Ontario House, ‘Vingt Cinq’ 2025, Gamay, Niagara, Canada

Today we start with a celebration of THIS YEAR’S HARVEST; it’s a Grape Witches collab wine from 2025! As a good foodie, you know that the farmer’s market is THE place to be all summer and fall. WELL! Here we have the freshest wine version of a farmers’ market drop straight from our friends at Paradise Grapevine in Niagara. Implementing the traditional Beaujolais Nouveau method, whole clusters of Niagara gamay were carbonically macerated. This is a technique where tanks containing uncrushed grapes are pumped with c02 and fermentation begins INSIDE the berry. This creates a FIZZY, candy-like effect, fresh aromatics and frisky flavours that this style is known for. Berry blizzard - like blueberries, strawberries and cherries became one - murmur of herbs, ballooning lightness, a twinkle, a spark & a gentle, swaddling structure. Enjoy anytime, anywhere, anyhow, preferably with a chill while setting intentions for the spring & feeling gratitude for the year that has past.

Pair of Limited Edition GW ISOs

On day two, may we present the most perfect cup to make use of for the rest of your advent adventure and beyond! Wine tastes better out of glasses, but particularly out of limited run, grape embellished glasses designed ONLY for our FOODIE advent! No glassware collection is complete without a pair of ISOs, a little smaller than your average glass size, these are the traditional tasting glasses used to sip wine of any and all kinds, and often offered as take-home collectables at all the coolest wine fairs around the world! Start your collection or grow it, give one to a bestie or keep both on your bar cart to fill & admire for many moons to come.

Quinta de Santiago, ‘Vinha do Pisco’, Albariño & Loureiro, Portugal

If you ask a tried and true wine person their favourite style of wine, seven times out of ten it will be a textured white, full of brightness, tension, & complexity, just like this one. In operation since 1899, the Santiago family farm sold the majority of their grapes to co-op wineries until 2009, when grandma Mariazinha decided the family should start selling wine under their own label, and Quinta de Santiago was born. This vinho verde is a co-fermentation of salty, tree-fruity albariño and floral, citric loureiro, harvested from the special ‘Pisco’ parcel which is located closest to the cooling Minho River. It’s aged for four months on its lees (or spent fermenting yeast) for breadth and texture. Fruit blossoms, a swathe of salty minerality, kiwi lemonade, green apple slices & grassy clearings. Enjoy with seafood towers, a feast of seven fishes or your newest tradition of making lobster thermidor on Christmas Eve!

Le Coste, Pasta, Lazio, Italy

Are you REALLY a capital ‘F’ Foodie if you haven’t made your own pasta? Okay we are NOT here to judge, but how about you overachievers give your forearms a break from rolling dough with this rare offering from one of the world’s most beloved natural wineries. Quickly catapulted to cult status, Le Coste is run by winemakers Gianmarco Antonuzzi and Clémentine Bouveron who tend 14 hectares of prized volcanic vineyards that thrive amongst olive groves and chestnut trees. Sitting pretty just outside of Rome, the extremely-hard-to-find food offerings from the farm show just how multi-talented they truly are. Enjoy your surprise pasta shape transformed into cacio e pepe, a spicy arrabbiata OR done up right with the common Italian "Pasta con le coste" featuring Swiss chard, garlic & the finest olive oil - Le Coste’s EVOO if you’re lucky! Send us pics and pair with a vintage dish set, bright red wine and a snow storm raging outside. Buono Appetito!

Domaine des Grottes ‘L’Antidote’, Gamay, Herbs, Apple, Ginger & Lemon, Beaujolais, France

By this point in the holiday festivities we’re sure a detour is welcome, and who better for the job than the best non-alcoholic bottle you’ve ever had, SERIOUSLY. Speaking of great wineries doing different things, we present you with a botanical, bubbly non-alcoholic wonder of the natural wine world! Romain des Grottes farms in the lower plains of Beaujolais, guided by the highest quality polyculture farming and ‘zero-zero’ or no-addition winemaking philosophy. The vineyards cover about eight hectares that have been fully organic and biodynamic Demeter certified since 2006 with vegetables, fruit trees, grains and medicinal herbs between and around the vines. ‘L’Antidote’ is a sparkling bevy born from the perfect balance between grape + apple juice (65%) and organic herbal infusion (35%) of ginger, lemon, yarrow, poppy, rosemary, thyme, mallow, bramble, agrimony and verbena. Keep your whits fully about you with this 0% stunner, because as every true gourmand knows, not every special beverage needs to get you buzzed. Enjoy straight out of your new ISO, poured over ice with a squeeze and slice of lemon OR mixed into a tasty, sleep-inducing nightcap – we suggest 1.5oz tart cherry juice, 0.5oz of runny honey (mix two parts honey with one part room-temp water)and 2.5oz of ‘L’Antidote’, (briefly) stirred & garnished with an expressed lemon rind.

