Niagara College Winery Tour

On Saturday October 20th, we had a ladies day in Niagara-on-the-lake! Andzelika had purchased a Dealfind coupon where for $60 you can enjoy a tour of the Niagara College winery and beer brewery including lunch, testing, and $20 to put toward whichever bottle(s) you buy! We bought a bottle of ice wine with this credit to share among everyone. We booked our tour originally for the ladies and our associated men (the dealfind was for up to 6 people included in the price), but since the Browns were unable to get a sitter, the men took the little girls to Niagara Falls! They later joined up with us as we were finishing our day off at the brewery, drinking some free beer samples.

The vineyard of Niagara College was absolutely beautiful! Where the multi-coloured trees are in the background is the Niagara escarpment  The tour guide informed us that depending on where you are in the Niagara region, you have different grounding that affects the taste of the wine. Near the Niagara escarpment, the limestone affects the taste. In other regions, particularly in valleys, the clay ground affects the taste.




Some other fun things I learned on the tour:

• Although typically a white wine is made from white grapes, you can also make a white from red grapes minus the skin of the grape.For blush wines, they keep the peels in for only a portion of the time that the wine is fermenting.
• The oak barrels which hold wine can only hold 300 bottles of wine, whereas the big metal barrels hold  many more which is reflected in wine bottle prices.
• A young white wine will have lighter colours whereas a darker white wine with change to yellow tones and even light orange tones.
• A young red wine is darker in colour and with an older red, the wine becomes more transparent.
• For ice wine, the grapes need to be picked at -8 degrees Celsius, however to give the winemakers wiggle room they pick them at -10 to -12 degrees. There is 1 drop of nectar in each grape which is sweet for the ice wine.
• When drinking a wine with a lot of tannins the wine tends to stick to roof and sides of the mouth. Protein couples well with the wine because the protein takes the moisture from the mouth, allowing you to better taste the wine.

This is after we had the wine tour and it was time for testing! We tested a Gerwurtztraminer white, which I'm not too much of a fan of because of the sour taste of the wine. The red we tried was a Cabernet Franc and it was by far my favourite! This is the bottle I ended up buying after trying almost everyone on the list. I tend to like wines that are bold, dry and slightly smokey (I'm a fan of the oak). The other wine we tried was a delicious ice wine which they sold for only $38/ bottle! I remember from previous tours that Aleksy and I have done (Jackson Triggs, Peller Estates) that ice wine bottles often go for upwards of $80 a bottle so $38 was an amazing price for the delicious ice wine...

After the tour, we also has many samples of almost every white and red on the menu complimentary!! They were so nice at the retail store and were so passionate about showing off their wines that they wanted us to try particular ones.

Our lunch was very tasty with a (stacked!) sandwich, a pickle, and a brownie. The brownie was scrumptious with the glass of Cabernet Franc that I ordered!

The three of us in the main area of the retail store. One of the tour guides was nice enough to take a photo. This was the tour guide who informed us that also included in our dealfind was the brewery tour and just as we were about to leave, we were reminded and guided to the brewery store down the pathway.

The boys came with the girls just as soon as we started sampling the beers. They were into the brewing process, so the employee showed us to the brewery as well. There were many different kinds of beer to try including a bourbon beer. I'm not too fond of beers other than light, non-hoppy beers but Aleksy likes to try hoppy beers. Aleksy bought a couple of the jugs which hold 6 beers each: a bitter beer, and the bourbon beer.

This was the perfect way to spend a Saturday!