Lambrusco Day
Celebrating Red Fizz. The 11th annual World Lambrusco Day takes place on June 21, and what better way to celebrate than with some red fizz. Lambrusco (both the name of the grape and the wine) originated from Emilia-Romagna, and along with Jell-O salads, it was popular in the 1970s with sweeter brands like Riunite (who just launched a new canned format in the U.S.) and Chiarli Castelvetro. But there’s a new generation of Lambrusco, including Paltrinieri Solco dell’Emilia and Quarticello Ferrando (imported by Context Wines), who are using more traditional and low-intervention methods. These dry and drinkable Lambruscos pair well with pizza and with Friends!
Bottle Shop News. The CBC’s Bottle shops offer unique alcohol options, but how they're allowed to operate raises questions, shares the experiences of two bottle shops in the Waterloo region, the Old Galt Bottle Shop, and the Sidewalk Beer Shop, affiliated with the Princess Café, whose owner expects the shop to be a big part of their business post-pandemic. An expectation likely shared by TO Bottle Shops, who came to be when the Ontario government allowed restaurants and bars to sell alcohol with takeout, a temporary pandemic measure that was made permanent. And in A small wine boutique is changing the face of who is a tastemaker, the CBC wrote about Toronto’s Grape Witches, and the scholarship they started to support Black, Indigenous and people of colour who aspire to become wine professionals. Jaby Dayle was the first recipient of the scholarship and believes in telling the story of wine in a different way. Applications for the second annual scholarship are open until June 25.
It’s Ontario Wine Week (June 14-20) so what better way to celebrate than to Support Local™ with Ontario wineries. Some recent local releases include: Cave Springs 2019 Pinot Gris Estate, which has 16 hours of skin contact, and their CS2Go is a 4-pack of single-serve bottles of their sustainable and vegan Riesling, available at Midfield; Hidden Bench’s organic Locust Lane Rosé pairs well with Roséwave, and is also available at the LCBO; Rosewood’s 2019 Low Fidelity, formerly known as Unfiltered Pinot, is bone dry and unfiltered; Southbrook’s 2020 Triomphe Orange Wine is a blend of Vidal and Chardonnay Musqué; Stanners 2019 Pinot Gris is a 72 hour skin contact resulting in a copper colour aka cuivré; Therianthropy’s Ruby Woolf Pinot Noir is a lighter summer red; and Traynor teamed up with Grape Crush to make Birdie, a Vidal/Cabernet France/Merlot glou-glou blend, to name a few #OntarioWineWeek options.
Congratulations to Post Malone on his new $1.6M veneers with diamond fangs, and also on the release of his Rosé, Maison No. 9, available at the LCBO ($29.70). The Globe and Mail’s Christopher Waters wrote that the wine is “refreshingly dry and offers an honest-to-goodness taste of the south of France that’s sure to be a summertime hit.” And the Toronto Star’s Carolyn Evans Hammond said it “does what all great wines do: it commands your attention, taps your emotion and leaves you a little bit spellbound after the first sip.” The Grenache-based blend was made by winemaker Alexis Cornu in Provence.
