We are fortunate in Toronto to live close to a number of wine regions. Here in Ontario they are broken down into 5 appellations (regions). If your planning a trip to any Ontario wineries the place to start your planning is WineCountry. Their web site has a great interactive planning feature, contact information about the wineries and so much more. Whether you are heading down for a couple of days of R&R or a quick trip down there’s lots to do. A number of the wineries have restaurants and some even have Inns (Cave Springs for example) associated with them. I’ve previously written up trips to the Escarpment, Prince Edward County, appelations and visited Coffin Ridge in the emerging area. I still need to plan a trip down to the Lake Erie region. This time around I thought I would talk about Niagara on the Lake.
Downtown Niagara on the Lake is a lovely quaint area with a nice shopping area, bars, restaurants and Inns. Niagara’s Finest can help you find great Inns and restaurants.
We stayed at The Gate House which is centrally located an reasonably priced.
If your into culture there is Shaw Festival.
There’s a nice bike path called the Niagara Recreational trail that runs along the river too. A map of the ride so can can get a feel for distance/difficulty etc.
And if you never been be sure and checkout the butterfly conservatory.
A complete list of wineries in the Niagara on the Lake appelation can be found at the WineCountry web site mentioned above. If you are use to the escarpment wines the Niagara on the lake reds are softer, less earthy and the whites tend to be more minerally.
As an example of one of the whites we tried on our trips we stopped by Chateau des Charmes which by the way is a beautiful winery.
The 2013 Paul Bosc Sauv Blanc is pale in color with a mild citrus nose. On the mid palate this wine displays some nice tart citrus notes to match the nose. The wine is medium in length with some nice mouth grip. The lively acidity lingers nicely along with some nice grassy notes, and pink grapefruit most noticeable as it warmed up. Be careful not too serve this one too cold or you will miss out. This is a New Zealand style Sauv blanc, I would give it an 88-89. Very well done. At $17.95 a bottle it’s a good deal. It will be a very food friendly wine!
from the winery’s web site:
This Sauvignon Blanc has been sourced exclusively from our Paul Bosc Estate Vineyard. The nose is extraordinary; fresh grass, gooseberry and lemon-lime all harmonized together to make this heady perfume. The mouth feel is hefty considering it’s an unoaked wine. It’s under screw cap because we want you to open and enjoy it now, young and bright.
Our main block of Sauvignon Blanc is on the St. David’s Bench Vineyard. We do have a very small block on the Paul Bosc Estate that was planted in 1983. Even though it’s a small block we still carefully manage the yield. By not asking the vine to produce a lot of grapes, we don’t exhaust its resources during the growing season. This allows it to store carbohydrates over the winter in preparation for the next growing season.
I’ll put up some more wine reviews from the trip in later posts.
I hope you will take some time and go down and visit the wineries!
