[Next up in the shopping "home for the holidays" guest posts is a woman who's returned home after several years abroad. She gives her unique perspective on opening up shop in Halifax and the importance of the local market in staying afloat.]

By Heather Rankin

Last week I caught a portion of a radio interview between David Suzuki and Mohamed Waheed, Vice President of the Maldives. Waheed was describing plans for making his country the first to be carbon-neutral in the next 10 years. Toward the end of the interview Suzuki remarked on the irony of poor countries (like Maldives) – the least to blame for the world’s ecological problems – contributing the most toward addressing these problems. Waheed’s response was (paraphrased): “we are all on the same planet. We are all in the same boat. It doesn’t matter who put the holes in the boat. What matters is that we work together to patch the holes so that we do not sink.”

Photo credit: Hadassah28 from Flickr

While Waheed was referring specifically to environmental issues, his statement had many applications for me. Sometimes a problem requires a combined effort to solve, regardless of who’s at fault.

When I moved to Halifax just under a year ago to start my own business I noticed a change in the city. Though it still felt small, it seemed to have lost some of it’s neighbourhood charm. Businesses seemed bigger, more generic, and less personal. There were markedly less neighbourhood “spots”; fewer small, locally-owned businesses, and an increased number of chains and high-end bars and restaurants. Streets like Barrington Street, once a thriving strip of independently-owned restaurants, bars and shops, was now largely barren. Where were the cheap and cheerful cafés, affordable boutique shops, neighbourhood pubs?

Other noticeable changes, thankfully, were more encouraging. A vibrant local food and wine community was buzzing. A few miles away people were producing wine that rivalled some of the best in the world, others were making wonderful cheeses, or smoking and brining meats. There was a whole legion of local bakers, sustainable farmers and artisans making incredible products. People were getting excited about the ‘local movement’. Consumers were interested in the personal experience, they wanted to know who they were buying from, where the product was coming from and were prepared to pay for experience.

As I began to flesh out the details of my business, I quickly discarded the idea of having to “import” the best of everything. Having lived abroad for about a decade I had initially felt that Halifax needed a little bit of Europe: the best wines from France, the finest cheeses from Spain, charcuterie from Italy, etc. But now I knew that many of these products were available right here, or pretty close by. I started speaking to local producers and merchants, and saw their passion and energy for what they do. I got to know the faces and first names of people I’d be getting my product from. To my delight they knew their craft inside and out and completely stood behind their products – it would be a refreshing and sensible way to do business.

It was obvious to me how we could equally benefit from supporting one another: what was good for them, was also good for me. And good for Halifax, too, since anytime a customer visited us (i.e local business owners) the money would, in turn, go back into the community. A win for everyone.

To me, it is simple. Small, locally-owned, neighbourhood businesses are the lifeblood of a city. Local business people, and their supporters, take a particular interest and pride in their community in a way that big, faceless businesses can’t. Halifax needs an even stronger network of local, inter-dependent producers, suppliers and merchants (and a healthy customer base to support them). These are not new revelations, and I’m no authority on the subject. But this is just what I see. I hope that in becoming a small business owner in Halifax I will be doing a small part in contributing toward a vibrant, sustainable future for the city, and at the same time, patching a hole or two in our boat.

Heather Rankin is a luddite girl trapped in a technocratic world. Loves wine, food and music. Recently returned to her homeland after 10 years abroad. Follow her on Twitter @curlyluddite.

Happy turkey day!

I don’t know about you but my tummy is still recovering from a Jiggs dinner with the in-laws yesterday. It was, as they say, a wicked scoff. I’d just like to take a moment of pause here to mention one of the things I’m thankful for this year and that is all the new friends made through the magic of social media. It’s been a wonderful year of meeting people that I may not have crossed paths with had it not been for Twitter.

Now, without further ado, the winner of the first ever East Coast By Choice contest is:

Michelle Yogis

She’s won two bottles of wine from Blomidon Estate Winery, a $25 gift certificate from Bishop’s Cellar, a free bottle of wine with the purchase of a meal at DesBarres Manor Inn, and t-shirts from Hart & Thistle.

Thanks to everyone who posted their comments in support of the guest bloggers and to the guest bloggers themselves who provided such great posts. Here are some of the entries from Twitter about the many offerings that the East Coast has in terms of wine and beer. It just goes to show there’s plenty to do, see, and taste right here in our own backyard.