Chachalate, ‘Single Origin Indonesia’, 75% Cacao, Toronto, Ontario

The height of FOODIE glamour, referred to throughout history as “ the food of the gods”, may we offer a single-origin cacao dark chocolate bar seasoned with organic cane sugar. Quite simply, you deserve a sweet treat and this bar from one of our fave small business discoveries of the year HAS to be it. New Toronto chocolatier, Chachalate was named after owner Ry’s all too cute mispronunciation of the word chocolate as a kid! It focuses on making delicious dark chocolate grown by expert farmers and fermenters of the world's best cocoa. This specially packaged for Foodie Advent bar was grown by the Ransiki Central Fermentary in West Papua, Indonesia. This grower was originally established in the 1950s, and revitalized in 2017 in an attempt to rehabilitate almost 1000 hectares of land and provide jobs for the local community. A pillar of West Papua’s ‘Green Growth’ program, focussed on sustainable growth of cacao, coffee, vanilla, nuts and seaweed, we are so happy to bring this pristine product to your tastebuds! Delectable accents of wild blueberry, roasted almonds & milk tea, enjoy a square (or six) after dinner, as an afternoon snack, shaved on top of homemade ice cream, or melted into an espresso shot and topped with your choice of milk.

Ori Marani, ‘Revoir Au Printemps’, Tsitska, Chkhaveri, Dzelshavi & Aladasturi, Imereti, Georgia

Okay, we don’t want to freak you out, but spring (& summer) are definitely over. Happily, we have a herby and singular rosé that tastes like a sun-ray in a botle and winemaker Bastien calls, “a wink to better days that come after winter”. Bastien Warskotte was born into a wine-growing family in Champagne and worked at wineries around the world before meeting his wife Nino Gvantseladze, relocating to Georgira and starting Ori Marani in 2016. Focusing on regional grapes fermented in traditional clay amphora, their wines not only speak to the 8000-year legacy of Georgian winemaking, but the new wave of natural winemakers putting Georgia back on the map. Each grape is vinified separately, ageing in amphora and old French oak, with a portion fermented semi-carbonically for soaring aromatics! Almost like a botanical, Provence-style rosé with added benefits – hibiscus, corn husks, tangy rhubarb, dusty white florals, a whiff of fresh ginger & shaved button mushrooms. Put a chill on it & drink during golden hour, with a full plate of the most fantastical and varied holiday spread sitting in front of you, this rosé can do it all.

Vinaigres La Guinelle

A surprise, rare and deeply flavoursome VINEGAR is on the menu for today! On the heights of Banyuls-sur-Mer, the jewel of the Pyrénées-Orientales, the established vinaigrerie La Guinelle ferments and cultivates natural wines, transfiguring them into exceptional vinegars for tables around the globe. In 2022, Chandra Brune took the reigns after working 10 years alongside its founder. With her, this centuries-old profession continues with the utmost passion. Super tiny production, you will receive either the generously nutty, honey-churned ‘Rivesaltes 2011’ OR the bright, brusk and berried ‘Vieux Banyuls Rouge’. Both were aged in oak barrels for at least one year under the lavish Mediterranean sun, further enriching their infinitely unique character. ‘Rivesaltes 2011’ shows plumes of florals, beehive-sweetness, warmth, texture and nut mix variety, while ‘Rouge’ gives us a myriad of wild red-berry brightness with gooseberry highlights & raw hazelnut elegance. As we are sure you already know as accomplished prep cooks, good vinegar never fails to transform the humblest of ingredients into the bestest of meals – try yours in a radicchio or chicken salad, with raw vegetables, to marinate meat, fish or even in a dessert. Macerated strawberries anyone?

