now that you have figured out how much wine, you need to decide on what wines to serve? Take a look at some of WineCollective’s Holiday wine pairing tips and ideas. WineCollective members can also visit our online store to purchase wines that have been featured in previous WineCollective packages. Read the tasting notes, and food pairing suggestions before you buy (and save 10% off of retail prices). All orders placed before Friday, December 15th will be delivered before Christmas!
Looking for something special to impress your guests? Visit Tannic and sign up for a year membership. Members are able to preview wines before you buy, all wines are premium, 90+ and in limited supply.
At WineCollective, we enjoy all facets of wine education, but I like it it best when it’s fun. If you’re like me, check out this guy, Kris Chislett. He runs and contributes to blogyourwine, a site devoted to talking about wine in an informally informative fashion:
“Kris is one of only a few Certified Sommeliers (Court of Master Sommeliers) and Certified Specialist of Wine (Society of Wine Educators) in North-East Florida. He created this website in order to give people the resource he never had: an unpretentious, user-friendly, fun, interactive guide to the world of wine.”
The blog is a wonderful resource, both silly and fascinating, and I would have lost countless hours reading if the youtube channel hadn’t snatched that time instead!
Addressing questions like Do all the different wine bottle shapes mean something? or What’s the deal with non-vintage wine?, the channel is an easy and approachable guide for beginners. I found plenty of tips on wine etiquette (the cork is not to be sniffed!), terminology (wine has legs?), and info for tasting, storing, and travelling with wine. Interacting with users, Kris also takes questions and informs in a friendly, offbeat manner while still managing to be succinct.
For me the pièce de résistance is in the nerdy details like the difference between decanting and aerating (decanting is a typically longer process), and information I would classify as trivia:
(The bonus is finding new uses for existing words).
Cheers to Kris Cheslitt for his fresh approach to wine education. We know that wine is fun, and he proves it!
Congratulations to Tawse Winery, winner of Winery of the Year for the third year running! In addition to this unprecedented victory, the certified organic producers also collected 32 medals in more than 20 categories.
Located near Vineland on the Niagara Escarpment, Tawse Winery prides itself on its biodynamic farming techniques (the vineyard is essentially an ecosystem of its own). In addition to avoiding pesticides or fungicides, Tawse uses horse-drawn equipment. Farm animals have free range of the grounds to eat weeds and naturally fertilize the vines.
Sustainable farming done Old School
Winery owner Moray Tawse and winemaker Paul Pender possess an intuitive understanding of terroir, and they recognize its role in their success:
“As our vines get older and the roots go deeper, the wines get more interesting,” Tawse said. “The roots are uncovering more levels of minerals in the soil and the wines just keep getting better. Instead of fertilizing the top of the plant, we pay attention to the roots and the health of the soil – that’s what is paying off for us.”
Tawse Winery is a known WineCollective favourite. This year, we featured the 2009 Sketches Riesling, “an absolutely dynamite example of an Ontario Riesling” and a forerunner in our love affair with the grape, in our February packages. (We presented the 2008 Cabernet Franc on Tannic). The 2010 vintage continued the tradition of excellence pioneered by its predecessors by once again winning Best Canadian White.
We look forward to seeing what’s next for Tawse Winery, and for the many other fantastic producers who continue to set the bar for quality Canadian wine.
Look for detailed coverage of the Canadian Wine Awards in the December/January issue of Wine Access magazine (we know where you can get a subscription!).
At WineCollective, we understand the importance of health and appreciate an opportunity to support our health care workers. We were especially proud to help sponsor the 2012 ICU education day at the Foothills Hospital. As Critical Care nurse Pam Hruska explains, this is an important event meant to promote broader education for those responsible for caring for our health:
“Each year we organize this full day conference for critical care nurses, physiotherapists and respiratory therapists to provide a forum to refine knowledge and skills on relevant topics in our clinical practice.
Our enrollment this year included 120 critical care staff from all intensive care units within the city and we had six guest speakers. Our topics ranged from hemodynamic support, ecstasy & PMMA overdose, care of organ donors, the experience of life and death in the ICU, treatment of stroke patients, and an overview of critical care provided in STARS transport.”
WineCollective provided two packages as door prizes for the event. The winners were two hard-working Critical Care Nurses:
Congratulations! We’re more than happy to support the frontlines of Critical Care for the important and compassionate work they do.
The Holiday Season is fast approaching, soon enough we will all be knee deep in eggnog and onto our millionth turkey dinner. Before you leave your gift giving to the very last minute, consider WineCollective’s Holiday Packages and cross everyone off your list early this year.
WineCollective‘s Holiday packages are great gifts for family and friends, and also for your corporate gift list. Our packages are predetermined shipments of wine and other goodies for 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 months. Monthly packages starting in January, can be delivered to any home or office across the country.
If you have 10 or more gifts that you need to purchase for suppliers, partners, staff, or associates, we will pass along a corporate discount and do all the heavy lifting for you. Get in touch with us and we will ensure that everyone on your list is taken care of.
WineCollective Holiday Packages make the perfect corporate gift!
Just send us your list, we will do all the work for you!
