by Nicole MacKay | Dec 18, 2025 | Wine
Calgary isn’t short on restaurants that make noise about what they’re doing, but OLEA isn’t one of them. There’s no overwrought concept, no choreographed plating, no self-conscious swagger. Instead, the excitement comes once the dishes actually...
by Nicole MacKay | Dec 9, 2025 | Wine
I’ll admit it: the first section I hit in any bookstore is always the cookbooks. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve promised myself “just browsing” — there’s something hypnotic about rows of spines promising flavour and ritual....
by Nicole MacKay | Jul 31, 2025 | Wine
In a dusty corner of Naramata Bench, 1 Mill Road winemaker Ben Bryant stumbled upon a mystery that perfectly encapsulates Okanagan Chardonnay’s evolution. While scrambling for replacement fruit after his planned vineyard was compromised by disease, he discovered...
by Nicole MacKay | Jun 20, 2025 | Wine
As I sit to write this, it’s been exactly one year since I stood at the highest point of the vineyard on Gorgona Island. The remote, wind-brushed outpost off Italy’s Tuscan coast required a couple of flights, a bus to Livorno, and finally, a boat out to...
by Nicole MacKay | May 10, 2025 | Wine
You don’t expect a Chardonnay from Napa Valley to end up in a cocktail shaker. But that’s exactly where Frank Family Vineyards’ Carneros Chardonnay is headed, and surprisingly, it works. Wine cocktails have been flying under the radar for years,...
