Hennessy (LVMH), Rémy Martin (Rémy Cointreau), Courvoisier (Beam Suntory), and Martell (Pernod Ricard). For years these were the cognac competitors of note, but more recently, Campari Group’s Bisquit & Dubouché has entered the ring.

Irish Distillers, under its sub-brand Spot Whiskeys, is reforging Ireland’s connection with the Wine Geese via a series of collaborative whiskeys. They recently turned to Canada’s Okanagan Valley, partnering with Quails’ Gate Winery, operated by the Stewart family, who have been farming in the region since Richard Stewart Sr. arrived from the Emerald Isle in 1908.

Now available around the world, Amaro Nonino was a relatively rare find when the Paper Plane was developed, one that, like most amari, provided a proprietary flavour that could be mimicked but never replicated.

Like many industries, the wine world has long been dominated by men. From sommeliers to importers, winemakers to critics, there has been a notable lack of gender equity. But now, thanks to wine professionals such as Stephanie Dutton, country of origin group winemaker at Australia’s iconic Penfolds winery, the formerly hypermasculine world is beginning to change for the better. Below, Dutton discusses women’s role in the evolution of the wine industry.

There is an ineffably opulent quality to the Marbella Club that is tied more to its history than to its subtropical gardens and upscale restaurants.

Upstart Toronto designer Adam Appugliesi’s clothing brand, Libero, takes its name from the Italian word for “free,” which also happens to be his grandfather’s name. Fittingly, it is his Italian Canadian background that informs Libero’s proletarian, masculine-leaning but gender-free designs.

Bombay Sapphire, spirits sponsor of Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, the recent retrospective exhibition in New York curated by the iconoclast’s sisters, has teamed up again with the Basquiat estate to debut a special edition bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin emblazoned with Basquiat’s Untitled (L.A. Painting).

Ao (pronounced “ow”), the name of Suntory’s newest whisky, means “blue” in Japanese. In the case of this bottle of liquid gold, it refers to the oceans that connect the locations where parent company Beam Suntory’s whisky is made.

Toronto brand Basic Maintenance Lab is making skin care manageable with its clearly labelled bottles of cleansers, moisturizers, and soaps.

Fettercairn, the newest independent brand from Scotland’s Whyte & Mackay, makes “unicorn” whiskies. Its various expressions—packaged in bottles emblazoned with a unicorn from the crest of founder Sir Alexander Ramsay’s clan—each provide an immediately distinguishable flavour profile that showcases the company’s approach.

Italian whisky isn’t beholden to industry conventions. The result is a whisky that is hard to define but easy to love, and one that feels like a bold step forward for whisky as a category.

Katie Fielding quit drinking alcohol after suffering bad seizure in March 2020. Throughout the following summer, what Fielding, who has epilepsy, missed about drinking wasn’t the taste or the buzz but the feeling of community it inspired. So she and her sister, Andrea Grand, decided to do something about it, developing Barbet, the buoyant, idiosyncratic seltzer brand taking Toronto and its hippest establishments by storm.

Once a barren landscape of sparkling waters, diet pops, and a few select beers, the world of non-alcoholic drinking has become vibrant with new diverse options that make not drinking not only the reasonable option but also a fun one.

A few kilometres west of Marbella’s old town, where the remnants of a Moorish fort anchor more traditionally Spanish architecture, there’s a reminder of another ancient civilization: a Roman bridge more than 2,000 years old sits at the heart of the five-star Puente Romano Beach Resort.

Geoff Dillon, founder of Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers in Beamsville, Ontario, is always thinking 10 steps, or years, ahead. When he founded the brand in a former truck depot in 2012, he was already dreaming of making “rye whisky in Canada, not Canadian rye whisky.”

A bottle of wine, whether for partying in the present or saving for the future, needs to be carefully considered. NUVO has rounded up the seven bottles to present this holiday season.

Men differ individually in many ways, but if there’s one thing that ties them together, it’s the difficulty of finding a good gift for them. Whether for your dad, husband, brother, or boyfriend, nail presents for the men in your life with NUVO’s handy roundup.

