Canadian Ice Wine

On the wine route from Lake Erie to the Niagara Escarpment

With summer finally in full bloom, thousands of Canadians are flocking to our local wineries. The tasting rooms and winery restaurants are booming.

In Ontario, distinctive major regions offer contrasting beauty and natural landscapes. Each region continues to grow, with more vineyards planted and wineries opening every year.

LAKE ERIE NORTH SHORE

For wine trekkers, Lake Erie North Shore with its rather scattered 18 plus wineries is largely uncharted territory down near Windsor. The landscape is fairly flat, but the tiny towns and Lake Erie vistas are worth exploring. Take a good two days at least.

Some of the most affordable (but good!) wines in Ontario are made at Pelee Island Winery. The main winery is in Kingsville, but take the ferry to the island itself, where the winery has a wine tasting pavillion. Plus the island features a museum full of local history, the ruins of one of Canada’s first wineries (Vin Villa, dating from 1866), a lighthouse on Canada’s most southerly point, and great birding.

The other two big players in Lake Erie North Shore are D’Angelo Winery in Amherstburg, which makes commercial grade wines, and Colio Estates in Harrow, which produces the new cheap and cheerful Girls’ Night Out wines, as well as a quality driven 100 per cent CEV line of reds and whites.

However, the smaller new wineries, for the adventurous of heart bent on beating the future hordes, are worth exploring. Quality will step up with time. And as for restaurants, the best grub I’ve had in that neck of the woods is fresh caught Lake Erie pickerel served in battered fish and chips style in local restos.

PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY

In Prince Edward County, wine producers continue to spectacularly battle the challenges of Canadian winters, mainly by burying the vines in the winter and uncovering them in the spring. Despite all odds, wineries continue to sprout up faster than weeds (30 or more at last count) with delicious offerings, even though sometimes the wines are a bit thin from the lack of a full growing season. Their cold climate pinot noirs continue to be the big draw.

The rural landscape is gorgeous, with towns dating back to Loyalist times full of fascinating shops, the highway markets loaded with heritage veggies by the end of summer, and some of the wineries on Lake Ontario itself offer spectacular vistas.

The most spectacular view is from County Cider Company & Estate Winery on a hill overlooking Lake Ontario. They make pizzas in an oven outside as well as a tasty range of ciders. The winery with the best ambiance is right below, Waupoos Estate Winery, with its dock on Lake Ontario, Gazebo restaurant, and fairly priced wines.

Canadian Ice Wine – Order Canadian Ice Wines

These grapes are often downgraded to a lower designation, such as Special Select Late Harvest or Select Late Harvest. Canadian rules were further tightened in British Columbia in 2000 after a producer dealt with the mild winter of 1999 by moving grapes up to the mountains to seek freezing temperatures.

Though Pelee Island Winery and Hillebrand were Canada’s first commercial icewine producers, starting production in 1983, Inniskillin Wines is considered the most widely known Canadian icewine producer as the first Canadian winery to win a major international award, the Grand Prix d’Honneur at 1991 Vinexpo in France, with their 1989 Vidal Icewine (which was technically an illegal import into the EU, placing Canadian icewines on the world stage.

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