A Life, Lived

Travel Tuesdays - 13th Street Winery

Yesterday I took mom to the Niagara wine country for her first outing in 16 months.

I decided to take her to 13th Street Winery - they have a great combination of wine, art, and food. Perfect for a nice time in Niagara.

We wandered the sculpture garden.

We noticed the covered sitting area starting to fill up so mom grabbed a prime table while I went to order wine and our pizza. A Margherita for mom and a Peach and proscuitto pizza for me

After lunch we visited the bakery (the 13th Street Winery Butter Tarts were rated the top in Canada a few years back) and bought some treats for home.

It was a brilliant gettaway - perfect fro getting the hang of being out and about after a long lockdown.

Dillon's Distillery

It is unlikely that any spirits drinker in Niagara, or even southern Ontario, is unfamiliar with Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers.

Founded in 2012, long before craft distilling became a thing, Dillon’s has been serving up fine spirits for almost a decade, beginning with a grape-based gin they produce to this day, the gentle, ‘New World’ style Unfiltered Gin 22. That gin was soon joined by another spirit distilled from grape rather than grain, Method 95 Vodka.

Geoff Dillon is a master distiller with degrees in biochemistry and economics and planned all along to use the bounty of natural botanicals, herbs and fruit sourced from Niagara. The distiller has always focused squarely on small-batch spirits, hand-crafted at the production facility in Beamsville on the north side of QEW.

The location in Beamsville, in the heart of Niagara wine country, was chosen in part for its proximity to the local ingredients. They take advantage of the rick niagara soil to grow many of the botanicals needed for their products on their site.

The first products from Dillon’s were made from a base of Niagara grapes that would otherwise have been thrown to the ground during the annual thinning process. Instead, they are dropped into baskets, fermented and distilled at Dillon’s.

But the backbone of Dillon’s product line is its Canadian rye whisky.

“Most people don’t know that Canadian rye whisky can be (and often is) made with as little as zero per cent rye then coloured and flavoured,” says Dillon. “Our whisky is made with 100% Ontario grown rye (eventually 100% Niagara-grown), and I know people will be blown away when they taste it,” he said in 2012.

A big part of the program at Dillon’s is the use of seasonal spirits made from fresh Niagara fruit including peaches, pears and cherries, purchased and processed at Dillon’s with the pure juices added straight into the still for blending. The distillery also makes its own bitters, tonics, sodas and pre-mixed, high end cocktails.

On Sunday we travelled to Niagara for our first real outing in months. Dillons had a pre-order special - you reserved a spot at a covered table on the property and received a cocktail and charcuterie box. To us this sounded like the perfect way to celebrate an easing of the COVID and a return to 'sort of normal'.

I ordered the Cucumber G and T and Paul the strawberry Lemonade.

Both were perfect.

Not long after our charcuterie box was delivered. It was a great combination of nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit, bread, meats, cheeses and a grape spread.

All in all, a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Niagara.

Travel Tuesdays - Niagara Wineries

Saturday was one of those nice days we get in late fall where it is warm enough to get out and about without having to bundle up too much. We decided to go to two wineries in Niagara. The first winery, 13th Street Winery, had Muskoka chairs set up around fire pits. It was wonderful to sit outside and enjoy a glass of wine. The second one we visited was Sue-Ann Staff. There we found a large event tent set up with small tasting areas inside. It was great to get out and enjoy some nice wines in a socially distanced way.

Supporting Local Producers

There is no doubt that the pandemic has kicked the crap out of small businesses Some have just shuttered Others have adopted to different business models in order to stay solvent.Niagara wineries have been particularly hard hit. The wine business is never an easy one but 202o seems to have them in its crosshairs between a catastrophic loss of business (including the lucrative restaurant sales) and a brutal polar vortex last week.

I received an email this week from one of my favourite wineries - Westcott Vineyards. They were offering a special treat for wine club members - a private tasting of some new wines. Paul and I booked a appointment for Saturday.

Westcott does a neat thing in regular times . . .on Friday nights they bring in a visiting chef and they have a fireside dinner next to their ginormous fieldstone fireplace in the tasting room. We went to a dinner there back in December (goodness, it all sees so long ago now . . .). The chef team was a duo called Ricky and Olivia. The vibe was fabulous and the food even better. When the pandemic hit the fireside dinners stopped. Westcott also has a seasonal patio which features Ricky and Olivia working their magic in an outdoor kitchen. 

