Social Sips

There are plenty of wine books that explain a place, and plenty of cookbooks that celebrate one. Niagara Wine + Food is interested in what happens when those two stories become one. At 287 pages and with 88 recipes, it is unmistakably a cookbook — but its regional wine sections make it particularly compelling for anyone interested in understanding Canadian wine.

A Turkish restaurant in Penticton shouldn’t necessarily make perfect sense. And that’s part of what makes Elma so interesting. Walking along Okanagan Lake’s southern edge toward the restaurant, it feels less like you’re approaching a restaurant imported from somewhere else than one that has always belonged on this particular stretch of waterfront. Floor-to-ceiling windows face the lake, and the clean, contemporary dining room is equally unassuming.

My husband and I made a reservation at Hanover Bar on the top floor of the Mandarin Oriental London – Mayfair, looking for a little luxury on vacation. The menu listed The Arcade at £35, made with saffron-infused vodka, gold leaf, Sauternes, and vintage Champagne. In the moment, £35 felt like a reasonable splurge. It wasn’t until I was halfway through the glass, doing the math on my phone under the table, that I realized I was sipping my way through a $66 CAD cocktail.

Tropical drinks have long occupied a unique space in cocktail culture. Equal parts escapism and craftsmanship, they evoke vacation memories while often showcasing surprisingly complex techniques and ingredients.

Consumers increasingly look for organic and sustainable wine certifications when buying wine, but in Sicily, producers are also asking a broader question: what about the bottle itself? While consumers have become more attentive to what happens in the vineyard, far less attention is paid to one of wine’s most visible components, like the bottle that carries it. For decades, bottle weight has functioned as a visual and tactile shorthand for quality, particularly in premium wine categories.

For all wineries, environmental disruption is becoming an increasing regularity. For 1 Mill Road, a boutique producer in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, successive winter freezes and 2023 and 2024 have forced recalibration, prompting a reassessment of what “place” means.

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 helplessness. I have found, more times than I can count, that the antidote is smaller than you’d expect. It starts, often, with a bottle of wine. Not any bottle; a specific one.

Fairmont Le Château Frontenac has just reached a milestone that makes headlines for travellers and wine enthusiasts alike. With the recent awarding of Les Clefs d’Or recognition to three additional concierges, the hotel now has ten of Canada’s top concierges — more than any other property in the country. For visitors to Québec City, that means access to experiences that go beyond guidebooks, from private wine tastings at boutique vineyards to insider culinary tours.

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 energy, all without the Champagne price tag. Like Champagne, “Prosecco” is a protected name tied to both geography and production rules.

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 land, when you realize this understated room is turning out some of the most compelling cooking in the city.