Pages

Monday, December 22, 2008

Stoney Ridge Winery Video

The video for Stoney Ridge Winery is up on the Wine Dining Vlog or on Wine Dining Channel. It is the longest winery I have done at 19 minutes but there was so much to show. Click the title of this post for the Vlog or use the link on the side for the Channel

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Stoney Ridge Winery

Stoney Ridge Winery was our first stop on our last trip to Niagara. We anticipated a brief stay but wound up staying two hours taking pictures and filming. I have the video prepped and will be working on it later this month but the pictures we tool reflect a winery property that is the prettiest manmade landscape we have seen in Niagara. I've compiled some of those photo's jusy turn on the player.

Tawes Winery Niagara Peninsula

I'm reposting an article I wrote in 2006. Most of the facts are still applicable.

Tawse Winery On our most recent visit to Niagara we toured 8 wineries, (which will be featured in the future) but we came across Tawse Winery during our tour and decided to check it out even though it didn't look open. What we found was a very high tech state-of-the-art, gravity based production facility with a staff that went out of their way to make us feel welcome. I hadn't expected to take any pictures but when we toured the facility and with the encoutagement of the tour staff I rushed out to the car to get my cameras. I spent a considerable amount of time going around the facility filming and taking pictures. The patience and courtesy the staff showed me is greatly appreciated and this feature is an expression of that appreciation.

The winery is named after the owner Moray Tawse which opened in the spring of 2005. It is situated on the hillside terain of the Niagara Bench in Vineland.

To take advantage of the locale the winery utilizes a six-level, gravity-fed system to process the harvest. Piping is also laid underground to store the heat accumulated from the soil and is used to generate power for the winery's use.

All in all I was very pleased with the Tawse winery and especially the staff that were very friendly and accomodating. If your in the area drop by but check with the winery for opening hours. They may have changed from the time of our visit.

I do have one negative thing I should mention though, the winery charged five dollars for tasting which was not credited when we bought their wine, Ouch!. I hope the owners decide to change this policy because the wines are not inexpensive (they are produced for premium quality) and I think that may dampen some consumers enthusiasm to purchase.

Click the title to go to the winery's website

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Latest Video

This year has been a busy year for me as I have visited and filmed over 10 wineries this year. I have just put up my latest about Southbrook Vineyards at Niagara on the Lake. For years they were located at Bathurst and Major Mackenzie north of Toronto. I remember getting a tour of their old barn wine production facilities and recall how friendly the tour guide was.
Urban sprawl was beginning to surround the property and you could tell that they would not be able to stay where they were indefinitely.
In 2008 they moved to a newly built facility. When we were there we had pizza and a glass of wine on the patio. It is very close to the vineyard and a tractor was driving by spraying a powder like substance on the vines. It was windy and I covered my food fearful that some of that powder might end up on it. Later the food amd beverage manager came around and explained that the winery is growing their vineyards with biodynamic (organic) methods and that the powder they were spraying was (I don't recall what it was) something very natural and non toxic to humans.
I was relieved even though nothing did blow onto my food.
The video, as most of my recent ones are, very detailed and very closely following what I saw as I traveled on the property. You really do see the whole property from all the angles I saw.
You can go to the Wine Dining Vlog to watch it or get it on the Wine Dining Channel using the on demand feature (it is about fourth video from the bottom). The links are on the right hand side of this blog.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Wine and Food Pairing

Sweet foods and Umami make a wine taste stronger and sour foods can make a wine taste milder. I have been mentioning this core rule for years. Tim Hanni developed this when he was at Beringer wines.
So it is only logical that they would use this as the basis to match wine and food.
You can get it from the "source" if you like, with more details that build on this principle. Click the title of this post and go to the wine and food pairing link on Beringer's site

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Obesity has been cured if your a Mouse

An article at a website called Scientific American states that a diet pill using the ingredient resveratral found in red wine tricked the body of mice into conserving energy and burn fat in spite of the fact they were fed a high fat diet. The mice given the substance also showed much more stamina and endurance.
Well that is just great but just like wine reduces the incidence of heart disease and cancer, it s just something nice to hear. Don't stop exercising, watching your diet and being a non smoker. You read enough of this kind of stuff and you almost get the feeling that this is the 21st century version of snake oil. I'm not saying it is, just that you get that feeling.
Click the title of this post if you want to read the article.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

