A Niagara Wine Tour

I was fortunate enough yesterday to be among a group of bloggers and other journalists invited to spend a day touring wineries and sampling wines in the Niagara region as part of the kickoff to the LCBO's Go Local campaign promoting Ontario wines. My group visited Coyote's Run Estate Winery, Creekside Estate Winery and a particular favourite of mine, Malivoire. We tasted characteristic wines from those wineries, as well as Jackson Triggs Winery, Peninsula Ridge Estates Winery, Cave Spring Cellars and Strewn.

I think we're very lucky in the Toronto area to be so close to two important wine regions: Niagara (which includes several subdivisions like Beamsville Bench) and Prince Edward County. Scores of wineries lie within a short drive of Toronto, and all of them offer free or extremely inexpensive tastings; often $1 to $2 per glass, and very often without prior notice; you can simply drop in. In the photo above, our group gets to talk to Coyote's Run winemaker David Sheppard.

I always find it such a treat to talk to someone who actually makes wine, both because I usually learn something and because they tend to be so excited about what they're doing that they're the opposite of the "wine snob"; they seem to just expect everybody to think wine is as much fun as they do, and don't seem especially bothered about the depth of your knowledge or what you're wearing or how you hold your glass.

The other benefit of going right to the winery is that they offer some wines that you can't even pick up at the LCBO. I was very pleased to spot a bottle of Malivoire's "Albert's Honour" Old Vines Foch 2009, which I've been dying to try again since I shared a bottle of it with friends at a lovely dinner at La Palette (now on Queen West; then in Kensington Market). Some time ago I had a chance to ask aptly named Malivoire winemaker Shiraz Mottiar about it, and from what I recall, it's made from a grape that's a hybrid of a Canadian native grape and a European one, and it's fussy to make, so they don't do it every year. I look forward to trying this bottle.

Here's a fun detail for a fruit geek like me: David Sheppard led us out to the vineyard to look at the grapes, and showed us that the darker ones, which are pinot gris, are spontaneously mutating into pinot blanc – sometimes on the same bunch of grapes!

Part of the exercise was supposed to be to search for a favourite wine, but I'm afraid I couldn't possibly name one; that would be like trying to name a favourite jam: beyond me. However, the visit introduced me to some new chardonnays and especially sauvignon blancs available at the LCBO in the $12 to $20 price range. Much as I enjoy travelling to the vineyards, I'm pleased to know that I can walk round the corner to pick one up for dinner any time I like.