Beverly
Exactly.

Natalie
Cheers.

Rebecca
Cheers.

Natalie
This is when we’re all supposed to hold up our glasses, but mine’s upstairs.

Rebecca
Is it really wrong to say ‘cheers,’ and then not take a sip? Do you guys feel that’s quite offensive?

Beverly
It’s bad luck, actually.

Natalie
Oh, is that what it is? Ok, well, then I need to go drink a whole gulp when I get upstairs. I first heard about your work, Beverly, when I read through a Toronto Star article where you seemed to have had the most lovely chat with food reporter Karon Liu. Can you tell me about that conversation, just as a way to introduce yourself to our listeners?

Beverly
Yeah, absolutely. That was a lot of fun — if every interview could be like that. All I did is the things that I really love to do — so I sat Karon down at a wonderful Trinidadian restaurant, downtown Toronto, and I brought a bunch of wines. Some from producers who I know really well from here in Ontario, and so I’m a staunch supporter of what they do — and then some where I just know that particular wine region, that part of it, based on elevation or winemaking techniques, really goes so well with Caribbean food, and Trinidadian food specifically. So I brought those wines, and then I ordered a bunch of things on the menu, and literally just lined up five dishes and five different wines, and we just tried them. I walked him through my process of what I’m looking for in a dish, and if I pick up this thing in a dish then I know I’m looking for a parallel in a wine, or I’m looking for a contrast in a wine, and what kind of wines I would go and look at — and if some of the really key things that are important to me, if a bottle or glass of wine is going to be shared with a meal. Because no wine is a bad wine, but I do feel you have specific food pairing wines.

The other day, someone gave me a glass of rosé, which I love, and I drink rosé all year round. Some people are like, “I only drink rosé in the summer,” — well, too bad for you. I drink it all year round. But it just lacked acidity. You know, it had fruit and some residual sugar, but the acidity wasn’t there. And to me, that’s an ok wine for the patio. You and I could sit down and talk and we could drink that, but I’m not going to serve you food with that. Anyhow, I’m on my whole soapbox, but that’s what Karon and I did. We simply just tasted through a bunch of things, and talked about parallels and how to pair Caribbean food with wine. And of course, as we do that, he and I shared a lot of stories about growing up, and what my parents would cook and what kind of wines that they were drinking — I was like, “God, how bleh!” Anyhow, we talked a lot about that, and so through those conversations, you know, some of the deeper issues came up around growing up. You know, I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo, and at that time, it wasn’t as multicultural as it is today. It was a very German city. My mom, I remember her being so shocked when I was like, “I want to try out for Little Miss Oktoberfest.” I was like seven — I was like, “I don’t know why I can’t.” And she was like, “Well, I don’t think it’s meant for Caribbeans.” I’m like, “But no, because I dance, I sing, I model, I can public speak, and these are the things that you need to do.” Anyways, I did try out for a Little Miss Oktoberfest. I did not win, but I came close.

Natalie
Their loss.

Rebecca
You know you should have.

Beverly
Right? Exactly.

Natalie
Oh, goodness.

Rebecca
But can I just pick up on that? So basically wine, the idea is, when you pair it with food, you’re either trying to parallel or contrast — and you’re doing both? Or is it one or the other?

Beverly
To be safe, it’s one or the other. But I’m not that person. I’m going to take the weirdest things and put them together, and you’re going to be like, “Whoa, that was really good. I didn’t expect that.” Because to me, I think if I were to invite you over for dinner, we’re going to do three courses and have wine. I want to give you ‘wow’ moments on the palate. And so that’s why when I pair wines with ethnic foods — and I don’t have a better term for that yet, because what is an ethnic food when the population looks so varied? It’s just hard, you know, but ‘ethnic food’ is what I’m using. That’s why when I do those types of dinners, I don’t just stick with the conventional. People go, “Oh, you know, a little Riesling — German Riesling, because it’s kind of all dry.” I don’t do those things. I try to take wines that people would not expect me to pair with my food.

My thing in doing that is I want to show that a molecule is a molecule. Just because you prepare your food a little differently, or this dish originated from Eritrea, doesn’t mean that I can’t pair it with something from Hungary. You know, when you go to wine school and you read a lot of articles, they say, “Oh, what grows together goes well together.” So you know, if you’re going to have a pizza, you should have Aglianico, right? You should have that, from Campania. But I’m like, “Well, no.” I mean, you could do that, but you could also use Aglianico for other things. It’s got a great structure, and can pair with other foods. And so that is why I try to not do the conventional even at my pairings, as opposed to just doing the safe things.

Rebecca
So it’s really just a whole new way of thinking about pairings.

