As I mentioned earlier in the day, I decided to head out early with my son James towards Niagara Falls which would also provide me the opportunity to visit some wineries and either pick up or order some juice for my own winemaking. Please bear with me if there are many grammatical or spelling errors – it was a strange idea to go for a road trip after already being awake for many hours! Needless to say I’m tired. But it was worth it.

If you ever decide to take a drive through Ontario’s wine country in the Niagara region, be forewared: Drivers on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) heading to Niagara are probably the worst in the world. I stopped counting the number of times some bozo nearly sideswiped me while they were trying to cross two lanes at once.

Forewarning finished.

Before we left, I found a website for a vineyard and winery that seemed to have juice for sale already. So locating this winery was my first goal. Of course, a couple of wrong turns, and ending up being a bit lost necessitated the need for asking for directions. We took the long way to get there, but after going through Beamsville, we found the sign for the Eastman Vineyard only to be told when we arrived that the grower was no longer doing any growing this year. Turns out the prices on the website were for juices a few years ago. Of course, I didn’t notice that detail when browsing the site this morning.

We were also given some discouraging news that coincided with the report at Vinography suggesting that grape harvests this year in the Niagara Region were substantially lower this year. Staff at the various wineries we visited reported between 1/3 and 1/2 below typical harvests were expected this year.

We didn’t give up though. One of our next stops was the Thomas & Vaughan store. A very nice shop, with friendly staff, and a wide variety of wines available – but they could not help us directly in our quest for juice. However, they did suggest that we try nearby Lakeview Cellars Estate Winery.

Sure enough, Lakeview was taking orders for some juices that would be available in September. Unfortunately, they were not offering juice from their Gewurztraminer which is what I was really interested in. Apparently this is one of the grapes that is suffering badly from the drought conditions on the Niagara Peninsula this year.

However, they were offering must purchased for Baco Noir! One of my favorite reds. I reserved 40 KG of Baco must, along with 24 litres of Reisling juice. So I shall await my phone call and head back down in late September to pick up my order.

I was still hoping to try to get some pure juice somewhere though, and came across the Magnotta outlet in Beamsville. They had pure juice available, in 21 litre pails – although the selection was not the greatest, the prices were great! I picked up one pail of Grenache (red) and one called “Festa White,” apparently a blend of a variety of grapes.

At $38.00 and $34.00 respectively for pure juice, this seemed a good deal, being about half the price I’m paying elsewhere for pur juice.

From there, it was onto Niagara Falls! That was enough time for James to be spending on my hobby, so we headed to Niagara – and perhaps I’ve never visited the Falls on a Saturday before, but I cannot remember ever the crowds that were there today in the past. Walking along was like being in exhibition midway. The traffic was crazy, and we had to park in the town itself. It was nice for James to see the Falls though, and feel the mist as the strong winds picked it up and dropped us, soaking us wet through our clothes.

We likely would have stayed longer if it were not for the crowds of people. Instead, we decided to head to Niagara-On-The-Lake and see if we could visit Fort George.

Along the way though, I had a hunch that it would be interesting to pull into the “Riverview Cellars Estate Winery” located on the Niagara Parkway. We had a very enjoyable tour, our guide being Mr. Mike Pilletteri – the owner himself – and as with all of his staff, was very friendly and helpful in answering questions and sharing his knowledge.

Mike told me that there was no way he could sell juice this year because of the drought conditions (again, I was after some Gewurztraminer) due to the drought conditions. It was interesting to see their operation, and I had the opportunity to sample some wines – but by that time, I was getting very tired, with a two hour drive ahead of me, and thought that sampling wine might best be done on a trip that was better planned in advance. I declined his offer, but purchased a bottle of Riverview’s 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon.

In my next post, I’ll upload some of the pictures I took along the way on this trip with my son today. James told me after that he really enjoyed it – he originally thought that checking out wineries might be “boring,” but instead, he found it all quite interesting.

I have great kids! James even thanked me for taking him and making him come along on the trip! Several times, in fact.

So all in all, it was a great trip and James and I spent some quality time together ever since he woke up this morning until bedtime, just a few moments ago.

Now it’s my turn to get to sleep. Tomorrow, I will be start fermenting the white and red that I purchased today. We also picked a couple of quarts of red currants, so I’ll be looking for a recipe for red currant wine as well.

Random Posts

• Let’s Bottle This Thing!
• Yuck – That Was Undrinkable
• Garlic Wine – Mmmm
• She Sure Is Tart!
• More Room, More Work, More Cohen

3 Responses to “The Niagara Region Winery Outing”