Disclaimer: Personal and amateur wine travel report. Not required reading by any means! Nor does it represent the views of my employer.
I thought I’d write a little bit about the trip Brooke and I took last weekend to the Niagara wine region. This is only my second trip there to visit wineries, and on the first we were on our way to a play at the Shaw Festival so we just hurriedly stopped at a couple in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
This time, we planned to stay in the village of Jordan, which is a great base for exploring all of the Beamsville Bench wineries. Each winery is literally two minutes from the next, and though we visited about ten places, we left a lot for our next trip. Here are the impressions I can recall:
Peninsula Ridge: A very swanky tasting room. The big surprise here was how good their 2002 Inox Chardonnay is ($24.95, +594226, Vintages). I’m not a big Chardonnay fan, but this had all kinds of flavours, quite bold without needing to see the inside of a barrel.
Thirty Bench: One of our own. Not much to look at here, really. As we were approaching the tasting “shack,” we passed by a large group of workers apparently going off to harvest something somewhere. As a rule, I was tasting all kinds of Riesling, and I’d heard good things about Thirty Bench’s efforts. I think I bought a bottle of their Semi-Dry ($10.95, winery only).
Vineland Estates: A beautiful winery, and a bustling tasting room. All kinds of good stuff here. My wife is a big Icewine fan, and we tried them all (Vidal, Riesling) as well as their Select Late Harvest Vidal 1999, which is a bargain I couldn’t resist ($15.00, 375ml, winery only). We came back here for dinner, at Mark Picone at Vineland Estates, and with dinner I drank a glass each of the St. Urban Riesling 2002 ($15.00, winery only), which was bone dry and delicious, and then the Cabernet Merlot 2001 ($24.95, winery only), which was much better than expected. With dessert, we split a glass of the aforementioned Late Harvest Vidal 1999. Overall, Vineland was the most impressive of the wineries we visited. I’m surprised more of their wines aren’t available at the LCBO.
Hernder Estates: A picturesque covered bridge leads to this winery. On the day we were there for tasting, they were hosting a craft fair, so the tasting room was packed with crafty old ladies having a gargle. We actually returned here on Sunday morning to taste again. I’d sampled their Reserve Merlot 1997 ($19.95, winery only, though it has a CSPC number +554402), and it tasted unlike anything I’ve ever had before. I kept telling Brooke it was “interesting” without being sure if I liked it. I sampled it again on Sunday before buying a bottle to bring home.
Thomas & Vaughan: Very unassuming little cottage tasting room, not in itself a bad thing. But I was singularly unimpressed with the wines I tasted. I tried the Chardonnay Sur Lie 2000 ($7.95, winery only), the Sauvignon Blanc 2002 ($14.95, winery only), the Merlot Estate 2000 ($19.95, winery only), and the Meritage Estate 2000 ($24.95, +992503, Vintages).
Malivoire: Similarly, I was not too happy with the offerings from Malivoire, though that may have had more to do with the swarm of flies in the tasting room than anything else. But the wines I tried seemed overpriced and unimpressive: the Chardonnay Estate 2002 ($22.00, winery only), and the Moira Vineyard Gewurztraminer 2002 ($28.00, winery only). We also noted the irony of an Ontario winery with a ladybug in its logo when so much wine was spoiled recently by an infestation of aphids and ladybugs.
Henry of Pelham: We arrived at their tasting room just as they were closing on Saturday and were turned away. When we returned the next morning, they not only remembered us, but let us have a few extra tastings free of charge. Friendly and knowledgeable staff made this a fun stop, and actually sold me on some wine, too. Most of the wines we tried were good, but I bought the Unfiltered Cabernet Merlot 1999 ($24.95, +395855, Vintages). The woman doing the tasting for us had us compare two bottles, one just opened, and the other open overnight. Wow. This is a wine that really needs time to open up, but the results are delicious.
Cave Spring Cellars: Located in a storefront on the main street of tiny Jordan village, the tasting room here also had a knowledgeable and friendly staff. I sampled several Rieslings here, including the Dry Riesling 2002 ($11.95, +233635, LCBO), the Off Dry Riesling 2002 ($11.95, +234583, LCBO), and the especially delicious Riesling Indian Summer 2001 ($21.95, 375ml, +415901, Vintages). I also tried the very interesting Chardonnay Musqué 2002 ($14.95, +246579, Vintages Essentials), made from a rather aromatic clone of the Chardonnay grape.
Chateau des Charmes: What an impressive sight as we approached the winery: the chateau, bathed in sunlight, overlooking impressive vineyards dotted with modern looking windmills. The experience was spoiled somewhat by tasting room staff who seemed uninterested and not that knowledgeable to boot. We might have confined ourselves to tasting icewines here, though to be honest, I don’t really remember. This was our last stop on our way to Buffalo, where we spent the rest of Sunday exploring the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and, less loftily, the Apple Store at the Walden Galleria.
We stayed at the wonderful Walnut Tree Cottage Bed and Breakfast right on Jordan’s Main Street. It’s a little self-contained cottage with its own gas fireplace, which we used well.
So, that was our little weekend getaway. We’re already planning to go down again in January for the Icewine Festival.