Rickey and Olivia have been doing curbside pick up meals and they had one last weekend at Westcott. The menu looked amazing:

House Brioche Dinner Roll

Living Green Salad

Greenhouse lettuces, local cherry tomatoes, pickled red onion, Thornloe blue cheese, toasted pumpkin seeds, R+O garden herb vinaigrette

Wood Oven Roasted Striploin

Ontario beef, wild leek mashed potatoes, wood oven roasted+glazed carrots, Westcott Pinot Noir gravy

So we ordered three dinners to go - lord knows after 9 weeks of being shut in her house mom deserved a treat as well!

We arranged to pick the dinners up after the wine tasting.

Then as fate would have it, another of our favourite wineries (Sue Ann Staff) released a new rosé - the 2018 Windsock Rosé Cabernet Sauvignon. She calls it Ontario's most high flying rosé. The winery isn't opened for visits but they do have curbside pick up. You call ahead, order and pay, and when you get to the winery honk at the back door. While that sounds a bit cketchy to me as I type it the reality is anything but.

Our three bottles of pre-ordered wine were placed in the back of the car and we headed off to Westcott.

I was a bit surprised at the number of cars in the lot. It turned out that any people took advantage of the gorgeous day to hang out on socially distanced chairs and sip wine overlooking the vineyard after their tastings.

We went inside and were seated well away from the other couple in the room. We tasted 9 of their wines, including the new sparkling rosé which was amazing.

After the tasting we headed outside to those socially distant chairs and enjoyed sitting in the sun, looking at the vineyards, and sipping a glass of rosé.

This is exactly what I needed!

Later we picked up the meals we had ordered (and a case of wine!) and headed home.

Dinner was every bit as good as we had anticipated.

It did our souls good to get outside.

Given we have the luck by nature of our work of both still being employed and earning our regular salary it is important to us to support those small local businesses.

A Canada Day Celebration

This year for Canada Day we did something different from normal.

We celebrated with pink & white!

Who needs fireworks when you can celebrate with an amazing meal provided by Toronto’s Smoked & Cracked restaurant overlooking the Stratus vineyard?

Stratus paired the event with a release of some of their library white wines and their new rosé wine which they released in July 1.

It was a brilliant evening from start to finish.

Smoked salmon appetizers and some of the amazing 2015 Sav. Blanc.

Tasting the new release.

The first course was crab gazpacho.

The second course was an amazing cesar salad. It had a slice of smoked sturgeon from the St. John River. Caught last week, flown to Ontario, smoked, and served up on an amazing salad.

Potato salad.

Cracked lobster, tarragon aioli, and grilled asparagus.

Popsicles for dessert. I had a Strawberry Basil one.MMMMMM

What an amazing evening and a fabulous way to celebrate Canada's 151st birthday.

Travel Tuesdays - Niagara

Some more shots from our wine adventure in Niagara last Sunday . . .

Westcott Winery

Last weekend Paul and I had friends from California visiting. We decided to take them on a tour of some Niagara wineries. Our first stop was a newish winery 9well, new to us for sure) called Westcott. I had heard about them, and in fact drank a bottle of their wine purchased at the LCBO, but had never visited. People I follow on Instagram rave about the wines so I thought I'd pay a visit.

Westcott Vineyards and Winery is a very small, artisanal Niagara winery focused on producing exquisite chardonnay and pinot noir wines from their estate grown grapes. The owners believe that a great wine begins in the vineyard and they take great pains to make wines that they feel good about.

Upon arrival we met one of the owners . . .

Carolyn Hurst and her husband Grant Westcott bought the property in 2006 as a new chapter in their lives; a simple transition to retirement life in the country. HA I'm not sure what their previous lives as IT professionals were like but I suspect nothing compared to the backbreaking (and soul crushing) work of a winery.

The night before we arrived was their national rosé day party and they had been up late and I suspect were dragging their heels . . .to say nothing of cloudy brains . . . on a Sunday morning.

There were hints of their pink celebration all around.

