Cupcakes and Gewürztraminer: A match made in heaven? There's just something about putting together wines and food that can leave the most confident f...

General wine wisdom often automatically pairs meat with red wine, and while that needn't always be the case, for the purposes of this week, it shall be. I've put together a list of eight wines that work wonderfully with whatever might be on your carnivorous menus -- and don't forget to save a glass for dessert.

It's Friday night. You and your nearest and dearest arrive at the new, swanky restaurant in town, dressed to kill and ready to celebrate your anniversary/big promotion/making it through another week virtually unscathed. Everything is perfectly right with the world until the wine list is dropped in your lap. Now what?

We have a secret. When we go wine shopping, we like to play a game. It's called the Cheaper and Better Game. The rules of this game are simple: find the best wines we can for $15 and under.

We were tasting a flight of Barbarescos, the northern Italian wine from Piedmont. The guy behind the booth waxed poetic about the wine's nuanced flavours, marveling at its rustic leather notes mixing with dark fruit, tea leaves and rose petal. "I get none of that," I thought to myself.

This year, let's thank the women and men who actually grow or raise the food that we put on the table on Monday because I swear that it tastes better to me for having seen the soil from which it sprung.