If you have 10+ gifts to send, contact us and we will take care of all the details for you and give you 10% off your total.
Simple and easy. Not just wine, but an in depth wine experience package, teaching you about every wine we send out.
Community access to rate/discuss the wines, with the opportunity to purchase more at a WineCollective discount.
A donation of $2 is made to CAWST (Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology).
Custom tasting cards available with your company logo (contact for details).
Tannic membership ($195 value) included with 6 and 12 months gifts.
Monthly delivery of wine will extend the tidings and joy well into the New Year.
Contact us today for more information on corporate gifts!
At WineCollective, we love Halloween! Thinking of wine in connection to my favourite holiday, visions of vampiric indulgence from gothic chalices came to mind. The campiness of this imagery is clearly the influence of too many silly movies, so I turned my thoughts to the one area of horror we have come closest to documenting. I’m referring, of course, to ghosts. It occurred to me that the rich and colorful history of wine would surely produce a spirit or two, perhaps even a haunted winery (can you think of a better place to spend Halloween?).
My search into the topic brought mixed results (these tales thrive best as personal anecdotes), and drew me persistently to California. Apparently, spooks in connection to wine populate the Napa Valley region where Ghost Wineriesare found in abundance. These are old wineries, built between 1860 and 1900, before prohibition and the Great Depression stalled the emergence of great California wine. While some remain abandoned, and most have been converted for other functions, a few of these wineries have been restored to their original purpose.
Haunting Beauty
Mansfield Winery (pictured above) is one of these, a restoration of the Franco-Swiss Winery built in 1876. It was acquired with a ghost story in the form of Jules Millet, one of the original founder’s nephew who was murdered onsite by a vengeful former cellar worker. It wasn’t long until the new owners were paid a visit:
“One dark and wet winter night soon after the Mansfields purchased the winery, they were dining with friends when Richard took the guys over to the winery for a little late night tour. As they wandered around with flashlights, one of the more tipsy fellows yelled out, “If you’re here, Jules Millet, knock three times!” Only their laughter broke the silence. But then the next night, six loud explosions — “pop, pop, pop, boom, boom, boom,” recalled Leslie — erupted in the bowels of their own home. Richard was away on business, so Leslie hid in the bedroom all night until the next morning when she discovered the source in her basement. “Every flashlight that [the men had] taken across the street — and only those flashlights — had exploded into a million pieces,” says Leslie. The exploding bulbs included that in a dive lamp able to go down to 300 feet; a C battery was also bent in half. “The ones that had not been taken across the street were just fine.””
The story, like many in the winemaking business, is merely a footnote to the more satisfying history of production… and it seems the Mansfields have learned to get along with their ghost. Of course, that hasn’t stopped paranormal hobbyists from reaching out to the other side. Check out the alleged EVP recorded onsite.
While the tale of Jules Millet does give one the chills, it lacks the disturbing and macabre twists the best ghost stories have to offer. It is a yarn suited to campfires but if you want an opera, look no further than the truly grotesque tale of death and madness in what is today known as the Vineyard House.
You might want to grab a bold red from your current wine package before venturing into this one…
And there are many more! A true testament to wine’s longevity is its tendency, like anything that’s been around for a long time, to collect ghosts. If you visit a winery with rich local history, ask the staff or owners for their spooky stories. They’ll have them.
We are excited to announce that our WineCollective Holiday Packages are now available to purchase! We wrap up the ultimate wine experience for those that are wanting to expand their wine knowledge and palate. We also cater to oenophiles with some stellar cellar candidates as well. This year give the gift to friends and family across the country.
Avoid crowded malls, long lines, and mailing parcels. WineCollective will do all the work for you. When you purchase a Holiday Package, we will send a gift email on December 25th, then select the best wines and ship their first package in January.
Deliver directly to your father-in-law’s Okanagan cottage, sister’s office in Toronto, or boyfriend’s condo anywhere in Canada.
Choose from four bottles of all red, or four bottles of mixed wine delivered every month starting in January 2013. Packages of 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 months are available and come with some great bonus gifts (WineCollective tote bags, Wine Access subscriptions, CAWST donation and Tannic memberships)!
Why are WineCollective Holiday Packages so awesome?
Simple and easy. Not just wine, but an in depth wine experience package, teaching you about every wine we send out.
Community access to rate/discuss the wines, with the opportunity to purchase more at a WineCollective discount.
A donation of $2 is made to CAWST (Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology).
Include a personal note that will be emailed on December 25th, letting the gift recipient know of what an awesome gift they will be receiving.
Monthly delivery of wine will extend the tidings and joy well into the New Year.
There is also a printable gift letter that you can stuff into a stocking!
Corporate gifting made easy! If you have 10+ gifts to send, contact us and we will take care of all the details for you and give you 10% off your total.
Get your holiday shopping done early, and sign up today!
WineCollective loves supporting a great cause, especially when wine is involved! November, or Movember to some is an opportunity to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer. WineCollective is featuring Movember Wine Company’s Red Blend in all November packages. WineCollective will be one of very few ways to get your hands on this limited release.
