wine tours

just got back from a week holiday visiting the folks and family in Ontario. My wife and I headed out to Niagara Falls for an overnight trip. Very nice with all the wineries out there! It's kind of fun to see how they're all decorated, some are very exquisite, elegant, and others are more down to earth. Two things I noticed: Ice Wine is a BIG DEAL over there. Very good wine, clear, smooth, sweet, made from Vidal grapes that have frozen consecutively 3 nights in a row, then picked at night, and pressed hydraulically to extract that part that DIDNT freeze. They charge about $40.00 up for a 375 ml bottle! Astronomical! But we bought a $13.00 bottle (200 ml) for an upcoming aniversary at the duty free shop.

Another thing I noticed: Mostly every vineyard charges you anywhere from $

0.50 to $2.00 for a 1 oz tasting, or $4.00 for an icewine tasting. When you've gotten used to getting free wine tastings at various vineyards, the idea of having to pay for that is a bit of a pain, and restrictive if you want to sample many different wines and compare them among vineyards. The niagara wine tour is nice, BUT... after a while, you see how it has become very commercialized, and can get quite costly! Plus, if you live in states, you can only bring 2 bottles back per person anyway. Unless you want to pay duty on anything over that limit.

Just thought I'd share some of my experience from last week.

Take care, all. Rick Fremont, MI

Reply to
Rick Vanderwal
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They have to pay for those fancy building somehow. I was surprised also, but I guess a lot of people take the tour often just for the "free" wines and never bought. This was their way of sorting the wine buyers from the grazers.

And not just wine. Many of the places sold other products from the region as well. One offered a cooking school, some offered various fruit preserves.

The duty is minimal and not a deterrent. I've never been charged. While I'm willing to pay the duty, they never asked if I had anything to declare. I went a few weeks after 9/11 and the border inspections were very thorough. They popped the trunk, saw a case of wine along with two bottles of liquor from the duty free shop, closed and sent me on my way. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

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Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Reply to
Patrick Markovic

Just a couple of things to consider...

To my understanding,it's illegal in Ontario to give away alcohol. For example...these posh casinos they've built do not give complimentary drinks...neither can the wineries. A group of us frequently cross the border for the Niagara wineries (25 min. drive) and they say that the duty per bottle beyond the onw per adult is about four cents . We usually bring back about two cases or so, declare it, and never get a problem. The trip to this region is totally worth it...I highly recommend it.

Mark L. Buffalo-Niagara USA

Reply to
Mark L.

Yeah, icewine is over-hyped, imho. It's really popular in east Asia... at Inniskillin apparently there are signs in Japanese.

I think Late Harvest wines are nicer... they are so cloying and syrupy. Anyway, I think the stuff is way overpriced too.

Yeah, that depends on the vineyard... I was at Strewn and had a good discussion with the winemaker on different ways of making chardonnay and the oaks involved. We were offered a special tasting of 4 different chards from two vintages. He charged us $3 bucks for about a half bottle's worth of tastings. I don't know what the regulations on tastings are, but as someone suggested it might be that we're not allowed to give alcohol away in Ontario.

Reply to
Charles

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