This year’s record-breaking warm, dry summer gave grape-growers and winemakers a sweet taste of what climate change has in store for Nova Scotia. That heat came just after a freeze in early June—late in the season for a frost so severe—offered another, bitter, glimpse at what climate change will look like in our vineyards. “There […]
wine
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A Festival of Wines Grand Tastings survival guide
Festival of Wines Grand Tastings Saturday 28-29, 1-4 & 7-10 pm Cunard Centre, 961 Marginal Road $65, ticketatlantic.com For the first time, the Festival of Wines will expand its focus beyond one country, this year featuring wine made all over North America. At the fest’s four grand tastings this weekend, more than 350 wines will […]
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Avondale Sky’s blank canvas
Avondale Sky Winery 80 Avondale Cross Road Newport Landing When Justin Floyd was tasked with designing the menu at Avondale Sky Winery’s patio restaurant, he settled on a simple concept. “I wanted to make food that I would eat while drinking wine, on a deck, on a sunny day, in a beautiful place,” he said, […]
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DRINK THIS: Planters Ridge’s Infatuation
Planters Ridge, still a new kid on the wine block in Nova Scotia, has been releasing an array of clean, innovative, high-quality wines since opening in 2014. It seems the winery nails it every season with at least one wine, and in very competitive categories— last year Planters Ridge made my favourite Tidal Bay by […]
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Obladee’s thirst for knowledge
Introduction to Wine Tuesdays July 31- August 28 Obladee, A Wine Bar, 1600 Barrington Street eventbrite.ca or reserve@obladee.ca. $285 For its population, Halifax graduates an impressive number of sommeliers. Nova Scotia is also a very young wine region and most local drinkers of wine are new to the beverage. Starting at the end of this […]
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DRINK THIS: Chain Yard’s Drunken Cherry cider
Jay Hildybrant isn’t afraid to play around with ingredients, but the head cidermaker at Chain Yard Urban Cidery never wants to bury the best parts of cider under too much sugar. “For the longest time there’s been a stigmatic idea cider needs to be sweet and needs to taste like apples. To me, it’s time […]
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Nova Scotia Pét-Nat’s natural beauty
It sounds like the most natural thing in the world. “You’re harvesting grapes, pressing them in whole clusters, letting the juice sit, and the ferment starts,” explains Bruce Ewert. “When the sugar gets to a level that I know would produce bubbles, it’s bottled.” And that’s it? “And that’s it.” Ewert, winemaker at l’Acadie Vineyards, […]
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What’s cooler than being cool? Icewine.
In the middle of winter, it’s tempting to do everything possible to escape the cold. What would it look like, though, to embrace winter’s icy grip? To find warmth and community in the deep freeze? It might look something like the Nova Scotia Icewine Festival, an annual event in the Annapolis Valley that showcases for […]
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Nova Scotia’s grape growth mindset
Wineries all over Atlantic Canada are celebrating last season’s harvest. Grapes hung on the vine longer than usual during our warm fall, boosting sugar and mellowing acidity. With little rain, their flavours and aromas concentrated, with less spoilage from moulds and mildews. After such a season, we should expect people to be excited about growing […]
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Nova Scotia wine’s time to shine
Twenty seventeen was a momentous year for Nova Scotia wine. At home, we organized a successful Atlantic Canada Wine Symposium, hosted the WineAlign National Wine Awards and launched our 2016 Tidal Bay, the sixth vintage of our appellation wine. Our wineries released innovative new styles like Pétillant Naturel and excelled with new-to-us grape varieties like […]
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Warner Vineyards—Nova Scotia’s grape god
It’s been a dry summer. As John and Anne Warner walk around their vineyards, the grass crunches underfoot like gravel. Leaves and fields are tinged with yellow and dust picks up on the country roads with each breeze. Cereal crops planted in between the grape trellises struggle to make their way through the cracked dirt. […]
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Viticulture shock
Sean Myles has been working on breeding new grape varieties since 2011, when he partnered with Hans Christian Jost—the then-owner of Jost Vineyards—on a cross of Muscat and L’Acadie Blanc grapes. An assistant professor at Dalhousie, Myles works in the Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences and is the Canada Research Chair in Agricultural […]
