Honey Production In The Alps
The Yukon is a tough place for honeybees to survive, but we are lucky to count about 200 beehives in the territory.
France
Small but beautiful
Our experience at the Mount Sima ski hill in Whitehorse and some facts about skiing
Yukon Pilgrims Gather
Whitehorse resident Dianne Homan knows people make the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage for many reasons. So on March 15, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., she and the Yukon chapter of the Company of Canadian Pilgrims are hosting an informal presentation about “the Camino experience” at Hidden Valley School. Located in western Europe, the Camino …
Bordeaux vs Meritage
Picking up a new bottle of wine can be as difficult as cracking a secret code. What do all of these symbols and words mean? What mystical juice is hiding inside the bottle? At the end of the day, we just want it to be tasty – right? Let’s decode one of these mystery words: …
Travelling with Thomas
If you go by way of Laos and the U.S. East Coast, the journey from France to Yukon is anything but a straight line. But a brief reunion of two lifelong friends in Paris two summers ago proves you can get from there to here. “We had a great time together, and I told him …
The Laundress and the Kick
Although women of Paris played an integral role in the French Revolution, once the dust settled they were given a stern message by the new men in power: Stay home, tend to the children and leave the important business of governing to us. By 1825, the post-revolution preoccupation of keeping women in their place was …
Only woodfire for this ethical bean
The best cup of coffee I’ve ever had was at the table of Philippe and Leandra Brient in the log-hewn home they built themselves. Outside the back window was a view of Atlin Mountain rising majestically from a valley of boreal forest. The Brients own and operate Atlin Mountain Coffee Roasters. They spent the morning …
The New Girlfriend is French filmmaking at its best
The New Girlfriend (Une Nouvelle Amie), a French drama from acclaimed director and screenwriter François Ozon, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. It has received several international award nominations and won best picture at Spain’s San Sebastián film festival. The New Girlfriend is loosely based on the 15-page crime …
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Wonder Dog
In 1918, a young American soldier emerged from the ruins of a military kennel with a frantic, famished German Shepherd and her five newborn pups. Their survival on the battlefield in France was almost miraculous; Lee Duncan, their saviour, kept two of the puppies and named them after dolls worn as lucky talismans – Nanette …
The Art of Eating
Suppose you are a French entrepreneur, and you are looking for a new business idea to develop in Whitehorse. What do you do ? For a safe bet, you stick to the old saying “Do what you know.” Entrepreneur and epicurean Sylvain Belmondo did just that. After many months in the making, the Gourmet …
Wicked Wickets: YHMA pegs its hoop dreams on croquet
Nancy Oakley has a cool story about the likely origins of croquet. (As the executive director of the Yukon Historical Museums Association and convener of Saturday’s second annual Charity Croquet Tournament, of course she does.) It goes like this: “Some shepherds were hanging out, watching their flocks, and they needed something to do with their …
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The Condiment that Some Take For Granted, and that Others are Really Into
Mustard. It calls to mind sausages, one side of the inside of a sandwich (the meat side), pretzels, Dijon, grainy, spicy, Germany, France, omnipresent condiment, pestle and mortar, seeds, curry, and for some reason, fine beer. But Saskatchewan? No. Roslyn Woodcock recently learned that 90 per cent of the world’s mustard is grown in Canada, …
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Big House Red
I was in the Yukon Liquor Corporation about six weeks ago, when I was delighted to make the acquaintance of an old friend. Looking for an interesting red, I saw a familiar label on an unfamiliar carton. On the bottom shelf of the American wines aisle, there stood an octagonal, blue and brown cardboard carton, …
Fundraising Fun avec Vin
About a year ago, I worked with Yukon Artists @ Work on a project called “Canvas Confidential,” a fundraiser to help Yukon artists if illness prevented them from working. As part of this event, we hosted a wine tasting, and had very specific criteria for the chosen wines. First, we had to order wines from …
Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrive!
November is my favourite month of the wine year. While it is the month where we have to acknowledge, especially in the Yukon, that we are plunging irretrievably into the depths of darkness and winter, at the same time there is a day that for me is the harbinger of the holiday season. That day …
Good Friends, Good Food and Good Wine
The best wine experiences that I have enjoyed have been dinners with friends, often under unexpected circumstances. There was a night in the mortuary of the English Cemetery in the middle of a traffic circle in Florence, Italy, where I drank wonderful, local Tuscan reds with an Anglican nun as we shared a potluck, candle-lit …
Closing out the Old Year and Ringing in the New!
As I reflect upon the approaching year end, I would like to thank you, the readers, for providing me with encouragement, enthusiasm and support for my articles. I hope that they have encouraged you to explore new wine territory and given you new ideas of wines to try. I look forward to continuing to taste …
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A Home Run Malbec from Cahors, France
We are familiar with names of great French Bordeaux wines like Château Lafite Rothschild, that sell out immediately, year after year, and command prices that average, for the 2009 vintage, $1500 a bottle. When it comes to Roll Royce wines, the French have never lost their touch. The problem is, I haven’t seen any Roll …
Opening That Bottle Again
I have a confession. After encouraging friends and readers to participate in Open that Bottle Night, I remembered I had committed to attend the Rotary Club banquet where I found myself sipping the only red offered, a Jackson Triggs Merlot ($8.75). It’s a passable food wine and I will admit to it being infinitely more …
Spanish wines? ¡Si!
