Culinaire Holiday Gift Guide

We’ve scoured our province and further afield to find gifts for your food and drink-loving family and friends, and we’re delighted to present 25 of our favourites here. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

ON THE ROCKS PREMIUM COCKTAILS It’s cold outside, and we enjoy a cocktail after a hard day at our desks, so The Fort Distillery have come to the rescue with four handmade, single-serve and ready to serve craft cocktails using Canadian ingredients, from their distillery in Fort Saskatchewan. Choose Daiquiri, Gin Old-Fashioned, Cosmo or Shaft (vodka/ coffee) in these pocket size 100 mL bottles at your favourite liquor store, $6-$7, tumblerandrocks.com.

There’s a new range of ready to serve premium cocktails to tempt us now too, made from high quality spirits that you’ll already know and love! The Cosmopolitan is made with Effen Vodka, The Margarita is Hornitos Plata Tequila with lime and triple sec, and the Old Fashioned uses a generous pour of Knob Creek Bourbon! Quality stuff in convenient 100 mL and 375 mL bottles, in liquor stores now. 100 mL $7, 375 mL $22,

TUMBLER & ROCKS CRAFT COCKTAILS ontherockscocktails.com. CONFETTI SWEETS Kathy Leskow was a stay-at-home mom looking for something to do. She didn’t know she’d end up with a cookie empire, achieving cult status in Edmonton! Her cookies are so good (we can vouch for that!) that fan faves Chocolate Chunk and Coconut were served twice at pre-Oscar parties in Hollywood! Shop online for cookies and outrageously good cookie mixes at confettisweets.ca, spud.ca, and theorganicbox.ca, or pick up in person in Sherwood Park. From $10.

BEHIND BARS High-class cocktails inspired by lowlife gangsters. A perfect gift for budding mixologists and gangster film fans alike, this little book with its novel-style illustrations, is so on-trend with our current love of cocktails and speakeasies. We know gangsters love a good drink, and Behind Bars includes a guide to glassware, techniques, and terminology, with 60 recipes to have you mixing like a mobster! Prestel $20.

MATT & STEVE’S CAESAR RIMMER The ingredients simply say “salt, spice, garlic, flavour” but this rimmer is one heck of a statement. It’s a gorgeous brick red colour to match your Caesar, and it’s spicy – in a good way that has you licking your lips. You’ll see salt crystals, taste celery and more herbs and spices too. You need only a small amount so it’s going to last a long time, and you’ll be glad of that. 150 g, 2-pack $10 at mattandsteves.com, grocery and liquor stores $5-$6 each.

FORTY CREEK NANAIMO BAR CREAM LIQUEUR Holiday gifting doesn’t get more Canadian than this. Ontario’s Forty Creek distillery has been growing its product line for 28 years, acquiring many fans along the way. And they’re not the only people who are going to love the latest release - Nanaimo Bar Cream Liqueur. Flavours of coconut, cocoa, graham cracker, and custard are perfect for your celebratory coffee, or try as an Alexander or B52 cocktail! CSPC +837249 $30

CASUS ECO-FRIENDLY AND BIODEGRADABLE PORTABLE GRILL Sometimes you just need a little grill. From Casus, this completely sustainable and bio-degradable singleuse grill provides the option for a little back country or back yard grilling without firing up the propane. While we’d advise against leaving one of these behind in the wilderness to let nature dispose of, it’s sure to be handy for a garage party this winter or a couple of smore’s on the deck. About $15 online and select retailers. casusgrill.com

CHEF LOCAL When COVID hit, digital marketer and Red Seal Chef, Chris Parasiuk, combined his skills to create Chef Local – 2-course master cooking classes from local Calgary restaurants. Included are all the ingredients to create a restaurant-quality meal for two at home, and a instruction video from the restaurant’s chef. Check out cheflocal.ca for classes and kits from restaurants such as Deane House and Klein Harris.