Beverly
It is, and for me (and I try not to lead with this, because it might bore people), but for me, it’s more than just trying to have really good food with you and drink some wine. I mean, that’s a big part of it. But I want people to start asking, “Why haven’t I thought of doing this before?” Why, when I was growing up with my grandparents, they opened up a Right Bank Bordeaux to have with our cookup rice or something? Understanding how wine was introduced to parts of the world is very key in understanding why it’s not a staple in a West Indian home, for example, and why something like rum is — although when you look at the practices around sugarcane and sugar, you would think they wouldn’t drink that either. But they do drink the rum, but not the wine, and that’s largely because wine, like people from West Africa, that we were commodities. I was as important (if not maybe sometimes less important), treated poorly, worse than the wine that you’ve picked up from Madeira or from Bordeaux. A lot of times when they were making room to fit slaves they enslaved, the conversations would be, “Well, then move the wine over here, and then put a hundred more bodies here.” So wine was never seen as an inviting thing for you. It’s more like a drink that belonged to them, the one that was doing the enslaving or the forced migration. So I’m not surprised that people back then weren’t like, “Well, let’s just go and try that good old Bordeaux.” No — it’s not mine.

That is the driving reason why I do what I do, and if two people out of a dinner of 60 pick up on that, I think that’s wonderful. And I do these dinners in such a way that I want all races and all nationalities to come, because that’s when the conversation really gets fruitful. Because you’re going to say something about your background that I didn’t even know. For instance (people are going to laugh at me for this one), growing up in Kitchener, I buy my meat from some of the local farmers that are there, and this man gave me some wonderful lamb shank, and I was like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do with this cut of meat.” So I’m Googling and one person was like, “Well, you shouldn’t braise the lamb shank for three hours, and it’s going to be wonderful.” Oh, braising — my God, what is braising? I was like, “Wait, they’re just stewing this thing. We stew things all the time in the Caribbean. You just stew the thing.” So that’s what I’m saying. It’s something so simple that I would look at you in awe. Before, if you said to me, “Beverly, I’m braising,” then I’m, “Oh, she’s braising the meat, oh my God.” But no, we do the same thing. So these conversations, although it sounds really silly, are ways that I’m like, “Ok, well, we do the same thing.” We’re more alike than we are different.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
I love that, and I don’t think it sounds silly at all. When you said ‘ethnic’ as a term to describe what you’re doing in terms of your pairing, and then you said, “But I don’t have the right word yet. I’m still working on that.” I think that the evolution of language attached to our work is so important. Oh my goodness, in education (where I come from), language is evolving all the time, and what we would have said five years ago is not how we would speak now in a classroom. That’s important, because that means we’re growing. So what does it mean to find new words and new language? But then it goes back to memory, and that was my next question.

In that conversation with Liu for the Toronto Star, you talked together about that transition you made from your career in marketing, to this work as a sommelier. You said (and this is a quote from the article), “When you’re new in wine, you go back to your food memories, and when I was using words from my upbringing, it wasn’t accepted. I knew that and that something was wrong. You and I have different backgrounds and experiences. What smells like quince to you might smell like monkey apple from Guyana to me.” From that quotation, it sounds in some ways like both of the careers that you were involved in (and certainly where I’ve come from in terms of teaching) is actually all about language education, which is just so fascinating to me. In marketing it’s about the language that sells, whereas in wine pairings your experience sounds like more of a language acquisition thing — finding yourself in this vernacular of wine. Did you ever see yourself going into teaching? Because that’s essentially what you are. You’re like a prof.

Beverly
I just made a face like, “Oh God, no.” You’re right in a sense, although what you do I think is far more difficult than what I do.

Natalie
No no no no.

Beverly
Yeah, I guess so. I never even looked at it that way. I think of myself (and I’ve always been like this, not even just when it comes to wine) — I like to bring people together. People, especially when I think, “Oh, you know what, those two would get along. They have a lot in common.” I’m not matchmaking for love interests, but just really good people that can help each other and network and that type of thing. I look at this as the same thing: bringing people together. We did that outdoor festival at Stackt Market two weeks ago, and at the end of it — during the day, I didn’t have time to really look around and take things in. I had no time for that. I was running around and doing things and talking to people. But at the end, we sent out a post-event survey just to stand the lay of the land and who was there. When you look at survey results, it was Toronto. It was the GTA. We had 50% consider themselves white or Caucasian, then we had 36% consider themselves African or Caribbean descent, and so on and so on and so on — East Indian, and so on. That is Toronto, and I say that because again, it’s about bringing people together — and different people together, because I want people to talk about the differences, but to talk about the similarities and dispel some of those myths. Like braising the meat.