I had booked a private tour thinking that it would be a great way for our Californian friends to gain a greater understanding of the Niagara wine industry. I had no idea that our tour guides would be the owners themselves!

Carolyn took us through the winery and showed us their sparkling wine production where they are riddling the bottles by hand. The bottles we saw had been on the lees for 50 months. I can't wait to try a bottle when it is released!

We went upstairs to a private room where Carolyn, and later Grant, talked to us about their wine making philosophy, their wines, and anything else we were interested in and we were interested in a LOT).

It was an amazing start to our wine tour.

In fact, I liked the wines so much that the first thing I did when I arrived in the office on Monday morning was to go online and join the wine club. :-)

 

150 Years on the Farm

This is a big year for us here in Canada - our 150th birthday. Of course the land has been around and people have been eking a living on it for far longer but from a legal perspective we turn 150 on July 1.

Canadians do not really 'do' bit celebrations. We are far too quiet and reserved for that sort of thing.

Lately though I've noticed that lots of people are getting into the Canada 150 spirit.

When we were in Niagara a few weeks ago for our anniversary, one of the wineries had this sign out front.

An Evening with Jann Arden

For the past 15 years Jackson-Triggs winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake has sponsored an outdoor amphitheatre concert series during the summer months. The ampitheatre is built into the side of a hill adjacent to the vineyard. There are only about 400 seats resulting in an intimate concert experience. The winery has a number of local food trucks on site for the evening and pours numerous wines. It offers a relaxed way to enjoy wine country at its best, while experiencing the talents of top Canadian performers and savouring Jackson-Triggs' outstanding VQA wine and local fare.

Back in April, when the line up was announced, I bought tickets to Jann Arden for Paul's anniversary gift. Jann Arden is a Canadian born, singer, songwriter, broadcaster and author. The much celebrated multi-platinum, award winning artist catapulted onto the Canadian music scene in 1993 with the release of her debut album "Time For Mercy" featuring the hit single, I Would Die For You. A year later with “Living Under June”, she would have her career break out hit Insensitive that would solidify her position in the music world. Arden has released 12 albums with 19 top ten singles. We've seen her perform a few times and always love her shows - she tends to add more between the songs than other performers do . . . talking about the inspiration of the song, what it means to her, he challenges she has faced as a performer, etc.

We hopped into the car on Saturday and made the trek to Niagara for the concert. We took our time - with the horrific 'let's head to Niagara on the weekend' traffic we could do noting but. We stopped for an early dinner/late lunch at one of our favourite BBQ restaurants, we meandered along the 'slow road' through the peninsula (even cutting off to see my grandparents old house in Grimsby - now torn down and replaced with a monstrosity apparently).

It was about 6:30 when we got to the winery and scored one of the last parking spots before the overflow lots across the street were called into service. Once we checked in we received a wine glass, wrist band, and a sticker with our name on it so we could reserve our seats.

Once they let folks in we just walked to a seat we thought we'd like, put our stickler on, and that was 'home' for the night. Once the seat was claimed you could wander the wine stands, food trucks, or lounge about on the lawns until the show started.

We lucked out - our seats were in the front row.

Jann started performing at 8:00. She had another guitar player, a keyboardist, and another back up musician who played keyboards, the mandolin, and violin. One of the neat features of the evening was when she asked each of the back up performers to lay and sign a song which resonated with them. It was amazing to hear the talent there from folks who normally toil away in the back ground.

Jann played all of her hits, some material from her last CD (happily not her upcoming Christmas CD - that would have been weird) and kept us in laughter all night with her patter.

Jann played an encore - introduced us all to her beloved dog midi - and the band took a final bow.

It was a wonderful evening - there really isn't anything better than a performer at the top of their game in a casual, intimate setting. Happily we hadn't been in attendance the night before when a thunderstorm cut the evening short. We were treated to amazing music under the stars . . .

The Handmade Market

One of our favourite food trucks tweeted last week that they would be at the Handmade Market on the weekend. I had no idea what that was but after a wee bit of googling I discovered that it was a culinart and artisan fair in Niagara - with food trucks!

We quickly decided that it sounded like a great Jerry and Paul activity.

Paul and I headed out to Honsberger Estates (the host winery) and visited on Sunday. . .