MOËT & CHANDON END OF YEAR GIFT BOX It just wouldn’t be the holidays without bubbly, and the masters of special seasonal packaging, Moët & Chandon, have come up with an End Of Year Gift Box for their Impérial bottle. The signature black tie has dressed the House’s bottles since 1886 and this year, it’s become a silver ribbon in the shape of a holiday tree. Celebrate and gift in style with this limited edition offering. CSPC +766372, $60-70.

THE HAPPY PLANNER MINI RECIPE ORGANIZER Do you lose track of your favourite recipes too? These cute little ring-bound Mini Recipe Organizers could be the solution. They include eight double-sided dividers for Favourites, Main Dishes, Small Dishes, Soups/Salads, Healthy, Breakfasts, Desserts, and Miscellaneous, with space for 160 recipes. Getting organized just got easier! Widely available at Michaels, Staples and Walmart. $28-$30.

STUDIO 50 LIVING ROCK BOTTOM BASE VESSELS These eye-catching decanters (or carafes) come from Paris, Ontario, and are both eye catching and yes, functional. A glass bottle nestles snugly and safely in a stonelike base that can be chilled or heated to suit to keep your wine, spirit, (or any liquid) at the temperature you want, for an entire evening. Several styles and sizes at studio50.ca, from $88-$150.

GOODIEBOX SNACKS AND BAR IN A BOXES We’re all about supporting local and encouraging other businesses that do too. GoodieBox have created quite a selection of curated boxes featuring local products for both Calgary and Edmonton, and they deliver them to you. See localgoodiebox.com, for Paloma, French 75, Manhattans, Old Fashioned and Moscow Mule boxes ($95), and snack boxes supporting Edmonton SCARS charity ($40). @yycgoodiebox @yeggoodiebox.

HEYDAY FERMENTABLES SEOUL SISTER KIMCHI KIT We know that fermented foods are good for our gut, but it can be daunting to start making your own. Heyday have come up with a range of fermented food kits that include fresh ingredients, seasonings, and easy to follow instructions, as well as a 960 mL Kaboodle with self-venting lid. We loved the Seoul Sister kit - in just two days our sour, spicy, and umami kimchi with gochugaru was ready to eat! $35 at heydayfermentables.com.

SPIRITS WITH SMOKE SMOKING BOARDS Now you can really impress your guests with a Home Bar Smoking Board from Spirits With Smoke. Taste the difference the wood makes with this 15 x 6” rectangular board, which includes five woods - Cherry, Hickory, Maple, Oak, and Walnut, and it’s enough to smoke up to 850 cocktails. There’s even an option to have it engraved. $96, spiritswithsmoke.ca for a variety of boards and smoked cocktail kits too!

BLACK DOG BAKERY We’re spoiled for choice with the beautiful cookie decorating kits on Calgary’s Black Dog Bakery’s website! From sports to tools, dinosaurs to unicorns, they’re complete with 12 vanilla sugar cookies, sprinkles, and icings, with GFF available too. We lost our hearts to the Canadian Wildlife kit ($26-$32), but we’re sorely tempted by the Holiday Gingerbread House Kit with two pre-assembled homes

OKANAGAN WINE TOURING GUIDE John Schreiner has been talking and writing about B.C. wines since the 1980s, and his latest book, co-authored with writer and educator, Luke Whittall, could be the ready for decorating ($32). blackdogbakery.ca.

definitive guide to the wine regions and wineries of interior B.C. Broken into 17 regions and detailing 240 wineries, it’s a very useful book to have in hand when liquor store shopping, but we suspect ours will live in the glove box, ready for our next trip! Touchwood 2020, $25.

SPIRIT WARES FOR HOME Does your dinnerware do justice to the food you’re serving on it? That was the dilemma for a team of Calgary chefs, so they designed and crafted a range of artisanal tablewares! Choose the Earthen Spirit range or the one-of-a-kind Reactive Spirit range of dinner plates, ramen bowls, coffee mugs, platters, mezcal copitas, and more, or one of the new dinnerware collections at spiritwares.com. Mugs from $12, plates and bowls from $18.