I, and the fellow wine enthusiasts I know, seem to have wandered from country to country in the process of discovering wines. We have familiar territories and sometimes work up the courage to explore new lands. I grew up tasting French wines first and, later, Californian ones. In the 60s, when I was a child …
Sipping Rosé Wines for Spring
The return of the light and the steady drip drip drip of the snow melting has re-awakened my yearning for all that the Yukon has to offer us in our other, non-winter seasons. Last week, I stopped at the Liquor Corporation store to look for a couple of rosé wines (rosé meaning “pinkish”) to try …
What do you pair with muskrat?
I, like many wine enthusiasts, love the challenge of finding the right wine to pair with a meal. Many people start with this simple axiom: white wine with white meat; red wine with red meat – not a bad starting place as few things taste better than a citrusy Sauvignon Blanc with mussels, or a …
Reds for a Gathering
It’s always fun to be on the lookout for new wines to try, and this past weekend gave me the opportunity to explore two tasty and moderately priced red wines from Italy. They come from less familiar areas of Italy, that nonetheless are making excellent wines. There’s a wonderful trend in wines from countries around …
Films That Make You Thirsty
Julia Child, the late, great American cookbook writer and chef, was profoundly moved by her first French meal when she and her husband arrived by ship, in Rouen, France, in November of 1948. She wrote: “We began our lunch with a half-dozen oysters on the half shell. Rouen is famous for its duck dishes, but, …
Decoding Wine Names
Several weeks ago, the Rotary Club that I belong to held its 18th annual Fine Wine and Food Festival. We had a record turnout and everyone who attended seemed to have a lot of fun. I was working one of the tables, talking about the wines while I poured them. While there were some number …
A Toast to a ‘Sparkling Season’
With the drop in temperatures, the shorter days and the recent snowfall, I am reminded that we are headed into the holiday season. Few places give me more of that happy feeling, of the anticipation of Winter Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years … the whole stretch of holiday celebrations and events, than the …
“Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrivé” (Almost)
By the time this article is in print, we will be on the cusp of the Beaujolais Nouveau season. Each year I look forward to the experience and wait impatiently for this new French wine to arrive on the shelves as soon as possible after the third Thursday of November. Each year the Georges Duboeuf …
Tasting France’s Most Famous Wine
Now that the Yukon snows have finally arrived and the all-too-brief weeks of skating the magically bare icy surface of my lake are done, I am looking forward to short, early twilights leading into our the long winter nights. For me this is the time of year to reconnect with friends, sit over long dinners …
Five Superb Wines Tried with Beef Wellington
In past articles, I have written about the fun of trying to match wines with food, and have also suggested that there is no one “right” answer to the question of which wine goes with which dish. These ideas were beautifully illustrated to me at a party I held several weeks ago to celebrate my …
Message in a Bottle
I try to write a wine column every couple of weeks, unless life gets crazy, as it has over the past month or so. In that period of time, I will usually get the chance to have perhaps two or three dinners where I will want to serve a bottle of wine. Because I’m such …
Didee & Didoo – Poem “Old Crow Trading Post”
OLD CROW TRADING POST Philip Dicquamare came from France and Old Crow he found by chance. Philip was a French man and a trading post he ran. I remembered it was around 1964 that he had a log cabin store. Philip’s store was by the river bank, he had a stove made from a gas …
A Walk Through the YLC Wine Store: Part 2
The third Thursday of November, chalkboards across France announced, Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé! (literally, “The new Beaujolais has arrived!”). This annual event is the first opportunity for wine lovers to taste the first wines made from the 2011 vintage harvest, grapes picked just six to eight weeks earlier. I always look forward to this …
EA Wine Triple Treat
I was asked by some friends to participate in “An evening of Art, Wine and too much fun” presented by The Artist Relief Fund Society, and I was delighted to get involved. The Canvas Confidential event will be held on Saturday May 14 at the Old Fire Hall, and proceeds from the event will go …
A Walk Through the Wine Store: Part One
Several years ago, my then-editor at What’s Up Yukon asked me to do a walk-through tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) store in Whitehorse, and write a bit about it. At first, I thought it was a little obvious, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized many residents who pick …
A Walk Through the Wine Store: Finale!
Several articles ago I promised to finish my tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) wine shelves before the snow melted. With the rains coming down and my frozen lake looking mushy, I’d better hurry! I’ve been writing episodes of my walking tour for so long that when I was in the liquor store last …
A Happy Find for Bordeaux Lovers
It’s a treat to ease off of the money diet as I shop for wines these days! While I have made some terrific wine discoveries that are well worth exploring regardless of your budget, I’ve been able to look again at a few more wines in the $17-20.00 range, rather than trying to stay in …
