Discover your wine style, one glass at a time

Category: Travel (Page 2 of 2)

Taste Community Grown: A Weekend in the Bay of Quinte

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All set for a food and wine event

As some of you may already know, I was recently in Prince Edward County (PEC). I’m often surprised by how many people don’t even know about this gem of a region. About 3 hours from Ottawa and Montreal, and 2.5 hours from Toronto, Prince Edward County is an absolutely idyllic corner of Ontario.

I am a city girl through and through. But this is country life I can get behind! There is something really special about PEC. It has this sense of place and community that is so prevalent. People are proud to live in the County. And it is palpable. As soon as you cross the bridge to the peninsula, there is instantly a different vibe. It’s a bit like that scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens the door to her house after the gale and everything goes from black and white to technicolour.

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « wizard of oz door opening after gale gif »

We always seem to be in a huge flap to get there, but once we do, life immediately slows down. Maybe it’s the beautiful scenery. Maybe it’s the delicious food and wine coming out of the region. Everything seems to taste better there. There are certainly plenty of reasons why people are fleeing their big cities en masse and heading to the County on weekends. Continue reading

Nostalgia de España

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Awesome graphic from creativeyatra.com

I seem to be on a bit of a Spanish kick lately. I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps it is my nostalgic associations with the country. Back in the day, I did an oh-so-cliché third year abroad in Salamanca, a small Spanish town halfway between Madrid and the Spanish border with Portugal. I lived in an apartment inhabited by 6 other international students, who after 5 months of cohabitation became my friends for life. Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the infamous Don Quixote, is rumoured to have studied at the Universidad de Salamanca (it was so long ago, no one knows for sure), where I took Spanish literature courses in classrooms three times older than Canada itself. In a country where businesses close for a siesta for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours in the afternoon, where tapas are a way of life, and where most families don’t even start thinking about dinner before 9 p.m., I spent way too much time stressing out about classes and coursework. If only someone had told me that the marks on year-abroad courses were pass/fail! Continue reading

End-of-vacation w(h)ining

Friends,

Let us take a moment of silence to mark the end of a glorious two weeks of vacation. It was a brief staycation, cut short by my employer’s requirement that I actually return to work. Total buzzkill. This time off will be sorely missed. But it’s time to get back to saving the world, one translation at a time [translator’s note: this may be a gross exaggeration].

Continue reading

Spotlight on Benjamin Bridge, Nova Scotia

Though you maybe can’t tell from the title, this is Part 2 of a two-part series on Wining in Nova Scotia. Be sure to read Part 1!

Our first wine-tasting stop in the Annapolis Valley was at a winery that accepts visitors by appointment only and is not even visible from the road. Detailed instructions are necessary since it is totally unmarked. Armed with Google Maps and the directions I received from the winery by email, we still managed to get a bit lost. Continue reading

Wining etc. in Nova Scotia

A few weeks ago, we went on a loooooooooong road trip to the Maritimes (like 1600 km long…one way). We were going to a friend’s wedding in Nova Scotia, and I decided to take the whole week off since I had never really spent much time on the East Coast, save a choir trip in Grade 7 (yes, yes, I am a choir nerd) and a couple of trips to Halifax to visit friends in my university days. I was due for some quality mari-time on the East Coast (see what I did there?).  When organizing the trip, besides planning to eat a lot of lobster (success!), I obviously planned for a day of wine tasting.

Continue reading

Quebec City Wining

We were in beautiful Quebec City over the Family Day long weekend. And it was cooooooold. Not just the regular need-to-wear-a-toque-today cold, but the pull-out-the-long-underwear-and-balaclava kind of cold. It was the second year in a row with these same frigid temperatures over the long weekend. I remember, not only because my Facebook feed was filled with Memories from a year ago side-by-side with similar cold-related posts, but also because we had been on our same annual ski weekend, so the cold was particularly memorable. Now, I should mention that I am not in any way a skier. I tried it a couple of times when I was younger, but since I hate the cold, it turns out it wasn’t really my thing. So for the past three years, we have gone on an annual ski trip over the long weekend, which generally involves me hanging out by the fire with the cottage to myself while everyone else freezes their nuts off on the ski hill all day. I love it!

For this year’s ski trip, my husband and I, along with another couple had rented a really cute AirBnb in a quaint hillside town halfway between Quebec City and Mont Ste-Anne. We left Friday night right after work in, of course, a blizzard. Typical start to the long weekend. Needless to say, it took us much longer than expected to get there, and only arrived after midnight. We had a quick drink (a glass or two of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, in case you were wondering) then went to bed.

My husband was sick with a cold, so he passed on skiing on Saturday. Our friends took off first thing in the morning to take advantage of the fresh powder, while my husband and I had a much-needed sleep in. Our big adventure for the day was getting bundled up for the -30 °C temperatures with the wind chill and walking the 500 metres to the grocery store and back. I put together a beef stew in the crockpot and opened up a bottle of The Show. Yes, that’s right, the failed rib pairing (see link for wine description). You will be happy to hear that this rich Californian red was fabulous both in and with the beef stew. The rest of the evening was spent opening more bottles (including a bottle of my go-to cava, Segura Viudas) and playing various games, including Code Name and our family favourite, Cards Against Humanity.

