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Visiting Niagara, Canada

Hi, My girlfriend and I are planning on going up to Niagara falls for a few days in a few weeks and want to take some time to go wine tasting. We are most interested in dessert wines, but if there are any amazing wines somewhere in the area, we'd love to taste them, regardless of varietal.

Specially, we're looking for wineries that have good dessert wines for less than $50/bottle. We want to try some of the more expensive ones as well, but we'd really like to find some nice dessert wines in the $15-$20 (US) range that we could drink often, plus some higher up that we could have once in a while.

The reason I set the limit at $50 (for half-bottle) is because going much higher brings you into German territory, and I've been told by local wine stores that German icewines are preferrable to Canadian wines at those prices. Plus, frankly, we're not thrilled with spending that much money for half a bottle of icewine.

The other limitations are that the winery be within about half hour of Niagara Falls and that (ideally) we could get their wine back in the US.

I live in the finger lakes region of New York, which has very good icewines - there's one that's articially frozen but still very very good from Standing Stone for $20 that's our favorite (and probably one of the better ones from this region). We've never tried any German eisweins, and I've only had the Jackson Triggs and Inniskilling Vidal Icewines from Canada.

I've compiled a list of wineries that have caught my eye. There's currently 16 wineries on the list, and I'm looking to get the list down to about 10 (maybe a few less). All of these seem to have pretty good ratings, but I'm wondering if people can help me pick out the best ones:

Inniskillin Jackson-Triggs Lialey Magnotta Peller Estates Coyote's Run Palatine Hills Vineland Estates Sunnybrook (We want to try some fruit wines) Cave Spring Henry of Pelham Malivoire Pillitteri Chateau des Charmes Hillebrand Peninsula Rdige Hernder

I've also heard Daniel Lenko is very good, but he's farther away than the rest and the web page says by appointment only, so we'll probably avoid him.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks in advance, David

Reply to
David Levitan
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It's a good time to visit the Niagara area. Most of the wineries are around the Niagara-on-the-Lake area which is the closest to the border. Comming from the US it's best to cross at the Lewiston Queenston bridge and follow the signs to NOTL. As far as returning to the States with wine there should be no problem for personal use, and if they do charge you its about 6 cents per litre. Along the Parkway you will pass Inniskillin, Lailey (note spelling) Reif, Riverview. All good icewine producers. Try the Pinot Noir and Chardonnays at Laily. The Riesling and dry Vidal are good at Riverview. Rief should have a good selectionof everything. Inniskillin is the hood ornament of Vincor, Ontario's mass producer. However they produce an excellent sparkling Icewine. Enjoy the town of NOTL and have lunch at one of the many restaurants. Take Lakeshore out of town and you will pass Sunnybrook, Palatine Hills, Konzleman, both are excellent producers of dessert wines. Continue to Stonechurch. try the Sauvignon blanc styled by South African wine maker Terence Van Rooyen. You can swing back towards NOTL and cut across to Virgil. Make a left on hy

55 to hit Pillitteri and see if they have any Shiraz Icewine left (wow). Down the road towards NOTL Stratus is a must. Top end wines as good as anywhere on the planet. finish at Jackson Triggs. For me I would pass on Magnotta (way out of the way) Vineland Cave Springs Malivoire Peninsula ridge are way out in the Beamsville area and Hernder and HofP are up past St Catherines. I am sure others will post and give you their feedback. Try a few of the red icewines, I like the ones made from Cabernet Franc. also do not even think about or try to compare what we do here in Ontario to that of Germany. We are here they are there. Two totally different microclimates and regions. Compared to Germany we are babies. BTW I enjoy your area and visit the FL one or twice a year. My favourite producer from your area is Sheldrake Point.

"David Levitan" wrote in message news:e3j1nc$5i9$ snipped-for-privacy@ruby.cit.cornell.edu...

Reply to
wp23

I think the best are:

Inniskillin - superb Vidal Malivoire - try their Gewurztraminer !

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

a must see as the wines are excellent, the scenery is breathtaking, the giftshop is fun to browse and the restaurant is also quite nice (though very pricey)

worth a visit because the wines are excellent but also because the winery is very unique and is built in multiple levels to allow gravity feeding, instead of pumps and compressed air which allows them to produce some outstanding Pinot Noir

this one surprised me on my last visit and I ended up buying several bottles to take home including some amazing ice wines

There are some others not on your list that are outstanding.

Stratus - focuses their efforts on only two wines, their Red and their White. Without a doubt some of the best wine I've ever had in the Niagra area. A very modern and chic facility too.

Strewn: Be sure to try some of their reserve wines, all excellent.

30 Bench: A small but outstanding wine maker in a modest winery. There it is all about the wine. Excellent year after year.

I do a wine tour through the Niagara area twice per year. We try new ones all of the time, but the wines I buy the most of are those listed above.

That said, there are many many others in the area, I'm sure you'll have fun exploring.

Have a great trip.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Nowacki

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