Saturday is winery day. We started out with the intent of driving to Niagara on the Lake, the place the our train friends told us had many wineries. Being Saturday, the traffic was a bit heavy going toward Niagara, so I decided to give Curt directions off the highway. We were about 40 minutes outside of Niagara on the Lake when we started to see the winery signs. We thought why go all the way, why not just hit a few wineries here and be closer to home. We hit 4 wineries and made sure we shared tastings and ate food along the way.
Winery #1 – Rosewood Winery. This one had 5 stars and also had a patio area. We are not fans of standing at a bar tasting one after another. We like to take our time and enjoy the views and tastes. Wine tasting in this area is a bit expensive. In Washington, in most places the tastings are complimentary, or waived if you purchase any bottle of wine. At this winery, it was $5 for 4 tastes. We sampled a chardonnay, a rose, a pinot noir, and a cabernet franc. The view was much better than the wines. We had a view of Toronto across Lake Ontario across the vines…Gorgeous!!
Winery #2 – Angel’s Gate Winery. $5 for 3 tastes. We tasted a gamay noir, a pinot noir, and a red blend (gamay noir, merlot, shiraz), standing at a bar! The red blend was the favorite here, so we purchased a bottle to go. Unfortunately with the impending border crossing, we are careful how many bottles we purchase due to the duty. We picked this winery because they had a restaurant attached, but they only offered pizza and Curt wanted to move to another one, we wanted a charcuterie tray to enjoy a glass of wine. We asked the wine tender to recommend another winery and she pointed us to another one.
Winery #3 – Kew Winery. We thought she said “Q” and had a little trouble finding it. But once we did we loved this one. It was like walking into someone’s house. Unfortunately the seats on the patio (there weren’t enough tables—poor design) but we sat by the open French doors and had a great view of the patio and the vineyards. $5 for 3 tastes: pinot noir, pinot gamay and a red blend (1/2 cabernet franc and ½ cabernet savignon). Here we were finally able to get a cheese and bread tray with a glass of that red blend. The dipping sauce for the bread was made with their chardonnay, and was so good, we got a bottle to go! Again we did some people watching, and were annoyed with one small little boy (about 5 years old) who was running around the place. There was a gas fireplace that had river rocks in there and he was throwing the rocks, we were just waiting for him to break something. His father, who tried reasoning with the child for 10 minutes, finally came to his senses and took the child out to the car. He must have given him a good talking to when they left, because the boy came back and was much better behaved. But really I don’t think a winery is a place for kids—thank goodness we didn’t get the winery bug until the kids were able to stay home by themselves.
If you look close, you can see Toronto in the distance (above)
Winery #4 Good Earth Winery. We chose this one because it advertised a bistro and winery. Instead of doing a tasting, we headed to the Bistro for a snack. Curt ordered the charcuterie tray (only okay) and I ordered the French fries (Yummy!!). Everything we ordered, even the cannoli for dessert had “grass” on it. I think they were some kind of bean sprouts, but certainly did not belong on my cannoli. We shared ½ bottle of a red blend, that was full bodied, we corked the bottle and took the rest home.
Home in time to have another campfire…because of the cooler nights, these are really necessary. Watching the fire sure beats watching our choices on TV!!
Sunday was a day of rest. We went to breakfast again and then went to the Canadian Super Store (like a Walmart) for some essentials like bacon and eggs and wine! Tomorrow we are headed to Niagara Falls.