DINNER WITH DICKENS No Brit could resist a cloth-bound cookbook where the recipes are inspired by the life and work of Charles Dickens. From breakfasts to feasts, via “Food For The Poor” (hurrah for Jam Roly Poly!) author, Pen Vogler, has updated more than 60 Victorian recipes (including some from Dickens’ wife, Catherine’s cookbook!) for today’s home cooks, and included the originals and the back stories too. Cico Books, $35

ROMERO RUM Here’s a novel gift for the rum lovers in your life – a Custom Blend Tour at Calgary’s Romero Distillery! A history of rum running in Southern Alberta is followed by a tour of the distillery to learn about fermentation, distillation, maturation, vatting, and bottling – and then after tasting different infusions, you get to blend, cork and seal your own bottle to take home with you! $75, romerodistilling.com.

FUSION WOODWORX Each one of Fusion Woodworx’s charcuterie and cutting boards, serving boards and trays, benches, consoles, and coffee and dining room tables, is unique as they’re all individually created and handcrafted to order. They use only food safe, non-toxic epoxy for these masterpieces, and even offer classes to create your own! Board shown $90 at Granary Road and at fusionwoodworx.com.

Cibo pasta kit

A piece of cake

Your baking deserves our couverture chocolate

• 3 eggs • 1/4 cup sugar • 1 cup brown sugar • 1 tsp vanilla • 1 cup pumpkin purée • 1/3 cup olive oil • 1 1/2 cup regular all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour • 1/2 tsp baking soda • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder • 1/2 tsp salt • 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice • 1/4 cup Cococo semisweet chocolate drops • 1/4 cup nut butter (almond, cashew or even a hazelnut spread)

Chocolate Marbled Pumpkin Loaf / by Cut Cooking

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease one standard loaf pan. 2. Using an electric mixer, combine everything except chocolate drops and nut butter. Stir well. 3. On low heat, melt chocolate chips and nut butter, stirring often. 4. Add 1/2 of pumpkin batter to the greased pan. 5. Dollop 2/3 of the melted chocolate mixture over pumpkin batter.

Using a knife, cut through the batter and spread chocolate, creating a marbled effect. 6. Layer the remainder of the pumpkin batter and carefully spread over the chocolate layer. 7. Drizzle the rest last 1/3 of the chocolate over the top of the loaf. 8. Bake 50 minutes. 9. Allow to cool on cooling rack. Let cool fully before slicing.

This recipe freezes well.

Shop in person: Victoria Park • Bankers Hall • Signal Hill • Southcentre • Dalhousie Station Easy curbside pickup: Cococo Chocolate Factory in Mayland Heights chocolate together Shop online: www.CococoChocolatiers.com Recipes: www.CococoChocolatiers.com/blogs/recipes

chocolate together

ART OF CHARCUTERIE Edmonton’s Diana Harrison creates beautiful charcuterie boards, and her passion is evident in her choices for these carefully curated boxes. Each Holiday Charcuterie Box is unique and crafted on order to include French and Quebec cheese, Meuwly’s free-range meats, gourmet crackers, olives, fresh fruits and veggies, fresh figs, edible herbs and flowers, and honeycomb. Glutenfree and vegan options too. $155, artofcharcuterie.ca.

VILLAGE CRAFT WINEMAKER New for 2020, and a great gift for wine lovers and aspiring winemakers, you (or they) can effortlessly brew your own quality wine on premise at Village Craft Winemaker for just 45 minutes of your time! Far removed from your old uncle’s homebrew, choose from a wide range of grape varieties from amarone to zinfandel - and you can even make your own fortified wine too. 30 bottles from $194-$350. Gift certificates at villagecraftwinemaker.ca.