An Icewine Alternative


It was a beautiful November 1 day and we decided to take a short country drive out to Archibald Estate Winery in Bowmanville.
We went out specifically to pickup some Spiced Winter Apple Reserve (23 sweetness 18.95) for Christmas day dessert. This wine was served to the Sultan of Brunei.
We have had this wine at Christmas time for a few years now and every year it is consistently good. It has the same intense sweetness and viscosity as a grape ice wine with a dominating taste of apple, nutmeg, brown sugar, cinnamon and caramel. It has a big bite and long finish from the balancing acidity in it.
The price makes it a very strong alternative to grape ice wine (30 to 90 dollars plus)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

A View on Ice Wine

I am reprinting my article from the main site page since this blog will become the main spring board to the main site.

When we hit the winter months of January and February the topic of icewine always comes up in Canadian wine circles. All 60 Canadian wineries that make icewine are keeping a daily vigil watching the weather forecasts and monitoring the temperature to see when then right conditions exist to pick the frozen grapes that have been left on the vine.

To qualify for V.Q.A. certification the grape the residual sugar and alcohol in finished ice wine must be the result of the natural sugars acquired while the on the vine and must be from juice reaching a level of sweetness of 35 brix. The air temperature must be a minimum of minus 8 C while the harvesting and pressing of the grapes are done continuously at these temperatures. The grapes must have been grown in a viticulturtal area and must be produced as a varietal from approved fruit (grapes). An agent appointed by the V.Q.A. must oversee the production and will force a stoppage of production if the temperature gets above -8C.
The output requires a trained labour force to hand pick the grapes and the pressing yield is only about one seventh the normal production of juice. The result is an extreme concentration of flavours and bouquet which is intensely sweet.

In 1794 some German farmers were very concerned over losing their grape crop when an unexpected cold snap froze their produce. In an attempt to salvage what they had, they stumbled onto this very concentrated juice after pressing. In the 1980's forward thinking producers of wine realized that Ontario had all the conditions in place to make great icewine. At the Bordeaux Vinexpo held in 1991, Canada made a break through in making a world class wine product by winning the Grand Prix d'Honneur. Inniskilllen winery had the honour of winning the award for it's 1989 Vidal Ice wine. It is probably fair to say that Canada now surpasses Germany in producing ice wine, since we have been able to produce it every year and consistently win awards annually for quality. Vidal and Riesling are still the staple varietals used in producing ice wine but other varietals including Gewürztraminer, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Muscat Ottonel, and Gamay have been used

In my personal experience I have had the Magnotta Ice wine the most (primarily because it is the most inexpensive and still tastes like ice wine). They have innovated this product in the past being the first winery to come out with a sparkling Ice wine in 1999-2000. I purchased a bottle and enjoyed it. I've also had Sparkling Cabernet Franc and regular Vidal and Riesling Ice Wine. The main difference between a thirty dollar bottle of ice wine and a ninety dollar bottle as far as taste is concerned is one of balance. What I mean is that there must be enough acidity in the ice wine to sharpen up the concentrated sweetness that comes in ice wine juice, otherwise the sweetness has a noxiousness to it (cloying). In a thirty dollar bottle you may experience just a touch of this excessive sweetness on the palate where as in the ninety dollar bottle you would tend to not get anything like that at all. I am not saying this to discourage anyone from purchasing a more inexpensive bottle. I only want to share what in my opinion is the main taste difference between the two price points. The excessive sweetness lasted only a moment and still gives a very accurate gauge as to the qualities ice wine is known for. The higher price point does not give you a product which is three times better IMO. The difference is incremental so I would encourage anyone wanting to get familiar with what ice wine tastes like to start with the Magnotta 2004 Vidal Icewine Niagara Peninsula LE VQA. 50 ML 6.95 VQA (one person ) or the 2005 Vidal Icewine Lake Erie North Shore LE VQA 375 ML 29.95. Both have the same flavour profile of lemon, tropical fruit and honey associated with icewine and they really don't break the budget while providing excellent value compared to what you can pay at other wineries.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Beginning the shift

After more than a decade as a static website Wine Dining is going to under go a shift in emphasis. Instead of simply being a repository of information on Ontario wineries we are going to shift to a more current content creation format.
That means were going to be more nimble with entering information by using blogs to show news, information and video content.
I want to concentrate on presenting articles and videos on events ideas and concepts that are affecting Ontario wine. This change will allow a lot more interesting content to be published in a fraction of the time.
Keep checking back because it is going to get a lot more interesting.