#ECBC

[The wonderful folks at Authentic Seacoast really stand up to their name. If you follow them on Twitter you'll often get lots of great links to East Coast gems. So, I was very happy to include this next guest who 's the wine director at DesBarres Manor Inn. Don't forget to enter the contest this week to win some great items donated by the guests. Leave a comment here or tweet about your fave East Coast beverage using the hashtag #ECBC. Check out the full contest rules and prizes. Love wine? Check out this great new wiki Halifax Wine Impressions by Michelle Yogis.]

By Audrey Firth

Fireside Dining

I love wine. I love white wine, red wine and rose. My friends rely on me to choose wine for our get togethers. And guests at DesBarres Manor Inn count on me to choose the perfect bottle or glass for a memorable dinner. I am quick to point out that I am not a sommelier. I just like to drink wine and have had the good fortune to work with some of the best names in food & wine in Atlantic Canada. My Cape Bretoner’s appreciation for alcohol and parties also comes in handy!

I find great bottles that just make me feel that I can never top it (Belle Glos Pinot Noir 2004) and then I am off on my next adventure and I find Pierre Sparr Pinot Gris or his yummy Gewurztraminer. I became a big fan of Gewurztraminer back in my days at Inn at Bay Fortune (PEI) with Chef Gordon Bailey. We were hosting a wine dinner with Malivoire wines from Beamsville, Ontario and Chef Gordon did a great double smoked bacon tart that was paired with the Malivoire Gewurtz …the best taste!

Lobster Dinner

For many of us it is difficult to try those new wines. We are either intimidated or we stay with our favorites because we do not want to waste money on something we may not like. This past winter to beat the winter doldrums I hosted my friends every Friday evening for “Happy Hour” (sometimes it was Happy Hours). We often tasted Nova Scotia wines with wines from around the world. One Friday we tasted whites – Cookathama Chardonnay from Australia, Man Vintners Chenin Blanc from South Africa and Nova Scotia’s Jost Vineyards L’Acadie Chardonnay and the Jost won hands down. Did I mention we also did food to go with our wines? We paired these great wines with a Seafood Bubbly Bake …great Maritime comfort food.

At DesBarres Manor Inn I enjoy doing the same for our guests. Our very own Chef Shaun often prepares wonderful tasting menus and I like to try a couple of wines with each dish. It kind of broadens your wine horizons. Sometimes we pair a white and a red with the same dish. While we offer fine dining, we like to lose the pretense so people can relax and simply enjoy the flavours and friendship of sharing a wonderful meal and good wines together.

So have fun with your friends and family this fall and winter with your own tasting parties. Seek out Nova Scotia restaurants that pair dishes with wine to gain new insights on how you can bring local flavours together with wine. And follow writers who share seasonal wine picks and pairings like we do at DesBarres Manor Inn.

Well happy tasting to all of you! Don’t hesitate to drop me a line with your own pairings or wine questions. And most of all have fun with your own wine discoveries. Cheers from me to you as I go off in search of the next (in my humble opinion) great wine!

Audrey Firth is the wine director at DesBarres Manor Inn and the general manager for the Authentic Seacoast Resorts. She contributes to food and wine tweets at @AuthenticCoast and shares recipes and wine picks at DesBarres Manor.

[This next guest post comes from one of the many vineyards that Nova Scotia has to offer. If you haven't had an opportunity to try local wines, a drive out to the Valley or other areas in this province makes for a great road trip where you can sample lovely wines and local produce. Remember to enter the contest this week to win some great items donated by the guests. Leave a comment here or tweet about your fave East Coast beverage using the hashtag #ECBC. Check out the full contest rules and prizes.]

There’s something very satisfying about planting a grape vine. You dig a hole, place the vine, and fill it back up again. It’s that simple. But over the course of its lifetime, that vine will grow to produce hundreds of bottles of wine. That’s a good feeling.

When Kimberly (@AliasGrace) asked me if I was interested in writing a guest blog, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to convey my philosophy about wine in more than 140 characters or on the meagre space of a back label. I spent weeks in the vineyard mulling over all the interesting and witty things I could write and, in the end, my philosophy would have fit in a single “tweet” – with 112 characters to spare, in fact.

