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Irish Whiskey – Special Report
By Stephen Beaumont for WineAlign Ask any spirits industry observer and they will tell you that Irish whiskey is one of the hottest categories around these days. They’re right, although by Irish whiskey they really mean Jameson, since the Pernod Ricard-owned powerhouse accounts for the vast majority of Irish whiskey sales in North America, as […] More
Buyer’s Guide to VINTAGES November 19 Release
Canadian Stars, Chilean Gems, Critics Picks and Ontario’s Best Sommelier By David Lawrason, with notes from John Szabo, MS, Sara d’Amato, Michael Godel and Megha Jandhyala The VINTAGES November 19 release catalogue is once again gleaming with wines that the LCBO marketing department thinks make great gifts. A few weeks ago, John Szabo penned a […] More
Great wines to buy by the case These are not 97 point wines. With the recent proliferation of online wine sales, our inboxes, like yours, are overflowing with offers that look too good to be true. It’s tempting to click and purchase. But if you’ve lost all confidence in hyper-inflated scores and florid descriptions, we […] More
National Wine Awards of Canada
Discover Canada's best wines! In 2021, 24 judges tasted over 2,200 wines from 260 wineries across the country to identify Canada's top wines.
View Award-Winning WinesThe Exchange
The Exchange is a club that taps into the world of wines beyond retail stores and delivers a curated, mixed case of top quality wines directly to your door. All the wines are 90pts+ and have been carefully chosen by our panel of critics for their quality and value.
View The ExchangeMarket Matcher
Looking to find new export markets for your wines? Looking for new wines to import into your market? Market Matcher connects wineries with importers.
View Market Matcher
Gamay is a purple-coloured grape variety used mostly to make red wines, most notably grown in Beaujolais and in the Loire Valley around Tours. It is sometimes used to make rosés as well as sparkling wines such as Cerdon de Bugey. Gamay-based wines are typically light bodied and fruity. Wines meant for immediate consumption are typically made using carbonic maceration, where the grapes are fermented in whole bunches under a blanket of CO2, before being pressed, a method that emphasizes a bright fruitiness (and sometimes gives less desirable notes reminiscent of bananas). Wines meant to be drunk after some modest aging tend to have more body and are produced by semi-carbonic fermentation, where fermentation starts in whole bunches, before the grapes are gradually punched down, in a winemaking style closer to the burgundian approach. The latter are produced mostly in the designated Crus areas of northern Beaujolais (Morgon, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, etc.) where the wines typically have the flavour of strawberries, cherries and spices.
