Surrender to summer: it's time for white wine.

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Grapes for Humanity is a charity that raises money from oenophiles and their suppliers to assist victims of landmines around the world.

On Monday, September 8th from 6pm - 8:30pm at the Miller Tavern, 3885 Yonge St. (near York Mills subway station), the wines left over from the Santé wine festival in May will be put up for auction. Dozens of 12-bottle cases will be available at $200 each. Wines poured at Santé cover the whole price spectrum, but average out at $25 per bottle... you do the math.

A $50 ticket covers admission to a wine tasting with food supplied by Rick Montgomery of The Miller Tavern. A $250 ticket covers the wine tasting and lets you draw a number for a case of wine (which could be worth up to $500 or so retail). Your case or cases will be delivered to your car by volunteers. All wines are being stored at the climate-controlled Fine Wine Reserve.

Currently, Grapes for Humanity projects are underway in Honduras and Cambodia, but proceeds from this event will assist victims in Nagorno Karabakh, an autonomous region of the former USSR, located within Azerbaijan in the Southern Caucasus region. This small republic has the highest per capita mine casualty rate in the world, surpassing even Afghanistan and Cambodia. 

For more information and tickets, contact Kristin at 416-975-8575 / kcard@lyonsgroup.ca

The recent cabinet shuffle at Queen's Park and re-jigging of ministries and their responsibilities has some Niagara wine industry promoters concerned. The Liberals have decided to take the government's liquor monopoly under the wing of the apparently more grasping Ministry of Finance.

It seems that imported wines are more profitable for the LCBO than domestic wines and this has Tory MPP Tim Hudak and others worried.

They say that following the "mediterranean diet" - including consuming lots of wine - is good for your health. However, on July 10, the boys at Lifford Wine Agency are putting on another Boys' Night Out in the Distillary District aiming to fight cancer with cash.

The cancer fight will be of specific interest to the "boys": they're raising money for prostate cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital. Lifford promises "a celebration of guy’s stuff cunningly disguised as a sophisticated wine tasting."

For just $95, you can sample a whole lot of Lifford's fine wines in festive night out and support a cancer fight not talked about much because men don't like to talk about it - but take note: 1 in 7 men will get prostate cancer.

Find out more about Boys' Night Out.

The power of the monopoly will be put to good use for the environment. After launching those annoyingly smaller sized plastic bags a couple of years ago for one- or two-bottle purchases (they couldn't be re-used for anything else) the LCBO has decided to bite the bullet and ban plastic outright.

The LCBO's action will take a hefty 80 million bags out of Canada's six billion plastic bags per year total, and will hopefully encourage other retailers to follow suit and drop the take-3,000-years-to-degrade bags. Read a summary here.

 Niagara Wine Auction Preview @ Jump. April 29

 One of Niagara's most glamorous events will be held over the weekend of June 13-15 at a number of locations offering winemakers' dinners, tastings etc. The auction itself will be held on Saturday the 14th in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The Black Tie Gala on Saturday night will be hosted by singer Jan Arden and restaurateur Michael Bonacini, and entertainment will be provided by 70s stalwarts The Temptations and disco-trio the Pointer Sisters (whose publicity pics suggest they haven't aged a day...)

For more information, visit the Niagara Wine Auction website.

At the smart preview at Jump Cafe in Commerce Court at the end of April, I spoke with Tom Green, Winemaker for Diamond Estates. He makes the wines of East Dell and Birchwood.

There's nothing like a hot summer to get Niagara winemakers keyed up and, without even mentioning that he meant reds, Green said 2007 is looking like a great vintage: "Some of the  wines are so big we're going to have to sit on them a bit longer". He says this is great news for the merlots and cabernets, and that the pinot noirs are definitely going to be darker and fuller bodied. So yet another winemaker, who ought to know, says that Niagara's 2007 reds are going to be blockbusters.

Big Red Auction
If you're feeling flush and generous and would like to help Sick Kids',  bid on one barrel's worth of wine (225L) from any of these three "big reds" from Niagara:

Thirty Bench Benchmark
I liked this one better than the last time I tried it back in January at the Cuvee Awards. This is the Cuvee Gold Medal winner, and it is definitely the crowd pleaser of the three wines on offer.
There's a rich and bold nose of dark red berry fruit. Rich, smooth and full on the palate, though with somewhat over-extracted fruit that skirts the edge of cough candy. Tannins still very powerful and it'd be nice to see some more secondary notes, but these should develop with time - which whoever wins the bidding on the lot (a barrel's worth of wine!) will certainly have. 88 points.

Delaine Vineyards Cabernet Merlot
Rich nose with great minty and herbal notes and brighter dark red fruit on this more Old World style Bordeaux blend. Smooth on the palate, this is more medium bodied and not as fruity, though red fruit is there. Acidity and tannins are both high and there's enough fruit that it should continue to age well. Nice finish. 87/88 points.

Dan Aykroyd Cabernet Sauvignon
Very rich and powerful nose with great secondary notes of dried herbs and mint. Acidity and tannins are both high and there is some dark berry fruit that could be a little more to the fore. Slightly thin in the middle, but nice finish. 87 points.

All of these will improve with age and indeed this is a marvellous opportunity to track the development of decent quality Niagara reds over time - especially as you'll have, like, five cases of whichever one you get...

This year's New Zealand Wine Fair is on Thursday, May 15th and is once again at the Design Exchange on Bay Street. It's a great opportunity to meet some winemakers and sample a wide range of NZ's new releases and there's usually good food too.

Notable producers displaying this year include Kim Crawford, Oyster Bay and Spy Valley. Tickets are $55. For more information and to register, visit the New Zealand Wine Events site.

Santé, the annual Bloor-Yorkville wine festival is on from May 5-10, and it's the tenth anniversary. Its new "official" name - Santé: The Toronto International Wine Festival - is clearly inspired by another Bloor-Yorkville event.

42 wineries are participating, so it's a great winetasting opportunity. It's educational too - there are all sorts of seminars and region-specific tastings. Australia, California and New Zealand are among the choices for tutored tastings this year.

There'll lots of good food from 22 chefs at the tasting sessions and participating restaurants and retail stores. Grand winemaker's dinners will be held at restaurants including Pangeau, Truffles, Holt's Café and The Fifth.

Check out the website for more info.

The Terroir festival is on Victoria Day weekend in Prince Edward County. It's an annual celebration of the County's wine industry in picturesque Picton at the no doubt quaint Crystal Palace Fairgrounds.

County winemakers will release their 2007 whites and rosés and local chefs will take care of the food pairings. According to Angela Braun of the Winegrowers Assocation, there was a "record harvest of high quality grapes" in 07 and she says it's a "great vintage."

Given the poor retail distribution of the County's products - not to mention the limited quantities of some of the wines - there's no better way to try them and buy them than in the County itself. Some of the better whites being made in Ontario right now come from the county - especially Huff Estates and Norman Hardie.

Picton's not that far from Toronto or Ottawa, but you'd really probably rather not drive back the same day...

For more info, visit the winegrowers association website.