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