i live. i write. i am.: Niagara Wine Tour

It seems only fitting that I compose this blog after consuming 3 glasses of wine, since after all, it is about wine! John and I took a beautiful drive up to Canada this past Labor day to spend the weekend with our good friends Barry and Sue in Oakville, Ontario. We spent 3 fun-filled days going here and there, but undoubtedly, my favorite day was day "three" when we spent the entire day exploring the Niagara Wine Region and stopping in to say "hi" to Niagara Falls where we hadn't been in eighteen years or so. The weather was so-so, but turned into decent as we visited the first of the wineries, Château des Charmes, which is where Barry and Sue's daughter, Shannon got married almost 15 years ago.

John, Barry, Susan and I wine tasting at Château des Charmes

We hit a few more wineries, some of them were charging $5 or $7 for three 1 oz samples which was too rich for our blood so we left those places in the dust! After all....one has to be careful these days!! Barry and Susan were cordial enough to purchase wine at each winery, but it wasn't until the last one we visited that John and I had loosened up enough to get in the game. Barry found out at that winery, which was Jackson-Triggs that if you filled out an iPad questionnaire, which took like 20 minutes, you got a free glass of wine, so while Susan and I sampled wine, (I'm not sure where John was....) Barry spent almost the entire time filling out answers on of course, an iPad. Good work Barry!

Is everyone except me familiar with Ice Wine? Well, apparently it's all "the rage" and that day was my introduction. Being a dry wine lover, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be a fan and at Château des Charmes, though I enjoyed it more than I thought I would....it wasn't until we sampled some delicious Ice wine at Jackson-Triggs that I started to think I could easily add ice wine to my dessert palate. Not inexpensive though, and now we have a $65 bottle of that ice wine in our wine rack.

We stopped during our beautiful Niagara wine drive and took some pictures of grape vines dripping with beautiful purple grapes....then we headed to gorgeous Niagara-On-The-Lake, which well, oh my gosh....so beautiful.... but that's a blog in itself!!