Another Wine Tour

Two days driving around the Niagara region can wear you out. All that tasting, smiling, driving around and eating at fabulous restaurants....too much for the weak of heart.

Not for me and BF1 though. We went, we bought, we conquered.

I have been meaning to write about this for the last three days, but I've been struck by a congestive flu that has left me weak and wordless. I'm coughing up a lung here, but I am finally physically stable enough to soldier on and write the post. Last Saturday (the 13th) we left at around 11:00 a.m. to begin the adventure. We would have left earlier but I have no sense of timing, and tend not to rush to get ready to go anywhere, especially when there's no set time for leaving. Once I'd finally packed all my stuff and rearranged it all and then made sure that the map and the Canadian Wine Annual were in the car in the proper orientation, we were finally ready to leave.

Most people who don't live in Southern Ontario freak out about Highway 401, the big highway that runs from Windsor to the Quebec border. It's busy and full of transport trucks and you usually have to drive very fast on it. Posted speed limits are more like guidelines than actual limits (this is actually true for almost every highway), and if you're only doing 100kph then you'd better be way the heck over in the right hand lane. There used to be big signs telling you how much you'd be fined for 20, 30 or 40 km over the limit, but now they've been replaced by even bigger signs that say 50 km over the limit: $10,000 fine and immediate impounding of the vehicle. That is, if you're not a road taco already, having rolled your little street machine into a floured tortilla with you in the middle.

Truly though, the 403 is the highway of challenge. There are trucks, yes, but there are also tourists, and people who live in Hamilton, where speed limits are practically meaningless, driving to Toronto. There are also left-side entries and exits from the 403, adding a certain amount of danger and terror to your holiday driving experience. Looking for a leisurely drive down to Niagara Falls? Forget it. Strap yourself into your motorhome and get the hell off the highway and find another way to get onto the QEW. Really, we'll all be happier for it.

We do have to get on the 403 on the left, and this is a terrifying experience for BF1, because by the time the entry ramp runs out I'm doing 110 and the guy in the lane beside me isn't quite ready to relinquish his piece of road real estate. He does, I speed up to 130 and get the hell over a little bit, because really, I do not like to go that fast and would prefer a grandmotherly 110 so that I can at least read the road signs. I've got seven km to get over to the far right hand lane to get onto the QEW, but there are two big trucks in my way playing chicken (boys! it's Saturday! don't you take a day off?) and going faster faster faster then slowing down just enough to close the available gap. It wasn't a big deal, really, but there are about 15 signs for the QEW in those seven km, and this ramped up the anxiety for BF1 just a tiny bit. Certainly I have had to scoot between big trucks before, and it turned out that this time I actually didn't have to do it, but it was very amusing, especially the guy who got on the highway behind one of the trucks and had about 10 feet between each vehicle in each subsequent lane, but still managed to move all the way over three lanes to the far left. Bravo!

The rest of the drive was comparatively quiet. We headed along the QEW toward Niagara-on-the-Lake with Strewn Winery as our first destination. Okay, actually, Chateau des Charmes was actually our first destination, but BF1 had an attack of map dyslexia and we wound up going in the opposite direction from our intended one, and since I take this type of thing as a sign that we were not meant to go to Chateau des Charmes, I said okay, we'll go to Strewn instead. The place is at the end of a road that seems interminable, like any road does when you're looking for something, but it was an excellent start to the day. We found out that 2004 was not a great year for most of the Niagara region, and that 2005 was much better. We had some good reds (including one that would be Sunday evening's "burger wine" when we got home for the barbecue Hub had planned) a couple of reds to sit, and a sauvingnon blanc that rivalled anything I've had from New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter. Very crisp and full of flavour, this was something we had to pick up.

At most places, as we could have predicted, we picked up almost exactly the same thing. We have an uncanny habit of buying the same things, especially shoes.

Next on the list: Marynissen. This time, the navigation proceeded smoothly, as it did for the rest of the trip, which is good because I didn't want any other signs indicating that we shouldn't visit a particular place. We were going to places I hadn't been to after all, and they were all places I wanted to visit, so I didn't need signs from above (or to the right of the vehicle) telling me that I was wrong. Marynissen is a little family operation, and while Hub's coworker had extolled the virtues of their whites, it was their reds that we were taken with. Now, sadly, without going down to the basement and opening up boxes I can't quite remember what we got, but I think one was a cabernet-merlot and one a cab franc....but they were good.

