Niagara Redux

October 3, 2007 by admin

How many wineries did Kevin and I (and my Dad) manage to hit before we had to join up with the family?

Two, you say? HA! As if!

Four?

How about 5 and then the family wine tour as well.

Now you are probably thinking that we were driving like crazy people throughout the back roads of Western New York high on merlot…. but you would be wrong. The fact is that most of these wineries were fairly close together and the tastings rooms professionally operated which meant that we never got more than a tasting pour.

Which wineries did we visit?

Honeymoon Trail was the first stop of our tour…And the location where we signed up for the best deal we got the entire weekend… See, the members of the Niagara Wine Trail were celebrating their Harvest Festival. This meant that for the weekend you could purchase a special wristband for $10.oo, get a free tasting glass and then free tastings at the memeber wineries. Naturally we thought this was great!

Honeymoon Trail is a winery that has operated for about a decade. They produce a number of types of grape wines as well as fruit wines as well (Frankly, I view them all as fruit wines as grapes are fruit, but I have heard enough complaints from friends and relatives to stop making this claim… sort of ). One of the wines that we purchased was their dandelion wine which is produced from the flowers of the plant. Having been a girl who often walked around picking dandelions for my mother and offered as gifts at religions shrines I couldn’t resist trying this wine. The taste was unusual but reminded me of summer sunshine.

Other wines that were available at the winery include:

Apple
Baco Noir
Cabernet Franc
Cayuga White
Chancellor
Chardonnay
Cherry
Concord (Honeymoon’s Over)
Coyote
Dandelion
Diamond
Full Moon
Honeymoon Sweet
Mighty Niagara
Peach
Pink Catawba
Pinot
Raspberry
Razzleberry
Riesling
Seyval Blanc
Strawberry
Vignoles
White Lace

The next winery that we visited was the Niagara Landing Wine Cellars. This winery was somewhat smaller than the previous winery and also supports itself as a Welch’s contract grower.