For every sun-soaked beach getaway and medieval castle vacation, there is an overcrowded airport or a lumpy hotel mattress. Luckily, thanks to Monte & Coe, the Toronto-based brand handcrafting bags in Canada, you’ll have one less worry the next time you visit the airport.

With access to Ontario’s fruit basket, gaming, and the United States, any given day in Niagara Falls can be filled with luxurious leisure experiences indoors and out. NUVO has rounded up the best places to play, eat, and rest in Niagara Falls.

The right bottle will forever live in the background of the memories made and shared. NUVO has rounded up nine bottles to give the person whose presence is present enough.

The herb-forward result of Ben Branson’s research struck a chord with sober and imbibing drinkers alike. Unlike mass-produced non-alcoholic spirits, Seedlip mimics the intricacies of traditional spirits while remaining distinctive to the palate.

That unpretentious, focused attitude toward dining culture informs Garrett Bruce Martin’s menus to this day as well as his beliefs about how a kitchen should be run, the restaurant industry, and what it means to be a chef: unusually democratic and without delusions of grandeur.

The most recent wine to have gone through image rehab, the sparkling red lambrusco from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, is only beginning to pick up steam in Canada. And thanks to Indigenous entrepreneur Moirae Choquette and her lambrusco brand Tomato Wheels, the wine is being introduced to Canadians in a refreshing, easy to understand way.

After last month’s Toronto reveal, Vancouver restaurateurs and diners alike have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the venerable Michelin Guide in the city. Well, the wait is over. Eight Vancouver Restaurants have been awarded stars in the city’s inaugural edition of the Michelin Guide.

Perched above Marbella’s whitewashed cityscape, at the foot of the Sierra Blanca mountain range, Club Med Magna Marbella is far removed from both the frenetic touristic energy of the city centre and the sunburned sand of the Costa del Sol’s myriad beaches.

PAD London, the esteemed international art and design fair, is taking place this week, October 10-16. After two years of online exhibitions, this year’s edition of PAD is the best yet, featuring 67 unique galleries, 18 of which are first-time exhibitors.

For those of us wanting a break from beer and wine but without the requisite skill to craft a delicious cocktail at home, there is hope. Enter Vancouver’s Please Bottling Co., the brand looking to shake up the RTD world with an eye toward local, seasonal flavours and a welcoming bricks-and-mortar experience.

From coast to coast and everywhere in between, aquavit’s popularity has grown over the past few years—and as with the recent gin boom, there is surprising diversity in the Canadian aquavit landscape, depending on where the distillery is located.

There is a real need and desire for high-end vegan and vegetarian cuisine in Calgary. Now that chef Adam Ryan’s Fire & Flora has opened with aplomb, all those Torontonians and Vancouverites talking about making the big move to the Prairies might finally up and go, even if they’re unsure they’ll be able to handle the hardship of doubling their space at half the price.

After unveiling a whole new look for its three standard cognacs in early 2022, the iconic brand is back at it with the release of its new XO Royal, an ultrapremium cognac that honours Courvoisier’s long association with Europe’s royal courts.

As painful as it is to hear, autumn is just around the corner. Once again, stores are flush with fallen-leaf-embossed welcome mats and pumpkin spice everything, and there’s nothing that can halt the coming storm. Here, NUVO has rounded up six clothing items for gliding chicly from summer into fall.

Fantastic, jaw-dropping, delicious, sublime: whatever superlative you choose, it can be used to describe Mission Hill Family Estate & Winery. The crown jewel in proprietor Anthony von Mandl’s winery portfolio, Mission Hill remains a stunning experience after 41 years of operation. From its hilltop perch to its region-defining wines, not a single detail has been overlooked by von Mandl and Co.

Taking over the former Hachiro Ramen space in an unassuming stretch of small-businesses wedged between two apartment buildings, 16 West is the epitome of blink-and-you-miss-it. However, in irony number two, the food and wine there is not to be missed.