WALTER CRAFT CAESAR MIX – HOLIDAY EDITION We don’t drink a lot of Caesars around the Culinaire offices, but when this arrived, we plugged our noses and gave it a try. And wow, wow, does this make a great Caesar. The Holiday Limited Edition has tarragon and sage, and uses sustainably sourced North Atlantic lobster stock making for a richer, daresay… special treat. Just add your favourite vodka, it’s bloody delicious. 946 mL, about $7-9. CARIBOU HOME UPCYCLED BIKE SPROCKET TRIVET Did you catch the cycling bug this summer? Upcycling is a big part of reducing our waste and Caribou Home has a number of cool things for around the house including this Bike Sprocket Trivet - perfect for resting hot dishes or pans without damaging the table. Plus, someone is sure to ask how your most recent century times are… right? $10 caribouhome.com.

VINE & DINE PAIRED DINNER PACKAGES Last but certainly not least, we know that not everyone’s ready to dine out yet, but we also know that you deserve restaurant-quality food at home, accompanied by careful pairings at affordable prices. We support our local restaurants, so see vineanddine.ca/ culinaire-vine--dine-online for current offerings of 4-course meals with small format bottles, and a video to tell you the stories of the pairings and winemakers! From $125 for two people.

Craft vs. Crafty: Brewing a Conundrum

For the first 95 percent of brewing’s multimillennia history, breweries breweries in every province (by federal decree) accompanied by only a smattering of others. Small population, vast distances, BY DAVID NUTTALL were small farmhouse or cottage and competition led most small regional enterprises. However, in the last 250 breweries to their demise. In 1980, only years, technological advancements eight independent breweries existed transformed many breweries into nation-wide. manufacturing giants who are Admittedly, two world wars, the responsible for most of the world’s beer Great Depression, and (especially) production today. During the first three- Prohibition were a quadruple whammy quarters of the 20th century, through most breweries could not overcome. consolidation, mergers, or closure, big Despite provincial and state government breweries became bigger, and small legislations that made it prohibitive breweries all but disappeared. to start a brewery, by the early 1980s

In North America, the numbers tell a small contingent of entrepreneurs the story. In the US, brewery numbers in both countries began to arrive. Call peaked in 1873 at 4,131 breweries. By 1983, them independent, regional, local, or only 80 breweries remained. In Canada, microbrewery, they soon became known the three national breweries (Molson, as “craft”. Over the next 40 years, the US Labatt, and Carling O’Keefe) had saw, on average, about four new breweries open a week; Canada averaged a new brewery every fortnight. By the end of 2019, the US had 8,386 breweries and Canada had 1,123.

Naturally, revisions in patterns of beer consumption followed. Macrobreweries used to be responsible for over 90 percent of production volume in both countries well into this century. However, today they only have two-thirds of the US market and half of the Canadian. Craft breweries sales went from almost nothing pre-1980 to 13.6 percent sales by volume in the US and 30 percent in Canada in 2019, with imports and small independents accounting for the rest. As the big domestic share continues to shrink, the result is a significant revenue shift. Today, overall beer consumption is dropping slightly, losing out to coolers, wine, spirits, or simple abstinence. However, craft beer is still growing - not as fast as in the early 2000s, but usually around 5-6 percent per year. The multinationals, fearing death by a thousand microbreweries, cannot afford to sit around and do nothing.

Enter the new paradigm. The largest

breweries began buying up craft breweries, in whole or in part, as early as the 1990s. Some they shuttered and some were left practically untouched, at least to the public eye. Others became hybrids, producing the required mainstream product along with their own offerings. It is here where the distinction between micro (craft) and macro (big domestic) begins to blur. Is a craft brewery still craft if it is owned by a huge corporation? Craft brewing associations say no, to a point.

The American (Craft) Brewers Association (est. 1985) and the Alberta Small Brewers Association (ASBA, est. 2013) set definitions of size (production levels), ownership, and, in the case of the ASBA, the location of the brewery and head office (they must be in Alberta). While these definitions have been adjusted over the years, the essential criteria are that craft breweries must be small, local, innovative, and independent.

