A change in the posting routine

Hi all

I've switched the CANWINE blog over to the new format. It provides some interesting things to do, particularly if we (and I emphasize that this should be a group decision) decide to move the blog from being public view/private post to being totally private.

Hopefully, this change won't mess up those of you who have subscribed to the RSS or nightly-there's-something-new feed: please let me know by email if it does.

Pre-Christmas Brunch

Hi all

Dennis and I had a wonderful brunch this morning at River Café here in Calgary. They have, arguably, probably the best location in town, an amazing (and ever-changing) menu and terrific wine list. On Sundays, they even let you BYOB and waive the corkage charge.

We split an appetizer of wild boar proscuitto that was perfect -- not too salty, and very rich -- served with some shiitake and oyster mushrooms, and some wedges of very filling johnnycake. For mains, Dennis had the Elk Bacon Benedict and I had the barbequed rainbow trout with scrambled eggs. Although we looked hard at the Blue Mountain Brut (for $50) and the rosé (for $65!), we settled on a 750 ml bottle of DuMinot cider from Quebec for $30.

Wish we could find this here at a liquor store! Yohanna brought us out a bottle of this when she visited a few years ago, and it was wonderful to find it on the wine list.

Happy Holidays to all!

Christmas Wines

I'm sure we're not the only household that's making a list and checking the cellar twice. (grin)

There's been a real distribution problem here in Calgary (and I suspect in most of the province) in getting booze delivered to stores because of the labour shortage: it's resulted in some empty shelves at our neighbourhood bottle shop and the liquor store arm of Great Canadian Superstore I visited a couple of weeks ago was positively decimated.

So we're dipping into the cellar for our turkey accompaniment. There's one bottle each of the Nichol 2003 Pinot Gris and Kettle Valley 1996 Chard left, and they should work fine. In the interest of keeping some national balance, we will probably also have the half-bottle of Chocolate-covered Strawberry fruit wine we picked up Carolinian Winery (Dorchester, ON) when we were out in June.

Anyone else getting organized?