Happy September everyone! As you know, these days I’ve been fighting the travel bug by doing my wine travel through my palate. This wine travel idea inspired me to write an article for my neighbourhood magazine. It’s obviously written for a local Ottawa audience, but since most of you don’t live in the area, I’ve copied the article below (and added some pretty pictures), just for you. Enjoy!
Continue readingCategory: Whining (Page 1 of 2)
How is summer almost over? The days are already getting depressingly shorter. Sunset at 7:30? No fair! It feels like we were all just getting the hang of summer living in COVID times. But despite this crazy year, we can’t stop the passage of time. So here are my red, white and rosé top summer wine picks (all under $25!) to send summer off in style:
Continue readingIs it merlot or Merlot? Grenache or grenache? And is it sauvignon blanc, Sauvignon blanc or Sauvignon Blanc? As a language professional, it is my job to know: are the names of grape varieties in wines capitalized? Admittedly, I have tried to find the rule many times, but have never come up with a satisfactory answer. So it’s time to set the record straight once and for all by summarizing my research and issuing my professional recommendation.
Skip to the answer.
Continue readingTravelling with people with food sensitivities can be tricky. When sailing, we are lucky that we have a galley kitchen on the boat and can make meals onboard to our tastes. But it means getting creative sometimes. Continue reading
Once upon a time there was a valiant lady who won a great challenge. Her reward was to select the theme for the subsequent challenge, one that would allow the competitors an opportunity to momentarily set down the burden of their duties, have a cup of nectar and pick up a quill to pen their tales. Continue reading
As I mentioned in my last post, I was working on finishing my Advanced Sommelier class at Algonquin College this semester, and I am happy to announce that earlier this month, I successfully completed the course(!), thereby making me a sommelier. How crazy is that!? Continue reading
Updated November 24, 2020
It’s that time of year again, when you start panicking about all those perfect, personal gifts you have to buy. My advice? Keep it simple. And if you’ve got wine lovers on your list, I’ve got you covered! Here are my top wine gifts for the holidays—or just because!
A few weeks ago, I was at my local LCBO looking for a few bottles to bring to a friend’s house for dinner. She was going to be serving Middle Eastern fare, so I grabbed a bottle of dry riesling from Alsace, which I thought would go nicely with potentially spicy foods. To switch things up, I decided to grab a couple of IPAs, in case anyone wasn’t feeling the wine (scandalous!) and preferred beer.
I went for a bottle of the Fat Tug (which I reviewed here), one of the few beers from my Beer course earlier this year that I actually enjoyed. I grabbed it, and as I put it in the basket, I felt a sharp pain in my thumb.I didn’t think anything of it until about 20 seconds later, when I realized I was bleeding. I went back to inspect the bottle and noticed a small shard of glass, which looked like it had been fused to the bottle during the recycling process, on the neck. I set it aside and advised the cashier, who was nice enough to get me a band-aid, probably so I would stop bleeding all over the store.
Continue readingFriends,
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].
Spring has FINALLY sprung here in Ottawa, and besides making me ecstatic to see the end of winter, it’s making me take a step back and reflect. Both mornings this weekend, I sat in my backyard with my coffee, basking in the sunshine, taking the time to just be. I forget to do that sometimes. I forget to take time for myself. I get so caught up in work, in my various extracurricular activities, in the never-ending house renos, general housekeeping tasks, maintaining some semblance of a social life, and of course, keeping up with this blog.
So about that. Over the past couple of weeks, this wine blogging thing has taken up a lot of my headspace. Every time I taste a different wine, I put everything on hold to jot down a tasting note. My food goes untouched to keep my palate neutral, the conversation gets interrupted so I can concentrate, all for a silly tasting note that most of the time just sits in a notebook or on my phone. It makes me really annoying at dinner parties. Or when we go out for dinner and I have to tell my husband to stop talking for a minute while I taste this wine. Essentially, I’ve become a wine tasting monster. Continue reading
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