Natalie
Yeah. I love that.

Rebecca
What does it demand of your body to be listening to a wine? My daughter, we were walking, she was asking me (we just planted some plants, she has a little deck off her bedroom), and she was like, “How do I know when to water them?” And I said, “Well, I think you have to listen to the plants.” That’s how I decided to say it. Or they just droop — just watch them droop. Listen, or just wait for the drip. What senses do you have to awaken to connect to the wine and know how to… listen? It’s not the right word, right?

Beverly
It is, in a sense. So the difference between a sommelier or someone who really cares and loves wine — I mean, you’re going to get a description at the back of the bottle about the wine and you know, that’s wonderful. And you could go with that. That’s like 50% of the information, you’re good to go. You could drink it, enjoy it, and talk about it. But to understand it is to understand what went into the winemaking, is to understand the soil, is to understand the climate, is to understand the geography, is to understand the governing rules of that particular area — because then now this glass of wine is so much more than what was at the back of that bottle. So now I understand what the winemaker had to go through to make this happen, what rules he had to break or she had to break, how conventional or unconventional they were. And that builds the story about the wine. When you know all of that, when you sell wine to someone, it doesn’t sound like fluff anymore. You know what I mean? I think you can convert more people that way, and it’s a better experience. But in that sense, you are listening to the entire story of the wine.

Natalie
What are you drinking? What’s your wine right now?

Rebecca
Yeah, and I wanted to show you mine.

Beverly
Oh, yeah yeah yeah. This is a wine from Ontario, from a house called Leaning Post. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them. Their skin fermented clockwork white wine. Sauvignon blanc is what they use, and so it’s been aged on skins for quite some time. It’s got a bit of a hue to it — it’s more of an orangey kind of colour. And it’s cloudy too, so it’s unfiltered and unfined. This winemaker, he likes to do things with low intervention, as natural as possible, and so on, so you really get this from this particular wine. I like it. It’s kind of funky, but I like it. It’s got character.

Natalie
That’s fun. My husband, when he came from England to Canada (he emigrated 11 years ago), he first landed in Niagara and was there for a couple of years, and a lot of what he had tried to escape, of what he would call the bucolic suffocation of England, he was now in — in Niagara for himself. And yet what he loved was his time spent working at the wineries. He was just front of house and doing wine education for folks, but he would use words like that to describe the different tastes he got.

Rebecca
My question was going to be can you have a really off day where, “I don’t taste anything today. I’m just off.” But then I think that’s not right anymore, because what you’re saying is that there’s a whole story associated with the wines. It’s not just, “What do I taste?” It’s, “What do I taste, plus what do I know?”

Beverly
100%, yeah. But yeah, you can have off days. It can be a day where your senses aren’t firing on all cylinders, and so your palate is a little off, depending on what you’ve eaten, have you eaten yet something for the day? What if you have just before?

Rebecca
Wouldn’t you need to be… I’m thinking of a writing competition, or whatever — a gymnastics competition — and you think, “Oh, the judge is having a bad day.” And they talk about that — if the judge is off, let’s say. Do you need to make sure that when you come to the wine, you’re coming in your best mind frame possible for you to be able to judge things? That’s really challenging.

Beverly
For me, yes, because a lot of what I do (even if I’m tasting solo by myself), I’m always tasting thinking of a food pairing, thinking of an event, thinking of, “I’m going to share this,” and so I do want to be right, so that whatever I communicate and share at an event is going to be on point and not off — off notes. You also have to be relaxed and be open to being vulnerable. You know, if we were tasting and I was getting geeky about a wine, you’d be like, “This girl’s weird.” You just have to go with it. I’m ok at this point with you thinking I’m weird. You know, I feel that at the end, you’re going to have an experience. Not a weird one, but this is a wonderful food and wine pairing — but the process may be weird to get there. So there is a lot of vulnerability required, and not just because of that, but also because of the industry.

So the industry is still heavily managed and run by, you know, an archaic white male perspective. It wasn’t that long ago, going through the court of masters, where you had to call the person who was proctoring you ‘master’ — that’s how you referred to them. Of course, they don’t do that anymore, but it wasn’t that long ago when you had to do that. There was a lot of people of colour in the United States who would complain, obviously, about having to call this person ‘master’. I don’t think I would have been able to go through with that. So that’s why I’m saying you have to be open and vulnerable, because you’re going to do things, and you may say things and do things a little differently than someone else, and they may make a sly comment, but I think those are learning and teachable moments for me. I don’t care — I mean, I care, and I will correct myself if I pronounce something a little wrong. I’m not French, I don’t speak French. So my French accent, you know, the accent aigu may not be perfect the way I say it, but I’m ok. I’m going to say it. And people will correct you — that’s just how people are in this industry. They’ll go, “Actually, blah blah blah.” They’ll correct you, and that’s fine. I’m ok with that. That doesn’t stop me, nor will it scare me from doing what it is that I want to do.

