Laurie Macdonald is the Executive Director for VQA Ontario and was recently interviewed in a frugal oenophile podcast. It’s about 25 minutes long, and the first half is largely boilerplate questions (”What value does the VQA offer?”) but there was an interesting idea that emerged in the second half, almost off-handedly.

Ms. Macdonald was talking about the push to get more people drinking Ontario wines, and while she was happy to report that sales were constantly improving, she also noted (perhaps hyperbolically, perhaps not?) that Canada drinks more bottles of Yellow Tail than of all the VQA labels put together. If true, that is a pretty amazing statistic, and I don’t honestly doubt it - I know that yellow tail was a bit panicked during the BC dockworker’s strike a while back because they had thousands of cases going bad in storage containers; we Canadians can’t seem to get enough of the stuff, particularly their Shiraz and Chardonnay.

It was at this point that Best (the interviewer) remarked that maybe the VQA’s message should be that every time you buy a bottle of Yellow Tail, try a bottle of our wine too. This would of course make the VQA vintners positively giddy, and probably expose you to some new hits too. Indeed, even if you ignore the Ontario patriotism angle, an excuse to try new wines is always welcome, so why not, really? I thought it sounded like a downright clever approach.

If you’re interested, but having trouble getting started, my recommended VQA-alternate to a Yellow Tail Shiraz would be Pelee Island Winery’s Shiraz Cab (with the bluebird on the label) or to be super-Ontario, their Baco Noir. I am harder pressed to come up with a nice, cheap VQA equivalent for the Yellow Tail Char, but Henry of Pelham seems to keep making popular Chardonnay, so their current offerings are likely a good place to start. At any event, this “Yellow Tail + 1? idea seems not only to be in the best interests of the VQA, but probably also wine buyers in general. I heartily encourage it.

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Two quick notes from the blogosphere of wine (the oenosphere perhaps?) one little and recurring, one larger and more monumental.

Taking the slighter of the two first, the better to stoke the fires of your burning curiousity, dear reader: WBW - Wine Blogging Wednesday - #20 has been announced, and looks to be a worthwhile endeavour. Wednesday April 12th, the challenge is to try a white that a) you haven’t tried, b) is pure monosource, no blends, and c) is not one of the big three: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling. The link offers some suggestions, Chenin Blanc, Gewurtz, Muscat… many are the options and its not something any VQA fan will have trouble sourcing. I had a Semillon on our recent cruise that gave me cavities on the spot it was so sweet, but I believe it was secretly a blend anyhow and so hardly fitting for this affair. If you want a fairly safe bet, Colio’s Estate Pinot Grigio 2004 took a gold at this year’s Cuvée and I won’t call you a cheater if you use WBW as an excuse to try the 2004 Vidal Icewine from EastDell Estates - also a gold winner.

On to the larger news then. The NYTimes has started a wine blog. The oenosphere is all a-buzz with what this will mean for the other writers out there but my vote tends to be towards it being a positive thing. Wineblogging is a great way to talk about wines, or indeed to learn about wines, but it is easy for it to be perceived as an amateurish exercise. Certainly I claim no more than to be an amateur - one who loves the subject - but there is a certain credibility gap present in the medium owing mostly to its youth, and those in the field who wish to take themselves quite seriously feel wronged by that gap. Now that the Times’ wine writer is blogging, the promise I see is a raising of the bar for other wine writers - he is stiff competition - but also a larger potential audience being led to the medium through the Times’ noble auspices, and ready to find other writers equally compelling. It is up to us to make of this what we can, but as a wine enthusiast first and blogger second, I am delighted.