Who doesn’t love starting off the day with a delicious meal and a glass of bubbly?! I know I do! Here’s your chance to enjoy a leisurely, 3-course brunch with a flight of three sparkling wines to match … including my favourite, pink Champagne!

Join us once again at Courtyard Restaurant in the Byward Market on Sunday, October 28th between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Seating is limited and reservations are required so be sure to call in soon to reserve your place at 613-241-1516. Brunch guests will be entertained by a live classical guitarist, and will take home wine pairing notes prepared by Groovy Grapes.

The cost is $29.00 per person, plus taxes and gratuity, and includes 3-course brunch with flight of 3 sparkling wines, and your copy of the Bubbly and Food Pairing Notes.

Are you ready for a different kind of wine and food pairing experience? Well, wait no longer, Chef Marc Lépine and Sommelier Stacey Metulynsky have joined forces to challenge your taste buds with creative, innovative cuisine paired with a mouth-watering line- up of wines!

Chef Marc is the Canadian Culinary Federation’s Regional Chef of the Year 2006 and Executive Chef of the Byward Market’s Courtyard Restaurant. Behind the scenes in the kitchen, Marc not only cooks up delicious food, he’s also dreaming up and experimenting with the most interesting, cutting-edge food concepts. Yes, liquid nitrogen is a standard in Marc’s kitchen, and that’s just the beginning …

Join us on Thursday, October 25th at the Courtyard Restaurant for a Futuristic Food & Wine Experience. Enjoy a 5-course tasting menu paired with 2 wines for each course (a total of 10 tasty wines), with enlightening discussion provided by Stacey and Marc. Meet and chat with the experts, learn something new, and discover what makes them excited when it comes to the future of wine and food pairing. Expect innovative cutting-edge cuisine and great conversation. A not to be missed event!

Seating is limited at this exclusive event, so make your reservations now by calling the Courtyard Restaurant at 613-241-1516. The cost is $125 per person plus taxes and gratuity, and includes a 5-course meal, 10 wine pairings, and discussion and interpretation of the meal with Chef Marc and Sommelier Stacey.

Today’s Globe and Mail Report on Business section ran an article profiling Groovy Grapes Co-founders in an article about small business office technology.  The print edition has us in our back yard working the phones and laptops.

Author/Sommelier Natalie MacLean suggests gobbling good wines at www.NatalieMacLean.com

Ottawa (September 13, 2007) - "No other holiday celebrates the gift of wine like Thanksgiving," says Natalie MacLean, author of the bestselling book Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass. "Wine is a taste of the harvest along with all the delicious dishes on the table. But actually choosing a bottle can feel like a thankless task, especially with so many flavors to match."

Relax. Have a drink. And try some of Natalie’s suggestions for great wines to pair with Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings. In Red, White and Drunk All Over, which has just been published in paperback, Natalie discusses wine and food pairing for Thanksgiving dinner. A new chapter in the book also addresses the five toughest matches for wine: vegetables, spicy dishes, chocolate, cheese, and fast food.

Natalie’s free online matching tool at www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher complements her in-depth discussion in the book by allowing you to click on "turkey holiday dinner" to find wines that accompany all kinds of dishes, from roast turkey to turducken, from creamed corn to pecan pie.

Natalie also offers five quick tips for choosing a terrific Thanksgiving wine:

1. Start with bubbly. Sparkling wine is a great aperitif to sip while you wait for the turkey to finish cooking. It adds a celebratory note to the meal and goes well with starters like soup and salad.
2. Consider the turkey. Unlike most poultry and game birds, turkey meat is very dry in texture. So you need a mouth-watering wine to complement it. Good options are crisp whites like riesling and pinot grigio. And yes you can drink red wine with white meat: pinot noir, beaujolais and zinfandel all have juicy, berry-ripe flavors that go well with turkey.
3. Look beyond the bird. The range of side dishes means that you don’t have to match your wine just to the turkey. Since Thanksgiving dinner is often a banquet-style meal, with everyone choosing the trimmings, why not do the same with your wines? Offer both red and white, and possibly more than one depending on the size of your group.
4. Complement or contrast. A big, buttery chardonnay from California or Chile can complement the roasted, smoky flavors of squash, chestnuts and pecan stuffing. But if you’d rather have a contrast to the richness of cream sauces and dressings, try a crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc.
5. End on a sweet note. If anyone still has room left when it’s time for pumpkin or pecan pie, offer a late harvest wine or icewine. If you’re a chocolate fan, try serving a liqueur with complementary flavors such as raspberry or blackcurrant.