Although dozens of breweries have fallen under the umbrellas of large corporations in the US, in Alberta only two, Wild Rose and Calgary’s Banded Peak, have been acquired by multinationals, both in 2019. Outwardly, neither their breweries nor their beer has changed, so does ownership matter to the finicky public? The usual result is a threeway divide between those who stay loyal, those who disavow them, and those who don’t know/don’t care.

What the public may not know is many brands are produced by big breweries and marketed as craft. These so called “crafty” beers purport themselves to be from a small brewery, when they are just another product from a large corporation. This really rankles craft brewers, as these beers are often sold as such on menus and placed in the craft beer sections of stores.

The debate persists on the merit of “craft” vs.” crafty”. On one hand, when wads of cash get thrown at owners of a craft brewery (and some sold for ten figures), it would be folly for them to turn it down. In many cases, the brewery receives an injection of capital, and gets to piggyback on the distribution network and existing sales penetration of the major brewery. How the public perceives their beer is open to interpretation.

On the other hand, big breweries who purposefully try to deceive consumers through advertising, labeling, or marketing a beer as if it were made from a craft brewery, often get publicly shamed for it. To help clarify matters, the Brewers Association created the Independent Craft Brewer Seal in 2017 and the Canadian Craft Brewers Association (est. May 2019) developed the Independent Craft Seal of Authenticity in early 2020. The large breweries counter that the public decides which beers they drink and where it comes from isn’t of major importance, adding it’s what inside the package that counts. So on it goes.

These days, consumers have a myriad of choices but also more access to information. If they really care where their beer comes from, they can research it. If they like a beer, and aren’t fussy who brews it, they’ll continue to do so. In the future, it will be harder to separate the

two, with more breweries falling under different ownership, and larger breweries producing a greater variety of beers (and other products) in order to try and recapture lost market share. Make choices that matter to you.

David has worked in liquor since the late 1980s. He is a freelance writer, beer judge, speaker, and since 2014, has run Brew Ed monthly beer education classes in Calgary. Follow @abfbrewed.

Authentic ingredients. Inspired taste. From the bustling street markets of Southeast Asia.

HAND CRAFTED

VEGAN FRIENDLY GLUTEN FRIENDLY

Cococo

WHERE TO FIND US (ALBERTA)

Southcentre Mall CrossIron Mills

Edmonton City Centre West Edmonton Mall

From Far and Wide, Let’s Eat!

Thanks to early Western settlers, flavours of Northern Europe are close to home BY SABRINA KOOISTRA

CANADA’S HISTORY OF THE

WEST is richly woven with stories of settlers expanding westward, starting farms, and building new lives. This shared identity of arrival, coexistence, and prosperity - regardless of where we came from - is indeed the glue that binds us together.

But the harmony we live in is in no way a fluke, and we are reminded of this particularly each winter when the nostalgia of tradition returns. For many of us, our Canadian roots are young, but our hearts for our homelands fill us with a desire to share our culture, traditions, and of course, our love of food.

In the period of exploration, British and French settlers arrived en masse to

Canada’s eastern shores. Scottish, Irish,

German, and Italian settlers soon called

Eastern Canada home, but early Western settlements enticed plenty from overseas (especially Northern and Eastern

Europeans) with its milk and honey.

Many who set their sights on

Canada’s prairie paradise were of Dutch Bernell Odegard and Jane Beck, The Lefse House and Scandinavian descent, and though they weren’t always the most fruitful of know, settling the West wasn’t always a famous for authentic, made-from-scratch farmers back home, Alberta life suited picnic. lefse, and while considered a specialty many well. By tending to roots planted Food and friends saw families like Norwegian treat today, lefse was once long before them (with some modern-day the Odegards through cold winters and survival food. It’s an irony not lost on settlement too) quaint, yet welcoming served as an opportunity to preserve Odegard who, along with his wife Linda communities across our province promise some of their Norwegian identity. and daughter Jane Beck, have built their traditional gastro-offerings to all who “My grandfather said that we didn’t business around it. seek them. Let’s explore! have much to offer, but people would In addition to lefse, customers can

