My Niagara Wine Experience

Wine With Your Cheese?
On this trip to Toronto, my friend Krista suggested we take a trip to Niagara Falls and along the way, stop into some of the wineries that the Niagara Region is infamous for. So that's exactly what we found ourselves doing on Sunday.

Krista is a wine fanatic, and if you are as well, you should follow her blog 'Upkeep' for her latest wine adventures, and there are many! She really started getting into wines about a year ago, and since then, not only visits wineries on a frequent basis and blogs about her experiences, but is also taking a course in wines at George Brown College. I'm sure there's a big fancy technical name for it, but I'm a wine dummy, so I couldn't tell you exactly what it is.

Being the wine dummy that I am, it was a really interesting visit to our first stop - Di Profio Wines in the Jordan Station area of the Niagara Region. It's owned by Carollynn and Joe (pictured above). The two were actually nicely enjoying retirement (Carollynn had been a school teacher) when Joe's son started to pester them about buying a winery. The two were reluctant at first, but finally gave in and were lucky to buy one that already had existing growing vines. My understanding is that starting a winery with new plants from the ground up could possibly take 3-4 years before the grape plants are ready to produce the type of crop needed for the winemaking process. They've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their new baby, which exists beside their Bed and Breakfast nicely nestled within the vineyard called 'Among the Vines'. They're one of the smaller wineries where they hand pick the grapes and sort for the highest quality and produce small batches at a time using a gravity fed process.

While there, Carollynn and Joe treated us to a wine tasting of their Cabernet Sauvignon, Gamay Noir, Gamay Rose (which looks much like Cream Soda), the Riesling and their Vidal Ice Wine. I rarely drink wine, and I should mention this was at 11 in the morning, but it was a neat experience, the wine was fabulous, and Carollynn and Joe are just the nicest people. If you're ever in the area, I'd strongly suggest stopping by their winery and experiencing Di Profio Wines.