by Nicole MacKay | Apr 4, 2026 | Wine
Some days, the world feels like it is moving faster than any of us signed up for. The news is relentless, the markets are nervous, and the sense that large forces are making decisions on our behalf — without us — can settle into something that feels uncomfortably like...
by Nicole MacKay | Dec 28, 2025 | Wine
Prosecco has long been typecast as a casual, spritz-ready sparkling wine, but today’s top bottles reveal far greater reach. From approachable DOC selections to vintage-dated DOCG wines and the iconic Cartizze, the best Prosecco encompasses precision alongside festive...
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...