Rebecca
And when you’re talking about being vulnerable, would it be also you get so excited? Would that be another place that’s really vulnerable — or that’s not it?

Beverly
No, it’s just being ok knowing that someone will say, “Rebecca, you shouldn’t have said that word like that.” Or, you know, whatever, and not be afraid and closed off and now never speak again, and have no voice — because you have so much to share. We all have something to share, a piece to bring to the story, and if one person is quieted, I think you’ve ruined it. We’ve all lost now, because you’ve made that person mute, or quiet, or feel like they can’t participate and share. So that’s what I’m saying. If you’re coming into this industry, and you want to make change, and you look a little different than the standard, you got to be open to, “That’s going to happen.”

Natalie
You are a trailblazer, right? You are a black woman in an industry where, in that same Toronto Star article (I’m going to go back to that one) you actually mentioned that there’s a winery just nearby, just outside of Toronto, run by what you said was like the only black winemaker in Ontario — maybe even Canada.

Beverly
In Canada.

Natalie
And actually, just to give you a little fun heads up, I don’t know if you’ve spoken with them, but actually they’ve donated a bottle. We reached out to them and said that we were interviewing you, and they’ve donated a bottle for a contest that we’re going to be running when we air this episode, which is really exciting — to amplify not just your work, but also their work, which is part of the excitement of what it means. Again, their winery is called Nyarai — right, is that how do you say it?

Beverly
Nyarai.

Natalie
Nyarai. So wonderful. They were just lovely. Anyways, the point being that you’re trailblazing — you, they, right. I mean, this is trailblazing work. So what does that look like then in terms of… who’s your support system? When you’re running these big events like Spring Into Spice, who were your… not just your allies, but your actual cornerstones to get you through to the next event?

Beverly
My friends and family, for sure. They’re the biggest supporters. A lot of them even worked at the festival — like, really worked. I’m surprised they talk to me. And also you know what? A lot of it has to do with my parents and their views on things. There were moments at the festival where I was like, “Ok, this is totally my dad coming out right now.” But for good reasons, because he’s very much so organized and on point, and he does not want to be embarrassed because so-and-so was late putting up such-and-such. I was like, “I’m turning into my father,” but it was good. Because you need those types of principles, I think, to do something that large, and to ensure that people have the right experience. You want them to come back, and you don’t want you and your lack of preparedness ruin their day and have them leave not getting the messages you wanted to get across. But yeah, my friends and family, for sure, and then I think a lot of it has to do with my upbringing.

Rebecca
A level of excellence. You come from a high-achieving family, obviously.

Beverly
A level of excellence, yes.

Rebecca
Just thinking more about the senses, what does Toronto in the summer smell like? Or taste like?

Beverly
I live downtown, so… you know, I wouldn’t say that. Well, it does smell sometimes like urine. Anyhow, I just said it. It does. You know, because I’m walking on Queen Street going to places and still living down here — this is sometimes what you get a lot of in the summertime. What does it taste like? This is not even relevant, but it’s relevant to me. It tastes like the shawarma sausages that they make at Sanagan’s.

Natalie
Oh, that’s so fun.

Beverly
Yeah, cause I’m a fan of that, and I’m always at Sanagan’s buying sausages to barbecue upstairs. Even if there’s Caribbean food, there’s Sanagan sausages also on the table.

Rebecca
Ok, and what does it sound like?

Beverly
Oh, joy, happiness. There’s a great buzz in the city in the summertime. I think people being locked up in the winter just need the reprieve to be out, and you can sense that. I don’t know if you remember the first warm weekend — there was a natural buzz in the city. Everybody was happy. We were out. And that’s what Toronto in the summer is like for me. A lot of people who I know who have homes elsewhere will say, “I will never not spend the summer in Toronto.” They will always come back, and not because of the whole immigration thing, but they just love it, and I agree with them.

Rebecca
The weather was so nice today. I was thinking “Ah, this is perfect.” Were you guys outside today?

Beverly
No, I was working.

Rebecca
No? Ok, nevermind, it was crappy out there.

Natalie
I was in a classroom, so shut up. Whatever, Rebecca.

Rebecca
Hey Reframeables: a little housekeeping. Don’t forget to rate, review, or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts if you like what we’re doing here on Reframeables. Your feedback really supports this reframing project of ours. Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter, which comes with a free delicious recipe from Nat. And we have a new segment for our Patreon subscribers: mini-episodes which we call Life Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. So check us out over on our Patreon, and consider a donation if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Reframeables.