Natalie’s online wine matching tool isn’t just about Thanksgiving dinner: it allows you to pair wine with other seasonal fall produce, game meats, pizza, egg dishes, TV dinners, breads and desserts. Visitors simply search by wine for meal inspirations or by food to find great wine choices. The site has more than 364,000 food and wine combinations, as well as thousands of recipes for those planning holiday parties and Christmas turkey dinner.

The matching tool is updated regularly, as Natalie responds to her readers’ suggestions for more dishes and wines. Many of these suggestions come from the 78,000 subscribers to her free e-newsletter, Nat Decants, which offers tips on how to buy, cellar and serve wine. Got a dish or a wine to stump Natalie? E-mail her via the web site and she’ll suggest a match for you. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Natalie MacLean has won four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award; and she was named the World’s Best Drink Writer at the World Food Media Awards. Rex Pickett, author of Sideways, says that Natalie "writes about wine with a sensuous obsession" and is "often laugh-out-loud funny." Eric Asimov of The New York Times notes, "Ms. MacLean is the disarming Everywoman . she loves wine, loves drinking . a winning formula." The Financial Times observes: "Natalie MacLean is a new force in the wine writing world-a feisty North American answer to Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.

Stacey developed the content for a great new wine and food pairing tool available on Food Network Canada’s web site.  Have a look and pick a wine to go with your next meal! http://www.foodtv.ca/foodwine/

Now when was the last time you invited a bunch of people over for a party?  If you’re anything like me, it seemed like a great idea at the time but at the last minute you start to panic.  I love to cook but when it comes to having more than a few friends over, I tend to get a bit in over my head. 

To help us figure out the tricks behind hosting a great cocktail party, we have Angie MacRae joining us again today. Angie is Chef and Co-host of Food Network Canada’s national tv series This Food That Wine, and she also works as a private caterer so today we are going to learn from her experience – welcome Angie! 

Cocktail parties – it seems like they’d be less work than having a proper dinner party, but it never seems to turn out that way does it?

Listen now or download to iTunes.

Stacey Metulynsky is co-host of the wine and food pairing TV series "This Food That Wine" (in case you didn’t already know).  The show is now airing in the US market on the American Life Network. If you are based in the US check it out.  The series is currently airing in over 30 countries. Hope you enjoy!

If you haven’t seen our show, we explore the ins and outs of wine and food matching in each episode with a guest on the show who is hosting a party of some kind.  Angie figures out the menu and teaches the guest how to put it together, and then I do the wine matching.

One of the things we did quite often on the show is using wine as an ingredient in the cooking, and it turns out that this is a great trick in making a perfect wine match for your meal.  So let’s talk a little bit more about cooking with wine.

 Listen now or download to iTunes.

The California Wine Fair is coming to Ottawa for the 27th year.  You don’t want to miss this opportunity.

Date: Friday, April 13, 2007    Time: 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Place: The Westin Hotel 11 Colonel By-Drive

Vic Harradine from www.winecurrent.com  writes,
“There are over 350 wines to be tasted from more than 100 wineries. Taste those from wineries that have developed a strong following year after year e.g. Heitz, Bonny Doon, Cline, Ironstone, Rosenblum and others.  Look for all the popular brands – Beringer, Gallo, Mondavi, as well as a whole host of premium wineries you seldom see and hardly ever get to taste – Far Niente, McManis Family Vineyards, Schug, Treana and Murrieta’s Well, for example. There also dozens of others waiting for you to discover.

This is the 27th Annual California Fair and largest contingent of California wines ever assembled in Canada. There is no individual charge for any tasting or cuisine items (cheese, crudités) once your admission fee of $55.00 is paid. This event is very popular and is sold out virtually every year.  No tickets are sold at the door.”  For more information, call: 1 -800-558-CORK(2675) or (905) 336-8932 or email at calwine@sympatico.ca or log on to www.calwine.ca.

Ottawa’s companies were honoured March 29, 2007 for helping to promote tourism in the National Capital Region to a variety of people, from runners to wine aficionados (that’s us!), chamber music fans and ballet enthusiasts.

Ottawa Tourism handed out the hardware during the 2007 edition of its Ottawa Tourism Awards Thursday evening at the Ottawa Congress Centre.  Groovy Grapes was named Small Business of the Year.  The Ottawa Citizen profiled Groovy Grapes in the business section March 30, 2007 and the Ottawa Business Journal reported on the winners.

This has been a great year for Groovy Grapes.  In December the National Capital Sommelier Guild selected us as their Wine Person(s) of the Year.  That was an honour and so is this Ottawa Tourism Small Business of the Year award.  Thanks to all our friends, family and clients for supporting us.