In Search of Premium Wines, Marcus & Rachel in Marlborough Days 1-3

Day 1 – Arrived in Christchurch to an overcast day. The temp is cool around 20 degrees. We were feeling pretty tired and jet lagged after a long trip. We stayed one night at a hotel in Downtown Christchurch to adjust to the time and catch up on sleep. We arrived to our hotel after Dark so we are excited …

Earth Day + Wine – Believe in a Sustainable Future

Happy Earth Day Members! We just wanted to highlight some of our efforts today, and get some feedback from you as well. Here are some of the things we’re doing to decrease our impact on the environment. If there are some other techniques you would recommend, please comment below. We’re very open to any ideas that can reduce our impact. …

Hemispheres Wine Guild Launch a Success!

Well, the Hemispheres team has had a very busy couple of weeks promoting the new upcoming wines from McLaren Vale, South Australia. It all started at the Toronto Wine & Cheese show where we were pouring a sampling of the wines. Not only was this the first time we were showcasing these wines to the Canadian public, it was the …

Wine Lover’s Dream Vacation

Now that we’ve got our hands on the wine Marcus sourced from Southern Australia, which I must say are some of the best wines I have ever tasted, I got to thinking that Australia might be a great place to vacation for any true wine lover. But before I could confirm that to myself I needed to look into a …

What’s the Deal with Rose Wine?

Now that we are entering the warmer months, when we do more entertaining and lounging out on the patio and decks, a particular type of wine seems to appear in more and more glasses.  These wines fall under the broad category of Rose.  But what is Rose exactly?  How is it made?  It looks like a sweet & fruity wine, is it?  These are probably …

Make drinking illegal? What was that all about?

Hhhhhh, a lovely and exciting topic: prohibition. Ever wonder why Canada’s liquor system is so tightly controlled and bureaucratic? Ever wonder why in some provinces you can’t just grab your groceries and a bottle of wine in the same store? Ever wonder why it’s so hard to get your hands on unique, small production wines? The answer: Prohibition. To me, …

Warm Me Up Winter Wines

Last week, the temperature here in Ontario got up to an unusually warm 12-15 degrees. We are usually lucky to get that warm by the end of April, let alone the middle of February! But of course, that was really all a tease and we are back down to around -5 degrees today and another snowstorm is in the forecast. …

In Search of Premium Wines, Marcus & Rachel in McLaren Vale: Feb. 1-3

February 1 – Another day of work and play so we headed down to the beach for some more surf and swimming then off to taste some more wine…we are waiting for wines that really JUMP out at us before we buy it so we will keep tasting until that happens. First stop was Gemtree Vineyards and Dowie Doole. They …

In Search of Premium Wines, Marcus & Rachel in McLaren Vale: Jan. 28-31

January 28 – Today is 45.7 degrees out and trust me it feels hotter if that is possible with that northerly breeze blowing steady…feels like you are standing in front of a clothes dryer while outside! Today was the perfect day to work on emails and logistics with Rob to start the ball a rolling. We also started to make some more …

In Search of Premium Wines, Marcus & Rachel in McLaren Vale: Jan. 24-27

January 24 – First day of tasting was a busy one. This is one of the busiest week-ends in the area being Australia Day week-end (January 26th), as well as the Tour Down Under professional cycling event (with Lance Armstrong). We did find some great wineries however. This first was Lloyds where the wines were very tidy and reasonably priced, their …