Natalie
In light of the summer in Toronto, which is what we’re celebrating with this focus on the senses, what are some of your favourite pairings that you could send listeners away with today, that you might suggest that they try? Could you think of two that you would just maybe say, “Give this a go this summer?”

Beverly
Are you guys familiar with a grape called Grüner Veltliner? Austria, that’s where it’s from. This grape is so versatile, and a really lovely ripe fruit expression on the palate — not from residual sugar, it’s just the elevation, where the vineyards are, and so on. Generally, it sees some time on leaves, which makes it softer on the palate as well, but it also has wonderful acidity, so you know you’re going to get that lovely cleansing of your palate as you taste, and it’s going to break down your food. Grüner Veltliner and curry, so good. Chill the Grüner Veltliner, have your curry. It’s delicious.

Rebecca
So if you went into the LCBO, you would be looking for a specific maker that uses that?

Beverly
So you’d just say, “I’m looking for some Grüner Veltliner,” and they’ll take you to the Austrian section, and be like, “Oh, here are three for you to choose from.”

Rebecca
And you’re saying they would all be…?

Beverly
I generally try to shop in the vintages section, only because I know that sometimes in the generalist section you’re able to make the wines that price point because there’s a lot of formulaic things that are done, and sometimes some additives are added to the wine so you can make things fast, and in bulk, and da-da-da-da-da, and then you put it in a bottle, you send it out. So I try not to drink those. You know, a lot of people say things like, “Oh, I get a headache when I drink,” and then I’m like, “Oh, you drank that one.” But the same way you would watch what food you put in your body — like you wouldn’t (well, maybe you would) have McDonald’s every day. (I shouldn’t say that.) But you know, a lot of adults know that that’s probably not the wisest dietary choice — it’s the same way when you’re buying wine. You just want to make sure you’re buying wines that the winemakers were thoughtful about what they’re using, and they didn’t add mega purple — which I don’t even know what goes into mega purple, but a lot of wines that people drink have this thing in there called mega purple.

Rebecca
So if you are buying a $10 wine — because I think sometimes people will brag about, “Oh, this wine tastes delicious, and it’s super cheap.” So there could be some stuff in it that’s making it super delicious. That’s possible.

Beverly
Yeah. Like oak chips — if it wasn’t aged in a barrel because that’s a little bit more money, but if you like oakey tastes, I’m going to throw some oak chips inside the wine, you know, and make that give you the oak. And so there’s all kinds of tricks and things, but there’s still $10, $11, $12, $13 bottles of wine in the vintages section where it didn’t happen. That didn’t happen to it. You just have to know what region to go to — so it’s a region that’s up-and-coming, or people don’t know it as much, and they can’t pronounce the grape, so it’s harder for people to sell it. But those wines, those are some steals. Today, actually, I’ve picked up some.

Rebecca
What is a region, like an up-and-coming region, that we should look out for that might be on a lower price point?

Beverly
So there are parts of Portugal that are doing wonderful things with wine right now, like Alentejo, for instance. You can find really affordable wines there. There are other parts in Spain as well where they’re producing some grapes that people don’t know — they’re native grapes to that particular area, and so it’s hard to sell something to someone if they can’t say the word. So those things come into the market very affordably priced. I mean, you know how much wine costs when you’re in Europe. It’s ridiculous on what we pay here — so it’s not as though they’re trying to give you some swill. It’s good wine, just it’s hard to market it and sell it at that high price. But those are some really good regions to start with there.

Rebecca
So Portugal…

Beverly
And Spain.

Rebecca
And Spain.

Beverly
Yeah, especially some of the white grapes in Spain. Spain is known for their Tempranillo, their Rioja, all those ones — but their white grapes, not so much to the everyday person that goes into the store, and so those can be really affordable.

Natalie
Ok, one more pairing for me. This is so exciting.