Philosophy in action

My philosophy is pretty simple, really: wine growing should be dirty.

It doesn’t sound like much of a philosophy, and maybe it’s not, but it’s definitely true. From start to finish, it is a dirty process. Imagine how dirty you would get if you had 10,000 plants to tend to in your backyard garden. My clothes look like Jackson Pollock had at them with wine…Baco, Foch, Chard…If I get home from work and don’t need a shower, it probably hasn’t been a very productive day.

All that to say, it is easily forgotten that the wine you enjoyed with your dinner this evening is an agricultural product, born in a vineyard. There are companies that do a very good job of obscuring that fact, making wine look fabulous and luxurious with beautiful super models in evening gowns sipping Champagne out of Riedel stemware. Not a hint of dirt. But that’s marketing, not wine  growing.

I have been lucky enough to work in and visit a number of the world’s best wine regions and, without fail, the best wines are those that are crafted. I don’t mean “crafted” in the worn-out, full-page-Wine-Spectator-ad version of the term, but in the truer, dirt-under-your-fingernails, sense.

You hear the phrase “great wines are made in the vineyard” tossed around quite a lot and, honestly, nothing could be more true. Making a great wine requires patience, understanding, and attention to detail. Great wines should embody their terroir, what we in North America have started to call somewhereness. Great wines not only tell the story of where they come from, but of the winegrower who crafted them. You cannot “cookie-cutter” a great wine, it’s not paint by number, and no two vintages are alike.

You have to treat every vine like an individual, nurture it, and respond to its particular needs. And this takes a lot of work – pruning, trimming, plucking and thinning.

The whole process, the effort, is wonderfully rewarding.

Yes, vineyards can be horribly muddy. There are many, many bugs that inhabit them. Spiders cleverly spin their webs across the rows and I always seem to dismantle them unintentionally with my face. Birds sometimes poop on me. Lately, I’ve even been spending my mornings escorting unenthusiastic raccoons to their new home in the lovely Lumsden Dam Provincial Park.

When the harvest starts, wasps flock to the crush pad in swarms – I get stung a few times each season. Grape juice is sticky. During vinification – with all that pressing, pumping, punching and racking – I get covered in wine. My hands get so purple and black that I’ve actually had people ask me if I was a mechanic. Does petrol come off with lemon juice, I wonder?

Wine growing is filthy, but – to the perpetual bewilderment of my girlfriend – that’s why it’s so much fun!

Here in Nova Scotia, we have great wines. I’ve only been home a few months now, and I’m still out there discovering them. Our winegrowers work hard to grow the best grapes they can and are actively shaping the industry by experimenting with sites, varietals, and clones. They are excited and passionate about what they do and you can taste that somewhereness in their wines.

And, you know what else? They all end up getting dirty.

Simon Rafuse (@simonrafuse) is associate winemaker at Blomidon Estate Winery and manages a vineyard in the Gaspereau Valley. He lives in Gaspereau with his partner Emilie and Ruffles the cat.

[The first guest post comes from one of the many great independent liquor boutiques in the city. They offer international, national, and regional wines, beers, and spirits right by the Halifax waterfront. Give a warm welcome to Hannah from Bishop's Cellar and don't forget to enter the contest this week to win some great items donated by the guests. Leave a comment here or tweet about your fave East Coast beverage using the hashtag #ECBC. Check out the full contest rules and prizes.]

By Hannah Stuart

When asked to contribute to this collection of guest posts I quickly realized the abundance of experiences I have had with wine over my brief 23 years. Fortunately, for me wine has always been prevalent in my life in some way, be it an agricultural crop tour, a cellar tour with a wine maker, stocking shelves in the store or simply opening the perfect bottle to accompany an evening’s meal.

I grew up on a small farm in the Gaspereau Valley where a small taste of the wine was always a part of the meal. Both of my parents appreciate growing their own food, revel in the act of cooking and consider wine an integral part of any dining table. My father often states what has now become the unofficial Bishop’s Cellar mantra, “Wine is food, wine is fun!” Those family dinners were my first introduction to wine and over the past few years I have developed my own love, taste and experiences with not only the wine but some of the amazing people behind it.

