Hayden’s friend Chris came up to visit us while we were staying at Four Mile Creek State Park and took us across the border to Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada to do a wine tour. In the end we ended up visiting four different wineries, a cider house / winery, and a distillery. Needless to say we got to taste quite a few different types of drinks! There are so many wineries up there that you could spend a week there and not hit all of them!
Where we went
Riverview Cellars- Our first stop on the tour was an interesting one to say the least. The guy behind the counter either knew pretty much everything about the wines that they served or put on a great show. Their wines were pretty good, but the Syrah was Aaron’s favorite by far. We also ended up trying the ice wine for the first time and likely the last time. It reminded us of the Viking’s Blood mead that Aaron picked up that neither of us liked. Not our favorite stop of the day.
Inniskillin Winery- This winery was beautiful but we felt like we were being a bit rushed through this one, since the place was pretty crowded. The reds were pretty good, but none of them were solid enough for Aaron to bring a bottle home. Hayden, however, did bring home a bottle of P3 which was an interesting combination of Pinot Noir, Pino Gris, and Pino Blanc. Reif Estate Winery- This place was gorgeous and we had a great server. We ordered a flight of red wines, instead of doing smaller tastings. We tried their Pinot Noir, which Aaron is not a huge fan of and was our least favorite of the night. The next glass was the Magician Shiraz which was Hayden’s favorite of the bunch and extremely smooth. The third glass was the Merlot Reserve which Hayden is not a big fan of Merlot, but Aaron enjoyed it. Finally, we tried their Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve which was Aaron’s favorite of the bunch. Pondview- All of the wines here were pretty good overall, but there weren’t any that really stuck out in our heads as bottles that we had to buy. The Lot 74 in both red and white were pretty good for the cheaper end of the bottles, but the best thing they had, which unfortunately we only got to taste it, was the slushy wines. They had both peach and lime and they were both incredible! We tried to get one of them to go, but they told us no (haha)!
Sunnybrook- We went here based on the recommendation of one of the waiters at Pondview and were told to try the cider. Here we tried a few different flavored wines and Aaron almost came home with a bottle of the pear flavored wine but instead opted for a growler of the Ironwood Ginger Hard Cider. Here we differ greatly on what we enjoyed with the wines that Hayden loved, Aaron did not and vice versa.
Wayne Gretzky’s 99 Distillery- Aaron was pretty excited when he heard about this place, being a hockey fan, so we knew we were going to stop by. We ended up trying three different whiskeys and three different spirits made from wine. Unfortunately, none of the whiskeys were really very good with the exception of the Number 99 and even it wasn’t worth the $100 price tag in our opinion. The wine spirits were an interesting concept, but we weren’t huge fans of them.*We are really bummed that we lost all our video footage from here when our harddrive crashed 🙁
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