Beverly
You know, given the time of the year (although I did say I drink rosé all year, which I do — a well-made rosé is appropriate for any time), I will encourage people who like to eat a lot of meat dishes to stock up on rosés during this time, so when you’re out on the patio, you can still have something that’s going to have a little bit of tannin in it and still give you a great acidity. It could be chilled, it’d be very refreshing on the patio. So I have a ton of rosé that I keep for moments when I’m up on the roof and I’m having steak and I don’t want to have a big red. I don’t want to have a Pinot Noir, I want something that I can chill, but I know I’m still going to get some tannins off of it. So I will do that. And one thing I tell everybody is that you should always have a bottle of sparkling wine in your home. You don’t have to buy, like, champagne — buy sparkling wine that’s like $25 a bottle, or even you can find some that are really delicious at $22 or $20 a bottle. Sparkling wine is by far the best food and wine pairing that we have — and in Ontario, we make really good sparkling wine. It can rival a lot of places. Really good sparkling wine. You drive an hour this way or two hours that way, you can buy all the sparkling wine you want and have it at home. You should always have sparkling wine in your fridge. It goes great with conversation, obviously, but it also goes wonderful with food. I prefer the sparkling wine done in the traditional method, where things are aged on lees appropriately, and not done in a pressurized tank. It tastes more austere, and me more of the stuff you’d find in Champagne. And we do a lot of that here.

Rebecca
You’re saying you can’t really go wrong with sparkling wine and food — it’s always going to work.

Beverly
100%. Unless you’ve got really big meats — then that’s not going to work for you. But if you’ve got chicken, you’ve got pork, you’ve got obviously fish, you’ve got a salad, you’ve got a conversation, sausages — anything. The reason why is that acidity in that, it helps to break down anything. Even if you’ve got a fattier piece of pork, it’s going to help to break that down. Even your lamb, some of your lambs will also work wonderfully with sparkling wine because of that acidity.

Natalie
No way.

Beverly
Yeah, the texture from the bubbles will help if you have something that has a cream sauce or a thicker sauce. That texture from the bubbles, boom, it’s going to work with that. And then the lees aging gives your palate a nice coating, so now that’s another level of texture that’s happening in your mouth. We as humans, we like that velvety kind of feel more than that harshness. So sparkling wine does wonders with so many things.

Rebecca
Just going back for a second to the rosé. When you were saying that some rosés, you’re not going to get the tannin?

Beverly
No, you will. They’re all made from red grapes. There are some regions where they old school will mix red and white together, because that’s really how wine was made back in the day. No one was like, “No, only this strain of Pinot Noir.” They bring all the grapes. You know, it’s the 1300s, I’m making this, I’m just making wine — bring all the grapes. And then you have these multicoloured wines, because it’s made of all the grapes.

Rebecca
Would that be as delicious? Is it just a weird snobbery that…?

Beverly
No, it would be as delicious. In France, in Champagne actually, the way they make rosé is a form of blending both dark-skinned and white grapes together, and it’s wonderful. But most people make it from dark-skinned grapes. So you will get a level of tannin.

Rebecca
Ok, because I was thinking, why does my husband — he seems almost snobby about rosé.

Beverly
Because rosé has a bad reputation. People either think it’s like a ladies drink, or…

Rebecca
Why did it get that way? I don’t get it.

Natalie
Yeah, it’s so gendered — there’s something weird in that.

Beverly
It’s years of marketing, too. Remember they used to have the Moscato rosé, that was super super super super sweet, and that was really popular. And so a lot of times I’ll let people know about Provençe, or some of the other areas that are making wonderful rosé wines. That’s their base. They go back to that. If you told me that all rosé was like that, I wouldn’t want to drink it either. So that’s probably why your husband doesn’t want to drink it.

Rebecca
Right, so he’s thinking about one of the super sweet…

Beverly
Yeah, and just the old school way of how rosé was marketed here in North America. It’s not like that now.

Rebecca
Ok. Lastly, on the pairings note, is there a pairing you could suggest for a Canadian wine? Specifically, one that you have in your head, that this Canadian mine is great with…

Beverly
I’ve drank so much Canadian wine. There’s so many!

Rebecca
Your body is Canadian wine!

Beverly
Yeah. So Steve from Nyarai (you’ve got their wines coming), so if you get their Folklore, which is their sparkling, that goes really well with codfish. One of the winning combinations there. If they send you the Field Blender’s white, that thing is so food-friendly. It’s so versatile. I have not had a bad pairing with that wine yet. I know what to stay away from, but it goes great with well-seasoned and flavoured foods — that’s Field Blender’s white. We do Pinot Noir quite well, and Pinot Noir from Bachelder, or even Leaning Post, or ADX Wines. In a lot of countries, we do one-pot meals, where there’s rice, and there’s meat, there’s so many things happening in that pot. Whereas our Pinot Noir, I find you could bring that to a dish like that, because Pinot Noir is going to have good acidity, moderate tannins (so it’s not going to fight with things that are on your plate that you’re eating), and nice red berries as well. And so our cool climate Pinot Noirs I find go really good with our one pot foods that many countries make.

