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Home > Niagara wine region

Niagara wine region

Meet Rick VanSickle: Wine Writer and Niagara Wine Region Expert

In the 1990s, few wine writers were focusing on Canadian wine. Rick VanSickle, then the executive Sunday editor for the Calgary Sun, was a frequent visitor to Okanagan Valley wine region from his then home in Calgary and when the wine writer position at his paper became available in 1999, he snatched it up himself (it helps to be the boss!) and started peppering his wine coverage with stories about homegrown wine varieties. He later branched out, writing wine columns in Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg, and eventually moved to his current  home in St. Catharines, Ontario (he’s a Toronto native), to focus on the Niagara wine region. (more…)

Weekend Getaway to Niagara-on-the-Lake

By ALINA SEAGAL

Queen Street (Photo: Sean_Marshall)

As one of the best-preserved 19th-century towns in North America, Niagara-on-the-Lake has a lot to reveal—beyond its many nearby wineries. Pretty Victorian architecture, a great lineup of summer festivals, and sidewalks made for strolling and window-shopping are just a handful of the attractions in this charming southern Ontario town. (more…)

Canada’s Top Wine and Wine Touring Regions from Coast to Coast

By SHANNON KELLY

Similkameen Valley, British Columbia (Photo: Megan Mallen)

By global standards, the Canadian wine industry is still in its infancy, but increasingly its vintners are perfecting the varieties of grapes that thrive in our climate and wineries are producing award-wining bottles.

Young also means interesting: Many Canadian wineries are a pleasure to visit for their innovative pairings and tours, forward-thinking design and meals prepared by chefs snagged from top restaurants in metropolitan areas, who enjoy creating menus from the surrounding local bounty. A small wine community can also mean a chance to chat with the winemaker directly and not fighting back-to-back tour buses. (more…)

Niagara’s Best Winter Wine Events

By Waheeda Harris

Like chocolate? Like wine? The perfect pairing can be discovered during the upcoming Days of Wine and Chocolate in Niagara on the Lake, held on weekends in February. (more…)

Winter Wine Tour: Experiencing Niagara’s Icewine

Icewine tasting at Peller Estates Winery

By Pamela MacNaughtan

Icewine originates in 18th-century Germany, but it has been perfected in the Niagara region, and people travel from all over the world to try icewines from this southern Ontario appellation. Today Niagara is the only place on earth where the full-flavoured dessert wine is produced annually.

See the slideshow.

(more…)

Foodie Excursion: Niagara-on-the-Lake

By MARCELLA DEVINCENZO

© 2011 Creative Media

A foodie adventure is always a great reason to travel. The pretty waterfront Victorian town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, at the heel of Ontario’s greenbelt, has a wealth of wonderful restaurants and shops that make use of local produce and wineries—especially during the autumn harvest. There is a lot you can learn from a city just by the food and the people who create the dishes.

Get the map. (more…)

Niagara’s Other Wine Route: St. Catharines to Beamsville

By Waheeda Harris

A visit to Ontario’s wine country is the perfect way to spend an autumn day or an overnight escape to the area of Niagara locals call “the Bench” on the edge of the Niagara escarpment. Here you’ll find memorable vintages, a relaxed drive, and several distractions for your palate.

Start: St. Catharines, ON
End: Beamsville, ON
Overnight: Jordan Village, ON

Get the map.

Roadside Attractions

1. Kick off the journey by heading along Pelham Street North, which leads out of St. Catharines to the vineyards. Make your first stop at Short Hills Provincial Park to see the trillium, Ontario’s provincial flower, and hike paths lined with sugar maples and black oak trees showing off dazzling shades of yellow, orange and red. (15 min, 8 km)

2. Less than five minutes from the park is Henry of Pelham Family Estate, one of the first vineyards to produce wine from 100% Ontario-grown grapes. Make sure to taste the critic’s choice: Reserve Baco Noir or Reserve Cabernet/Merlot. Visit the Coach House Café & Cheese Shoppe for some pairing items and take advantage of the vineyard picnic areas. (3 min, 1.3 km)

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Niagara—Find a Winery

Discover the fruits of the Niagara region with a tour of the area’s wineries. You won’t leave without taking home a bottle—or several!
—By Viviane Kertész

The barrel cellar of Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate Winery.

The barrel cellar of Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate Winery (photo by Linda Luong).

BARREL-AGED AMBROSIA
Like most wineries in the Niagara Peninsula, Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate Winery offers tours of their cellar, tastings and the possibility to pick up Vintners’ Quality Alliance (VQA) bottles available exclusively on their property. Oenophiles are spoilt for choice at this mod Douglas-fir-and-aluminum agro-building that houses vintages aged in Canadian, French and Hungarian oak barrels.

BEAMSVILLE BEAUTY
Situated on the sloping hillside of the famed Beamsville Bench, Thirty Bench Vineyard & Winery earns its street cred through production methods like hand-harvesting.

(more…)