For Bernell Odegard of The Lefse come by the house and enjoy themselves. find traditional Scandinavian meals,

House, the promise of new horizons I’ve always thought that that’s a neat other baked goods such as krumkake and brought his Norwegian and Swedish thing to live up to - to offer hospitality rosettes (great for sharing with friends grandparents to the Camrose area – a to people, no matter how little we have,” and loved ones), and giftware imported lively Norwegian community even Odegard says. It’s a nice reminder of the straight from Norway. today. Escaping the instability of home, reason for the season. Keen to try your hand at lefse? The

Odegard’s ancestors simply “brought This same gift of hospitality, as well Lefse House offers everything you need, what they knew.” Lucky for us, farming as the desire to continue his family’s from corrugated rolling pins and turning and baking continued to be part of his celebration of Scandinavia can be found sticks to lefse pans and rolling boards, in family’s fabric. at The Lefse House. And their claim addition to kits with everything you need

But as many of our own relatives to fame? Why lefse, of course! They’re already packaged for you.

Potato Lefse Serves 12

4 cups cooked mashed potatoes 4 tsp butter 1 tsp salt 1 Tbs sugar Splash of cream 2 cups flour Butter Golden corn syrup

1. To the warm potatotes add butter, salt, sugar, some cream, and mash well. Let cool in the fridge. 2. Gradually combine the flour with the potatoes. 3. Divide into 12 pieces. Roll thin on a floured board and bake on a hot griddle. Brown both sides. Place between damp towels to steam. 4. Serve buttered with golden corn syrup.

Recipe courtesy the Norwegian Laft Hus Society in Red Deer, where guests can be immersed in Norwegian culture and food.

Swedish roots run deep in Camrose County, particularly in Kingman where the town has dubbed itself the “lutefisk capital of Alberta”. Just before Saint Lucia Day on December 13th (the Swedish start of Christmas), Kingman Community Hall hosts their annual lutefisk dinner where community members and visitors can get a taste of the farcical fish of the North Sea - a cultural icon celebrated more by settler descendants than those in Scandinavia! Lutefisk is white fish (typically cod) that’s dried, reconstituted, then soaked in lye before being cooked. It’s believed

John and Janneke Schalkwyk, Sylvan Star Cheese

this rigorous process was formed to ensure families had enough protein to last through the winter - a shared reality for Vikings and ScandinavianCanadians, alike. But having Swedish and Norwegian blood doesn’t place Odegard in the camp of lutefisk fans.

“People come from far and wide, and sometimes stand in very cold weather (in Kingman) to try the lutefisk,” he says, “you either hate it or you really love it. It’s quite something.” For those who don’t want to brave the chill of the outdoors for this winter treat, pop by The Lefse House to pick up one of their house-made “lutefisk TV dinners.”

Like Dutch settlers that came before them, the Schalkwyk family of Sylvan Star Cheese continue a long history of farming and cheesemaking. Hailing from Gelderland, the Schalkwyk family are modern-day settlers who chose Alberta for its large sections of open, arable land and the chance at prosperity.

Having learned from his parents, John Schalkwyk spent many years building his milking and cheese-making operation in the Netherlands, but wanting to consolidate farmland, the family settled in a spot nestled between Red Deer and Sylvan Lake. While central Alberta is home to a thriving dairy community (not independent of its thriving Dutch population) few had branched into the Dutch tradition of cheesemaking. The dearth of flavourful, high-quality gouda led Schalkwyk to resume cheesemaking in 1999, in an effort to offer Albertans gouda so good, even in the middle of winter you’ll think you’ve been swept away to the tulip fields.

When asked about preserving Dutch traditions, Schalkwyk replies with a hearty laugh, “We’re Canadians now!” With lots of love for Canada, and great gouda, the Schalkwyks are here to stay.