Natalie
Very cool. That’s super helpful. So for the people who are listening, who don’t drink wine — because we’ve interviewed actually a couple guests who, for them, drinking is actually not an option. That is something that they’re not doing in their life. So in terms of what you do as a sommelier, is there any sort of learning that people could do in their own lives just via what you’re doing through your senses all the time in this work?

Beverly
I think so. And you know, on that point, there’s a couple of things that are happening in the industry. There’s a lot of low alcohol wines coming out right now. So instead of having your average 13%, they’d have like 5% or 6%, and there’s a lot of non-alcoholic wines coming out where the wine is made first like normal wine (fermentation, all that good stuff), and it gets sent to a place where it’s processed and the alcohol is stripped out of it. So it’s gone through the same process as wine, but the end result will have no alcohol. And it actually tastes pretty good. Someone gave me a glass and I was like, “You sure there’s not any alcohol? It’s actually really good.” Something like that, that I know has gone through the same winemaking process (just fermentation is a little different obviously, the sugar has to be stripped out) — I think those are really good things to practice with in terms of opening up your senses. And there’s some basic things that they tell you to do when you’re studying wine and wine school, like go to the market and smell (well, with COVID and stuff now, you might get in trouble), but just smell the fruits and smell all the flowers — ok, maybe buy all the fruits and bring them home.

Natalie
Yeah. Sniff them in your kitchen.

Beverly
Yeah. Because then you really get an understanding of scents and tastes, and it smells like this but tastes like that — because that happens often with wine. You may smell a wine and be like, “Oh, this smells so ripe,” and then you drink it, you’re like, “Ooh, it’s so tart.” That tells you a lot about the winemaking process and where the wine was made and all that kind of good stuff. So that’s one of the things I would do if I was someone who was like, “I don’t drink alcohol, and I can’t get non alcoholic wine.” I would go to the market and smell all the stuff.

Natalie
Because it adds to that idea of like, “Stop and smell the roses,” that silly clichéd statement, but there’s something in it. I mean, there’s often a truth in those types of clichés.

Beverly
Definitely.

Natalie
We’re gaining, right? From taking the time to appreciate the art that we are engaging in, whether it’s wine or food or…

Rebecca
Plus smells are so… I mean, they bring back memories so strongly. We always have this memory of: my mother was doing her PhD in Oxford in our adulthood, so we went to visit her, and one of the rooms she was staying in for one year was above a cake shop. So there was sugar smell all the time. Is that ever in wine? Cake smell?

Beverly
Yeah. 100%!

Rebecca
Would you ever say, “This is cake-forward?”

Beverly
So growing up in the West Indies (and I think there’s the same thing in the British — obviously, because colonization) but we would make the thing called black cake, which is this fruitcake with rum. But in that, in our black cake, there’s a lot of allspice and clove and all those good things — and those are the same things that you get if someone has aged a wine in oak. Sometimes the wine gets baking spices because of the oak aging, depending on if it’s an American oak, or how well-seasoned it is. So yeah, absolutely. We will say things like baking spices, and I will say things like black cake — like, “What is that?”

Natalie
That’s awesome. I love it.

Beverly
Yeah, totally.

Natalie
I had a student, part of his final project was to make his grandma’s black cake for me for Christmas this year, and it was the best, so there’s just such a fun sharing of memory in moments like that with food. So absolutely.

Beverly
Yeah.

Rebecca
We like to do a speed round at the end, are you ready for it? To just answer as fast as you can? I really love to announce it, and then I love to see everyone writhe a little bit.

Natalie
So don’t think too hard. Just go for it.

Beverly
Good thing I have wine with me. But go ahead, yes.

Natalie
What’s the last new skill you learned?

Beverly
Oh, video editing.

Natalie
Nice. Ok, what’s a common myth or something that people misunderstand about your profession?

Beverly
That we drink wine every day.

Rebecca
Sometimes you’re just not interested. You don’t want to.

Beverly
No. Sometimes I want a Negroni.

Natalie
That’s great.

Rebecca
Yeah. Ok, the funnest thing you did today?

Beverly
Finished a proposal.

Natalie
How would your siblings, or some sort of super-close friend or family member, describe you in three words?

Beverly
Hard-working and relentless — that was probably four words.

Rebecca
Ok, and lastly, what do you need to be creative?

Beverly
Music. I do everything to music. People are like, “How are you reading, how are you studying to music?” I’m like, listen, music just puts me in a zone. Music is the thing.

Rebecca
Any music you want to send us away with? Something in particular.

Beverly
I’m a really big fan of house music and Afrobeats. Those are my two things that I’m really into. If you play that I’d be chair-dancing.