Day 1

Right before Bishop’s opened over 6 years ago, the whole family took a trip to France in hopes of creating some relationships in the industry and finding some world-class wines to bring home. Perhaps my first and most prevalent memory in the wine industry was meeting Luc Bouchard of the prestigious Burgundian wine house, Bouchard Pere et Fils. Long ago, the Bouchard family owned the now chic town of Beaune where the walls of the original castle still stand and serve not only as a barrier to the downtown but also a safe resting place for Beaune’s centuries of liquid gold. Our host lead us down the winding stairwell, through many locked corridors until we arrived in a circular room formed by bricks of limestone where we tried many bottles including the 1982 Vigne de L’Enfant Jesus which Luc told us comes from some of the oldest vines still producing fruit in this region. As I was only seventeen at the time I was not so taken with the technicalities of wine but more excited that I was even allowed the opportunity to try. I can vividly remember my mother and father poised on either side of me like the angel and the devil, respectively, my mother encouraging me to spit and my father explaining that you don’t spit wine this good.

I cannot remember the taste of the wines that day along with many of the hundreds I’ve tried since but I can always remember the fun experience, the welcoming smiles, the beautiful food and the fabulous people behind each winery. Since that time I have made my love for wine my own embracing the opportunities that the industry allows. Fresh out of high-school, like many others I had not a clue of the direction I wanted to take in life but I figured travelling would be a good way to open my eyes and sort it out. Australia seemed a clever choice as it was hot, backpacker friendly and we had several friends scattered across the vast country. I found myself many times returning to Southeastern Australia, the home to many wine regions including some of my favourites, Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale.

It was here that I was introduced to, worked for and sometimes even looked after many of the big-time winemakers. I helped out ‘Old man Dary’ as his grandkids call him at the McLaren Vale Sea and Vines festival where all seafood based dishes are paired with D’Arenburg wines. I’d stop in at Peter Dennis’ vineyard quite often on the way home as he would often be doing barrel samples and checking on quality. But it was the black sheep of the Aussie wine industry, Hugh Hamilton and his wife, Pamela, their son Jock and the dogs, Rodney and Jim (the namesake for the popular wine Jim Jim) took me in as part of the family and the business after only just meeting. While with them I picked grapes, packed boxes, threw Oyster and Wine Nights in the vineyard, and often made lunch for the workers, no matter the task at hand I loved everything that came from working on a winery.

Since returning to Halifax, Bishop’s has helped to continue to develop my taste in wine and keep busy in the many different aspects of the wine industry. I have met some very intriguing grape growers and winemakers here on our own soil, and each carries the enthusiasm you see across the globe in this industry. I guess it’s rather self explanatory though, how could you not be happy working with wine, food and fascinating people each day?

Hannah Stuart is a student at Mount Saint Vincent University currently completing a bachelor of public relations and Marketing as well as a student of the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers. Hannah has been a part of Bishop’s Cellar from day one either in the retail store or behind the scenes. In her free time In her free time she can be found perusing social media, enjoying yoga, tasting wine or enjoying one of Halifax’s many gastronomic adventures. Bishop’s Cellar can be found on twitter (@BishopsCellar) and Facebook.

I’ve got an exciting week planned ahead. In a very special East Coast Guest Posts series, a number of local makers & purveyors of beer and wine will be posting about their experiences. You’ll hear from Hannah Stuart of Bishop’s Cellar, Simon Rafuse from Blomidon Estate Winery, Audrey Firth of DesBarres Manor Inn, and Greg Nash from Hart & Thistle Gastropub & Brewery.

Not just that, we’ve also got a great contest lined up, with a prize package of: two bottles of wine from Blomidon Estate Winery, a $25 gift certificate from Bishop’s Cellar, a free bottle of wine with the purchase of a meal at DesBarres Manor Inn, and t-shirts from Hart & Thistle.

All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog any time this week (one entry per blog posting). That means if you comment on each post—including this one—you’ll get five entries. For extra entries, Tweet about your fave East Coast beverage using the hashtag #ECBC (that’s short for East Coast By Choice). One Twitter entry per day. And, finally, the one restriction is that you must be of legal drinking age to enter. Contest closes midnight (AT) on Sunday, October 11. The winner will be randomly selected and announced on the site next week.

Now start talking about the great wine, beer, spirits, or even bottled pop that’s offered on this side of Canada.