Niagara Winery tour

[Manfred M]

While in Southern Ontario last week, we did a bit of a winery tour, running from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Grimsby. I was told that there are over 130 wineries operating in the area now, some are large multi-nationals and others are small family operations.

While I am not up to Mike Buckley's standards here, we had some fun. I was the designated driver, so while my wife and an old friend were sampling the wares, I was sneaking around camera in hand taking some shots.


#1 - Inniskilin - Ice wine grapes - these grapes are going to remain on the vine well into the fall as they are destined to become the ice wine this region is famous for. The grapes ripen and dry out to concentrate the sugars. They are picked right after the first frost while the grapes are still frozen, late in the fall.




#2 - Inniskillin wine shop tasting area - the empty glasses are a sign that we were there on a slow day. This is the winery that really started the Niagara region wine industry in 1975. There were other wineries in the area (the last wine making licence was granted back in the 1920s), but the quality of the wines was mediocre at best. Local Concord grapes are fine for grape juice, but not wine. When the best selling wine prior to Inniskillin starting production was called "Baby Duck", you get the idea...




#3 - Between the Lines Winery - the harvest is still some time away, but the storage tanks are ready to receive the new harvest.




#4 - Between the Lines Winery - a few barrels of wine aging.




#5 - Store display at the Konzelmann Estate Winery




#6 - One of Konzelmann Estate Winery's award winning ice wines.





#7 - In store display at the Meglomaniac winery




#8 - Another in-store display at the Meglomaniac winery

[Digital]

Manfred, very nice photos, and narrative.
Recently, one of the bartenders (who is from out of state) at Applebee's Restaurant told me that sweet tea is called "Southern House Wine". This is apparently due to southerners ordering sweet tea instead of wine for their evening dinner.
The locals never heard sweet tea referenced this way, and frankly neither have I.

Bruce

[Mike Buckley]

Really fascinating, Manfred, on several levels! I'll explain my interest...

You used a series of images captured at several wineries to produce a set nicely displaying the entire process of wine making beginning with the grapes on the vine and continuing to the wine in the bottle available for purchase by the consumer. The only missing element is the final step of the wine in the glass.

Purely referring to photographic quality, I especially like image #8. I like it so much that I encourage you to take the time to digitally eliminate the distracting hot pink tones on the left side to take the image to the next level.

For those not familiar with ice wine, I want to mention that the bottle displayed in image #6 is not suffering from some sort of perspective distortion. Instead, the relatively tall, skinny bottle displayed in that image is typical of many bottles of ice wine.

I was so intrigued by the wine grape in image #5, riesling traminer, that I did a small amount of research because I had never heard of it. It turns out that some wineries will blend two grapes, riesling and traminer, and label the wine as riesling traminer. The winery you visited has made the wine from just one grape, which is a cross of the two grapes, riesling and gewurtztraminer, which is completely new to me.

Thanks for posting such an interesting, informative set of images!

[Manfred M]

Mike - the winery told us that they used a hybrid grape that is a cross between the Riesling and Gewürztraminer grapes to make this wine. It is definitely one of my favourite whites as the acid of a dry Riesling cuts the heaviness of the traditional Gewürztraminer wine for a nice refreshing balance. A blend of the two grapes is also quite easy to find in the area.

One grape, that is sadly missing these days, is the Marechal Foch. This was really the grape that gave the Niagara wine industry its start and this is a wine I really enjoy, especially as the weather gets cooler. I understand that these vines have been pulled and replaced with more traditional Vitis vinifera grapes.

I'll clean up the image as I get a chance. We were down in the area for a wedding (my niece), and right now those shots are taking priority.

[Mike Buckley]

One grape, that is sadly missing these days, is the Marechal Foch.

I'm really surprised and disappointed to learn that. It was readily available in Nova Scotia when we visited six years ago and friends brought back a bottle of it from there just a couple years ago. I've read that it is also widely grown in Minnesota.

[rpcrowe]

Nicely captured!

[ST1]

Nice series and narrative well captured and documented


Peter

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Donald]

the winery told us that they used a hybrid grape that is a cross between the Riesling and Gewürztraminer grapes to make this wine. It is definitely one of my favourite whites as the acid of a dry Riesling cuts the heaviness of the traditional Gewürztraminer wine for a nice refreshing balance.

That's a new one on me. Had never heard of that before now.

[LePetomane]

Manfred, Nicely done. Another wine area that is fun to hit is the Finger Lakes region of NY.

[terrib]

Really nice compositions on these, Manfred. I enjoyed your narrative also. My husband and I did the wine tour on the States side of Niagara many years ago on the motorcycle during harvest. Being in the open air, we were really able to appreciate the smells of the Concorde grapes. Your photos are not only nice to look at but bring back good memories too. Thanks for sharing them.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, Nicely done. Another wine area that is fun to hit is the Finger Lakes region of NY.

I know about the region (which is only about a 3 or 4 hour drive from where we live), but have not been there yet. Part of the reason we do these "tours" is to stock up the wine cellar for the most of the year. With the limits on the amount of wine that we can bring across the USA / Canada border, this is simply not that compelling a reason to go, given the options north of the border.

Prince Edward County, on the Bay of Quinte (part of Lake Ontario) and the Eastern Townships (cantons l'est) in Quebec (close to the USA border at Vermont) are two other areas the we have been to. I'm hoping to get to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia (Western Canada) at some point as they have a long established wine industry there too, but again, this would have to be associated with a long road trip, as flying these wines as part of our luggage is not an inexpensive option either. In Canada we have some antiquated alcohol laws that limit the amounts of wines an individual can ship across provincial borders. Unfortunately, this internal trade barrier is not coming down nearly quickly enough.

[madcrow]

Can smell the wine, good photos