Korenika & Moškon, ‘Tris’, Pinot Blanc, Malvasia & Sauvignon Blanc, Istria, Slovenia

Day nine together and we are bringing you to the Slovenian coast to carry on our savoury, food-craving journey with an aromatic, tactile and goes-with-just-about-anything orange. Korenika & Moškon are a family owned, biodynamic certified winery located on the coast of Istria, Slovenia. Vines and olive trees stretch along a dreamland of rolling hillsides with an enviable view of the Adriatic. The soils are composed of limestone and marl with sea sediment a plenty adding a salty, umami-character. The grapes for newly arrived ‘Tris’ are and left to macerate on their skins for 36 hours pulling texture and tannin before six months of aging to mellow. Yellow rose petals, straw, blooming rosemary, salted peaches, gooseberry, dried papaya & yellow kiwis. Pour alongside roasted brassicas and herbaceous salads – yes that’s right, an illusive ‘salad wine’ has been located! A hint for tomorrow you ask? When we first released this stunning white we described it as, “like drinking the yellow stripes of a bumblebee!”, get to guessing & we’ll see you tomorrow!”

Greenline X Grape Witches, ‘Sticky Situation’, Raw & Unpasteurized Honey, Toronto, Ontario

We are so THRILLED we are practically BUZZING to share the FIRST edition of GW’s urban rooftop honey!!! Meet ‘Sticky Situation’, the spoils of our 2025 rootop honey harvest & Toronto's west end flora in a bottle! A mighty three bee boxes were installed on our roof in the summer of 2025, housing up to 100,000 bees who visited 100 million flowers to produce 16 litres of honey - a GREAT first season! Truly incredible & so delicious! FUN BEE FACTS for you rural-loving residents! It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make a single teaspoon of honey. A single hive can gather pollen and nectar from up to 500 million flowers in a year. The average worker bee lives only 5–6 weeks but will fly the equivalent of 1.5 times around the Earth in their lifetime. And now, a few fun facts about OUR rooftop bees because honestly, aren’t bees the literally coolest? Our residents were created from “splits” from Greenline’s colonies up on Geary. Both of our Queens were raised naturally by the bees, and classified as wild-mated queens or “virgin queens”, who then took mating flights where they mated with 10–15 drones from nearby hives. #romanceisntdead Once mated, the queen begins laying eggs to sustain the colony, and one of our hives was especially strong and likely housed around 60,000 bees at its peak! Light gold and full of life just like our neighbourhood, with a strong, perky floral character, clover greenness & the most graceful, streaming consistency. Enjoy drizzled on French toast, over berries + yoghurt, homemade anchovy pizza or alongside your favourite Canadian cheese and crackers plate.

Prima Piuma, ‘Monferrato Rosso’, Grignolino & Barbera, Piedmont, Italy

Italian wines are simply MEANT for the holidays. Yes famous grapes like sangiovese and nebbiolo punctuate powerful meals, but as a Foodie, you know that the hard-to-find beloved regional grapes are where the magic happens. Discover this great one from Prima Piuma, a low intervention, organic line of wines created by winemaker Summer Wolff in collaboration with Azienda Agricola Gaia. Their 43 hectares of land are only half used to grow vines, while the rest is left for orchards and the creation of a true polyculture. A blend of floral, mirthful and berried grignolino (70%) and high-toned, spiced barbera (30%), with eight days of maceration in stainless steel to capture lively flavours expressive of place & time. Slicing strawberries, dusky purple flowers, field vegetation, dried cranberry, wild oregano, pomegranate seeds & crushed cherries. Pair with roasty, toasty dishes, guzzle with your grandpa, splash in your favourite aunt’s glass or hoard just for yourself to pour on any a long, dark winter night.

Baa Baazar, Cheese Ornament

In the words of one of the most famous and beloved author-journalist-cooks, “you have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.” – Anthony Bourdain. Sourced by one of our favourite shops in Toronto, Baa Baazaar & a perfectly delicious end to our delectable 12 days together, we present you with the most adorable ornament we have seen in our entire life. Lactose intolerant or not, lover of the ripest Époisses, the squeakiest Halloumi or the one who somehow sneaks Parmigiano Reggiano into every recipe, this truly unique ornament is perfect for decking out your tree, house plant, wall or cork board.