Sabrina is a freelance writer pursuing a Communications and History double major at U of C. She is passionate about uncovering the ways in which history, tradition, and food, shape our identities.

Alberta’s Own

Cottage Wines

BY TOM FIRTH AND LINDA GARSON

Internationally, in the wine business, number of cottage wineries. These produce enough sugar to ferment fully, most people have heard that Canada wineries include a mere handful of while others are hard to handle with skill (exotic place that it is) is too cold members, which include mead and honey to preserve the purity of fruits. for winemaking. But they are wrong - wine producers, but an even smaller Finally, striking the right balance is the we have a wonderful, high quality, and assortment of fruit-based wineries. hardest of all as many wines aren’t really varied selection of wine regions making Totalling five fruit wineries ranging that sweet, but the perception is often excellent, artisan wines. across the province, we have Field Stone faulty and consumers sometimes expect

It’s a shame in some ways that Alberta near Strathmore, Fireside Winery by Red that they won’t enjoy these sweeter is just a touch (or more than a touch) too Deer, and then Barr Estate in Sherwood wines. cold to make grape-based wines. While Park, Lake Saskatoon in Grand Prairie, With a nod to our local producers, we our summers are hot enough, and our and Shady Orchard and Winery in High highly encourage giving some of these seasons long enough, our frigid winters Prairie, but what makes them special is local treasures a little love. Keep in can easily kill most grapevines. not only that they have to utilize a high mind that many are at our local farmers

What we do have though – in addition proportion of estate grown fruit, but markets, and willing to share with you to our dynamic assortment of brewers making good wine out of fruit just isn’t what they make with perhaps a little and distillers – is a small but passionate easy. Some fruits (or rhubarb) don’t quite taste too.

Birds & Bees 2018 Multiple Berry Orgasm Wine

A little off-dry, but the fruits have a beautiful character and plenty of citrus tones to carry the day right through to a bright and juicy finish. Best served slightly chilled, but really hits the spot on its own or with light snack or salads. CSPC +816317 $25

Field Stone Raspberry Fruit Wine

With an almostelectric colour in the glass and the pure, clean aromas wafting out of the glass, what’s not to love? Perfectly evoking the essence of raspberries with a clean, zesty finish, it isn’t bone-dry by any stretch, but for any lover of raspberries, this is a good find. CSPC +792628 $20-22

Field Stone Black Currant Fruit Wine

Intensely perfumed and remarkably floral in the glass, it might be hard to guess that this is a wine made from blackberries. On the palate, it becomes quite apparent though with clean fruit expressions, all those floral tones, and a strong core of mineral presence. Best slightly chilled but not ice cold, it’s a pleasant treat. CSPC +783516 $20-22

Shady Orchard & Winery 2019 Cherry Wine

Made from Evans cherries, a sour cherry that was rediscovered in an old orchard near Edmonton, and growing there since the 1920s, this full flavoured wine is quite a statement – in a good way! There’s no mistaking it’s made from cherries, and it’s crying out for a duck breast dinner, but we suspect it could also be a terrific brunch wine with crêpes. CSPC +815004 $20-$21

Birds & Bees 2019 Sassy Saskatoon Berry Wine

Very pale (for saskatoon berry wine) looking very similar to young tawny ports in the glass. This is a strange and lovely beast. Evoking sasktoon berry pies on the palate, with quite a lot of spice and tartness well suited to the off dry nature of the wine. This would rock a charcuterie or cheese board after a meal. CSPC +726519 $25

Shady Orchard & Winery Strawberry & Rhubarb

A lovely pale salmon colour, Shady Orchard’s strawberry and rhubarb is a real food wine. It’s refreshing, so chill it down well and hope for a warm day to enjoy it with your lunch of something salty – we vote for feta cheese - and even better, a watermelon salad with mint and feta cheese. But if you have to wait for evening, anything with a peppercorn sauce would be wonderful! $20-$21