The Movember Wine Company is brought to you by North by Northwest Wine Imports. The Movember Wine Company has produced 125 cases of their Cabernet Sauvignon based 2011 Red Blend and 75 cases of 2011 Riesling. The artwork on the bottle was designed and donated to the Movember Wine Company by local artist, Rick Wilson. $2 from every bottle sold is donated to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation.
Movember Wine Company’s wines are produced by Sleight of Hand Cellars in Walla Walla, Washington. WineCollective and Tannic have been fans of Sleight of Hand for awhile now, members have received some of their wines, such as The Archimage and The Illusionist. Sleight of Hand was named one of the “Next Cult Wineries of Washington State” by Seattle Magazine. Jake Kosseff notes that even in Washington state, you need to be on the winery’s mailing list to ensure you receive each vintage, as all wine produced from Sleight of Hand sells out within weeks to a month of release.
A few boutique wine shops in Calgary will have Movember Wines on shelves while they last, and restaurants such as Model Milk Bistro, will have it on their wine lists. Our friends and members outside of Alberta, WineCollective will be your only opportunity to enjoy these wines.
This was shot at Fairview Cellars on Oliver, BC’s Golden Mile Bench, South Okanagan.
WineCollective members, we have a task for you. Don’t worry, no homework involved and no wrong answers! All we want you to do is enjoy a bottle of wine, and tell us about it.
Let us know what wine you served with your turkey, ham or tofurkey for Thanksgiving. Share your stories on Facebook, Twitter or as a comment on the wine in your WineCollective account. All contributions submitted between October 5th to October 9th will be entered into a draw to receive your November shipment for free. Now that’s something to be thank-ful for!
You aren’t a WineCollective member? Sign-up now and you can still be entered to win when you share your Thanksgiving wine-of-choice.
Need some help selecting the perfect wine to bring to the in-laws, or what to pour for your guests? Check-out some suggested bottles and basics to turkey pairing from WineCollective.
It is quite obvious that we at WineCollective LOVE wine, and everything about wine! We are passionate about discovering new, and unique wines from all over the world. We also love sharing all kinds of wine news with our members, especially when we get the chance to congratulate one of our favourite B.C. producers.
SpierHead Winery in East Kelowna, has won the honour of 2012’s Best New Winery of the Year presented by the Okanagan Wine Festivals Awards. Along with this great accomplishment, SpierHead also won silver and bronze medals for several of their wines. The 2010 Pinot Noir was awarded a silver medal, the 2010 Chardonnay and the 2010 Pursuit both received bronze. Many more of our BC favourites were also recognized.
SpierHead’s Riesling has also received great acclaim, and is worth picking-up if you can find it. Western Living listed SpierHead as one of six new wineries to visit. On a recent visit to SpierHead I learnt the unfortunate news that most of their single varietals, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon are sold out. You can still purchase the popular blends, Pursuit and Vanguard as well as their Pinot Noir at the winery.
Hard at work, sampling the fruits of SpierHead’s labour. Note that all the photography and artwork by co-owners Brian Sprout and Virginia Stanton is available for purchase. Photo credit: Judy Bishop- The Travelling Eye
If you have the chance to visit SpierHead, I highly recommend stopping by. They are located in Kelowna, and have a beautiful setting and picnic area to enjoy while the weather is still accomodating. The tasting room staff are delightful and full of great information on the area and wines, of course.
I can’t forget to mention, the most important member of the SpierHead family, Corky. Corky is the winery dog, who even has a wine made in his honour (only available upon visit to the tasting room)! No visit to SpierHead is complete without playing “chip and fetch” with any golfers’ best friend; Corky will retrieve golf balls pitched into the field on SpierHeads property.
Corky, the most talented, golf ball-fetching winery dog in the Okanagan.
If you aren’t lucky enough to visit SpierHead this year, make sure to visit them online. You can join the SpierHead Winery Wine Club and start receiving shipments from the Okanagan’s Best New Winery of the Year!
Bill Knutson, co-owner of SpierHead, and myself enjoying the August weather in the shade of the winery. Photo credit: Judy Bishop- The Travelling Eye.
The Herald Sun in Australia is reporting interesting stats on Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. No longer is the beloved favourite, Sauvignon Blanc standing alone as champion. In Australia, Sauvginon Blanc was on the rise from 2006 to 2009, then in 2010 began to plateau. In following years Australia has seen Sauvignon Blanc take a fall.
The Herald Sun notes that Australians are “falling out of love with the wine that has dominated their drinking habits for the past 5 years.” This change of heart seems to be felt by women who are “leading the charge away from Sauvignon Blanc to Pinot Grigio”. Retail sales of Pinot Grigio in Australia has grown by almost 40% in the past year.
Although Pinot Grigio is fairly new to Australian production, the grape thrives in the Mornington Peninsula and other western areas. Wine Australia shows a break-down of varietals grown and what characteristics to expect from the region, including Australia’s crisp and fresh or spiced and buttery representations of Pinot Grigio.
WineCollective still has some of our featured Pinot Grigio from August available for members to purchase. The Peter Lehman Pinot Grigio from their Art Series is a perfect wine to bid farewell to the summer with. Enjoy both, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc awith WineCollective, because since when do you need to pick a favourite!