Now that you can finally celebrate within six feet of another living, breathing person, it’s high time to celebrate the rise of canned wine convenience—along with Canada’s 155th birthday. NUVO has rounded up seven of the best canned wines made in the country today.

Despite our increasingly short attention spans and throwaway culture, it seems at least pop-ups are being designed to last. Call it retail therapy.

For plastic surgeon Dr. Bimpe Ayeni, the impetus to start her men’s skin-care line, Blair + Jack, came from seeing her husband struggle with painful skin irritation after shaving.

The yin-yang relationship between the objects’ precision-cut aluminum and playful, vibrant anodized colours reflects their makers’ fusion of styles—which culminates in furniture beautiful enough to keep for a hundred years, at least.

In a world of streamlined minimalism, it’s not often a boutique home decor store champions the tradition of eclecticism. Madrid’s Rue Vintage 74 has broken that mould, filling its showroom with African, Asian, and European home furnishings, diverse in all aspects except their quality.

The city’s coffee culture has undergone an exciting transformation, due in part to the pandemic, but also in response to trends developing countrywide. Developments in the city’s coffee culture—such as the emergence of hybrid café/corner store concepts—also show just how forward-thinking some of Vancouver’s stalwart coffee shops were. Here are the five best places to stay caffeinated on the coast in 2022.

Ciarán “Rowdy” Rooney, the head distiller at Wicklow, Ireland’s, Glendalough Distillery, didn’t want to make “just another pink gin.” Although he doesn’t speak favourably of what he calls “confected” pink gins, the main motive behind Rooney’s desire to produce a rose gin of distinction is a more personal one.

The drive through Banff National Park is sublime regardless of the car. However, when given the opportunity to drive it in Rolls-Royce’s new Black Badge Ghost, one of the world’s finest cars, the experience becomes even more sublime.

For this edition of the Menswear Guide, NUVO looks to our spiritual home’s neighbour to the northwest, offering up seven of the best pieces of French menswear to have in your wardrobe this summer, regardless of the fact that you’re sunning on the shores of Lake Ontario rather than the French Riviera.

Apart from a standard corkscrew and a basic stemmed glass, wine accessories are luxuriant but totally unnecessary. Here are five of the most fun—and totally unnecessary—accessories available to today’s hedonist.

Bar Susu, the new pop-up wine bar/restaurant venture from the team at Published, which has set up shop in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, displays remarkable culinary cohesion, even when it doesn’t quite have a defined cuisine or style.

Inspired by two bathing traditions—the Japanese onsen and the Scandinavian sauna—Craig Pearce added a contemporary designer’s flair to an age-old tradition. The wood-burning hot tubs are crafted in Canada, made from Western red cedar and marine-grade aluminum, a material that is one of the most recyclable around.

Occupying the old Pink Tartan storefront, built in 1867, Isaia has found a fittingly idiosyncratic space in the fashionable Bloor-Yorkville neighbourhood. A contemporary addition to the building’s rear heightens the square footage, and in the lounge on the lower level one can enjoy a drink while master tailors tend to their suit’s every need.

What then are the attributes that define the island wine style and why are they perfect for drinking right now? That would be the soils and the winds.

The stories, though not all specifically about love, delineate the intimacies that led Puri and Rook to one another, how brief moments and long, dark nights of the soul can bring people together much as wine can.

It may only be February but brighter days are well on their way in NUVO’s neck of the woods. The rain is starting to feel more nurturing than numbing, the lighting more halcyon than halogen, and the clothing more sultry than somber. Here are seven essential menswear items for this shoulder season.

There has never been a better time to be a sober, or sober-curious, drinker in Canada. Companies all over the country have set out to improve upon the dire options previously available, crafting spirits, wines, beers, and mixed drinks that rival alcoholic options.

Calgary’s newest hotspot, D.O.P, in the former home of Bar Von Der Fels, seems to have respected the codes and customs of its namesake authority. The traditional fare of its downtown 1 Street SW address is distinguishable by its adherence to the exhilarating admixture of rusticity and gastronomic boldness.