The next morning involved another sleep-in.  Once we eventually got moving, we headed to the Chutes Montmorency, a beautiful half-frozen waterfall a ten-minute drive from where we were staying. It was just as cold that day, so you’ll have to excuse me if I didn’t risk getting frostbitten fingers to take pictures, if only to keep my typing skills (and by extension, this blog) intact. Here’s a stock photo instead:

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Source: quebecvacances.com

Luckily, my husband has heartier fingers than I do (or what is known as “man hands” in our household) and was able to doff his gloves momentarily to snap this lovely selfie.

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As some of you may recall, the Sunday of the long weekend was Valentine’s Day. And since we had just celebrated our “real” 8-year anniversary (real because it commemorates when we became a couple, not our wedding, and is therefore really where it all began), a nice dinner out was in order. Quebec City has an excellent selection of nice restaurants, so after getting a few recommendations from a friend, we finally settled on Chez Boulay.

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Cocktail hour with friends

We started off with some cocktails. They had some very interesting concoctions, and I of course chose something with a local sparkling wine in it, seeing as the restaurant’s mandate is to offer traditional nordic fare using regional ingredients.

We ordered some appetizers to start: some bison tartare as well as the salmon tartare. We all chose our mains and my sommelier skills were going to be put to the test when choosing a bottle of wine to go with all four meals. We were ordering the following:

  • Confit goose and duck parmentier with scalloped parsnips, sautéed green cabbage, herb pesto with Labrador tea, cooking jus
  • North Atlantic scallops with cranberry powder, navy bean and leek ragout, cooking ju
  • Cod fillet, gaspesian broth infused with Kombu and smoked cod, potato purée with seaweed from Gaspésie, green onion emulsion
  • Pan seared milk-fed veal medallion from Quebec, liver meatloaf, fried jerusalem artichokes, brussel sprouts, gnocchi with black walnuts and mustard cream sauce

Are you drooling yet?

So what did I have to work with? Two dishes that traditionally paired with white (fish/shellfish) and two that generally went with red (red meat). Also, my fellow diners were in the mood for a white, so that was tipping the scales as well. Plus I wasn’t super familiar with many of the wines on their list, so I happily enlisted the help of our server, who suggested a versatile Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley from Henry Pellé.

I even discovered a new appellation I’d never heard of before: Menetou-Salon. It’s the one right next to Sancerre, home of perhaps the most famous French sauvignon blancs.

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Menetou-Salon, located right-dab in the middle of France

This bottle was so lovely that I didn’t care that I was drinking a white wine with my red meat (goose and duck – YUM). It was light-medium bodied with a lot of apple flavours. I also got a bit of pear and definitely a lot of citrus. You could also see the terroir coming through in the wine’s subtle minerality. It also had plenty of acidity, so it was great with all of our dishes. Everyone was happy (though I was maybe the only one who really cared about what we were drinking ;-)). I was even happier when I discovered that this wine is available across the river at the SAQ! But it looks like stocks are limited, and at the $24+ price point, I’m not sure that I will be trekking across the bridge solely for that bottle. However, with the 15% bulk discount offered at SAQ Depots, my arm could be twisted.

What bottle did you open for Valentine’s Day? Or simply to beat the cold? Whatever the bottle, and whatever the occasion, I hope it was a lovely one.

 

Happy wining!

 

 

 

 

Wining in DC – Part 3

This is the final part of a 3-part series on Wining in DC. If you missed Parts 1 and 2, you can read them here: Part 1  |  Part 2

The great thing about taking a long weekend, is that when you wake up on Saturday morning, you’ve already had two good nights out, yet you still have the whole weekend ahead of you! It’s a wonderful feeling, so Mere and I decided to take advantage of all this time we had…by doing absolutely nothing all morning. Continue reading

Wining in DC – Part 2

This is part 2 of a 3-part series on Wining in DC. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

Happy Hour is a bit of a ritual in DC. It doesn’t really matter what day of the week it is, but if it is between 5 and 7 p.m., you can be sure that you will be able to find a bar or a restaurant with Happy Hour specials within a one-block radius. Happy Hour is a great way for a business to attract customers, and an excellent way for customers to try out an establishment’s menu and ambiance, and potentially stay for dinner. Continue reading

Wining in DC – Part 1

Washington, DC is such a great place. I think it gets a bad rep as a lifeless and drab political capital, but it really is a town with lots going on. At least in comparison to our own nation’s capital here in Canada. I visited DC last in 2006, and I was surprised by how much it has changed since then. I can now attest that DC has a happening food and wine scene, with something to please everyone.

I was originally going to just do one post about this great town, but I realized I had too much to say, so this has now evolved into 3 different posts. Welcome to Wining with Mel’s first multi-post series!! Continue reading

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