About

Tony Aspler C.M.

Tony Aspler is an internationally known writer, speaker, and wine expert, based in Toronto, Canada.

Tony has been writing about wine for over 50 years. He was the wine columnist for The Toronto Star for 21 years and has authored 27 books, most of which are on wine and food (see list below).

He is the author or co-author of 11 novels, including four with Gordon Pape: Chain Reaction, The Scorpion Sanction, The Music Wars and Taste of Evil. The Viking Press, New York published the first two. His latest series is a collection of wine murder mysteries featuring the itinerant wine writer/detective Ezra Brant: Blood Is Thicker than Beaujolais, The Beast of Barbaresco and Death on the Douro (published by Warwick Publishing) and Nightmare in Napa Valley (published by Allen Macauley).

Tony wrote two half-hour episodes for the CBC-TV historical series The Campbells, and co-wrote with Gordon Pape an hour-long radio adaptation of their novel Chain Reaction.

In December 2007, Tony was awarded the Order of Canada.

In 2012, Tony was the first Canadian to be inducted into the New York Media Wine Writers Hall of Fame. In that year Tony was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal.

In 2017 Tony was awarded Spain’s Officers Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain’s highest civilian decoration.

In 2021, Tony received the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario’s Challenge Coin.

In February 2001, Tony co-founded a charitable foundation with Arlene Willis, Grapes for Humanity (www.grapesforhumanity.com), which raises money through the wine community for the victims of landmines and children with disabilities.

Tony is an accomplished wine educator and lecturer.

Tony was the panel chair for Canadian wines at the annual Decanter World Wine Awards for fifteen years. He is the creator of the annual Ontario Wine Awards competition, an honorary governor of Cuvée and a director of the Independent Wine & Spirit Trust. He is also a director of The Canadian Wine Library. At the Niagara Grape & Wine Festival 2000, Tony was presented with the Royal Bank Business Citizen of the Year Award.

Tony writes for a number of international wine magazines, including Wine Spectator, Decanter and www.decanter.com, and Quench.

He was the Canadian contributor to Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine, Tom Stevenson’s annual Wine Report and to Oz Clarke’s annual Pocket Wine Guide.

Tony Aspler’s Books:

  • The Streets of Askelon – 1972 (Secker & Warburg)
  • One of My Marionettes – 1974 (Secker & Warburg)
  • Chain Reaction (with Gordon Pape) – 1979 (The Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart)
  • The Scorpion Sanction (with Gordon Pape) – 1980 (The Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart)
  • The Music Wars (with Gordon Pape) – 1982 (McClelland & Stewart)
  • Air Fare – The Entertainers Entertain (Allan Gould; wine by Tony Aspler) – 1989 (CBC Enterprises)
  • Madame Benoit’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Microwave Cooking (with Tony Aspler) (Les Editions Heritage, 1989)
  • Titanic – 1989 (Doubleday)
  • Blood Is Thicker than Beaujolais – 1994 (Headline)
  • The Beast of Barbaresco – 1996 (Headline)
  • Death on the Douro – 1997 (Headline)
  • Travels with My Corkscrew – 1997 (McGraw Hill-Ryerson)
  • A Taste for Wine (book on tape) – 1999
  • The Wine Lover Cooks (with Kathleen Sloan) – 1999 (MacMillan)
  • Canadian Wine for Dummies – 2003 (Wiley)
  • The Chef’s Table (with Lucy Waverman and James Chatto) – 2000 (Random House)
  • The Wine Atlas of Canada – 2006 (Random House)
  • The Definitive Canadian Wine and Cheese Cookbook (with Gurth Pretty) – 2007 (Whitecap)
  • Tony Aspler’s Cellar Book – 2009 (Random House)
  • North American Wine Routes (with Dan Burger) – 2010 (Readers Digest)
  • Canadian Wineries (with photographer Jean-François Bergeron) – 2013 (Firefly)
  • The Five Minute Wine Book – 2014 (e-book)
  • Five Minutes more – 2020 (SKC Press)
  • Covid Unmasked: A Survivor’s Guide – 2021  (Mosaic Press)
  • Taste of Evil (with Gordon Pape) – 2021 (Mosaic Press)
  • Nightmare in Napa – 2021 (Allen Maccauley)
  • Fizz! Champagne and Sparkling Wines of the World by Anthony Rose – 2021 (Infinite Ideas) (contributed the chapter on Canadian sparkling wines)

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