Natalie
I just think that that’s a great image to end this on — because I feel like when we did a whole episode about the senses, and yet it’s through a podcast. So I mean really, all we’re all getting to use initially is how we hear, and yet there’s so much more happening here. So I hope that people get to bop their way out of here with some house beats in their mind, and go get themselves a glass of wine.

Rebecca
Bop their way out, and then go out and smell something.

Beverly
Exactly.

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
Smell some roses.

Beverly
Rebecca, what are you drinking?

Rebecca
Ok, this was MacLaren. Do I need to tell you more than, “This is MacLaren.”

Beverly
No no no. I know what it is, yeah. Nice.

Rebecca
Yeah. Which… I don’t even know the region. Is that California?

Beverly
It is, yeah.

Rebecca
Would you say drink less Australian, drink less Californian — drink less of the regions that we all… or no?

Beverly
I would never say that. I do encourage people to explore, which is why I have my dinners. I try really hard to include one or two regions that people would never think, “Oh, there’s wine there?” I try to do that so they can see that they like some things that they thought they would never like. I have people who come to the dinners all the time going, “I don’t drink white wine,” or, “I don’t drink red wine.” I’m like, “Well, at the end of this, you will like white wine and red wine.” It’s just about your experience. We know, right? You tell your kids, “Try it first before you say you don’t like it.” It’s the same thing with adults.

Rebecca
Yeah, but it is also so true that the story of something also adds so much to it — because we visited Exultant Winery in Prince Edward County (I think it’s called Exultant). Do you know that winery?

Beverly
It could be. No, I don’t know them.

Rebecca
Ok. They were a really small winery, and then when she got into the whole story of them, it just made it all… their price point was fairly high, but knowing the whole story behind them, and I learned more about, like, they bury their vines in the winter, which is a process I didn’t know about. But the whole story made it all the more interesting. So it’s interesting to hear you say that the story of the wine matters as much as the taste.

Beverly
Then did you buy a case of wine?

Rebecca
We bought two bottles.

Beverly
See? This is good. The story worked.

Rebecca
Right. Are you like, “Yup, they know what they’re doing.” Bev. Yeah, the story worked. It’s important.

Rebecca
Yeah. I’m very susceptible to story.

Beverly
Me too.

Natalie
Narrative is important. And actually, that’s what’s going to happen — so when we finish airing this episode, everybody can be listening for the story of… and you said again, the name of the winery that we are partnering with is Nyarai, right?

Beverly
Nyarai, yeah. Really good. You know, I talk about Steve (the winemaker from Nyarai) quite a bit, and a lot of people think, “Oh, you know, she’s supporting Steve because he’s black.” Well ok, yes, that’s one reason. But Steve is actually a talented, crazy talented winemaker to the point where people who have their own vineyards hire Steve to make wine for them under their label. So he does it for his own title, but he also does it for other people — and that is testament to people saying, “This guy knows what he’s doing.” I call him the mixmaster. You can give him a bevy of a bunch of grapes, and he’s going to come up with a brew that you’re going to be like, “This is amazing.” He’s so talented — crazy talented.

Natalie
Well, I’m excited that we get to do that, because it felt like such a win. Because it was just the story, right? That we reached out, we didn’t have any access to that wine outside of reading that initial Toronto Star article with you. So thanks, Beverly, for hipping us to something amazing.

Rebecca
Yes. And lastly, if people wanted to come to one of your dinners…?

Natalie
They just go through your website?

Beverly
Yeah, totally. So you will see the dinners posted on beverlycrandon.com, which is super-simple to remember — or spicefoodandwine.com, which is the name of the company. Our fall series of dinners will be announced at the end of July, for Fall Into Space.

Rebecca
Oh my goodness, I have so many wine moms…

Beverly
You should book out a couple of seats.

Rebecca
Yeah, they would want to do it. I’m going to find some people.

Beverly
Yeah. When I have the lineup of restaurants, I’ll let you know. We’ve got some places in mind that we’re going to hit up, and this time I’m going to try to not just stay in the downtown core. I live downtown, so everything’s downtown — but everybody’s like, “Well, I live in Mississauga.” I’m like, “I guess, ok, fine. I’ll branch out.” Anyhow, thank you guys so much. This was fun.

Natalie
Thank you so much. This was amazing.

Rebecca
Yeah, thank you. Super fun.

Natalie
Wait, can I take a picture of you two with your one glasses up? Because that’s so cute. One, two, three, wine glasses up. Yay! That’s so cute. Thank you, Beverly. We really appreciate you.

Beverly
All right.

Rebecca
Thank you. Yeah, it was really fun.

Beverly
Ciao!

Natalie
Have a wonderful rest of your evening.

Beverly
Ciao ciao.

Natalie
Bye.

Beverly
Bye.