Hungry! so a stop at a little harvest grocer bought a sandwich for me and a pizza bread for BF1, who cannot abide the sandwich. Then on down the Lakeshore Road toward Port Dalhousie (and I know, any east-coaster would be saying Dal-How-si, but guess what? It's a French word, and in Niagara it's pronounced Da-loo-zie .... so you might go to Dalhowsi University but you eat at Treadwell's in Port Daloozie.) which is almost a suburb of St. Catharines and very quaint and cute and fuzzy. Oh, but wait, first you take a detour into Stonechurch Winery, because the woman on the road ahead of you is making you nuts. Stonechurch had a really useful bathroom.

Back on the road again, and far away from the Echo from Hell's Driving School, we proceeded to find Treadwell, which was a good thing seeing as we were going to eat there that night. We could have stopped in at the hotel to drop our things, but decided to hit a couple of other places before resting up a bit before dinner. The first was Creekside, where we were hoping to score some Mike Weir Pinot Noir for BF1's hub, but that was not to be because they were totally sold out of the stuff. (I can probably get it at the LCBO though.) She did pick up a bottle of their shiraz, which was quite nice, but I was trying to be a little bit responsible and not buy everything that tasted good. Along the road, one more stop at Flat Rock Cellars, the first of our "oh my god" stops, because the place was breathtaking. The sun hadn't been out much all day, and it was really windy and chilly, but when we pulled up to the glass structure, the sun came out and we had a great view of the vineyard. Now, like a dope I forgot the camera, and my cellphone camera just wouldn't capture the place in any kind of decent way, so I'm without pictures. If you go to the site then you'll see what the building looks like, and really, it's quite spectacular. The grounds are well-kept and the pinot noir came home with us.

Hotel, nap, off for dinner. Port Dalhousie is about 4.5 minutes from our hotel because along that scenic service road, and really, one side of it was completely scenic, there are no stoplights. It was an amusing drive, 20foot concrete wall to the right, blocking the sight and sound of the QEW, and stately homes on the lakeshore to the left. Literally, on the lakeshore. These places couldn't waste space on frontage for fear of tumbling into the lake. Actually, come to think of it, our hotel was built the same way: bit of a parking lot out front, so when you get out of your car you have to yell to be heard over the traffic on the highway. You step into the hotel, and fall to your knees at the desk begging for a lakeside room, when the concierge informs you that of course all the rooms are lakeside, otherwise your head would explode and we don't have insurance for that.

While it only takes 4.5 minutes to get to Treadwell, we left almost 20 minutes early, so had to sit in the bar for a bit before our table was ready. Not the worst way to spend 15 minutes, we ordered a bottle of Daniel Lenko old vines merlot, since it's after August 30 and he's not open any more. I've had this wine, I know how excellent it is and we're not disappointed. Our wine steward was a handsome gentleman who was in moderately good humour, although not enough for us to flirt with him too seriously. We saved that for our waiter, who BF1 insisted looked like Michael Buble (follow the link and hear him sing...yeesh) and since I have no idea what he looks like (okay, I do now because I set the link, right?), I had to go along with her assessment. I did think the waiter walked a bit tightly for a singer, unless he's singing the high notes and I thought Michael Buble was more of the lounge singing variety. We had appetizers and we had lamb and we had dessert, all Ontario grown, in fact well within the requisite and trendy 100 miles (or 160.9 km). Highly recommend the place. The service was lovely, the food excellent, the atmosphere refined but not stuffy. Would definitely go back, in fact I'd let them cook me dinner every night.

Now really, I could go on, but you should follow all those links (except for maybe Michael Buble, because he's not really important in this story other than his resemblance to our waiter) and plan your own Niagara tour. In a bit I'll tell you about Sunday, because I have one and only one photo from the weekend, and it belongs to Sunday and quite frankly Sunday needs its own entry because Sunday was a whole bucket of fun.