niagara

by ekuhns on Trip Report

Niagara-on-the-lake – Day 2

We got a little bit of a late start this morning. I got up early and went to the gym. Then on my way back I stopped and grabbed three coffees from the lobby. Getting them into the room is always tricky since the doors are usually pretty heavy. I have to stack three hot coffees while sliding a key card and not getting knocked out by a door.

Once we were all up and about it was too late for the hotel breakfast so we decided to get something near our destinations for the day. Since we were starting with the bench we decided to eat at a place in Beamsville. The place chosen was Conversations cafe. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. More like a coffee shop than a brunch place. They have some sandwiches and other dishes.

At one point my mother-in-law dropped her purse on the floor under the table and spilled all of its contents. I had to crawl under and collect all the spilled change and Canadian money. What we didn’t know at the time was that her wallet had also fallen out of the purse. This we didn’t discover until much later.

After our ok breakfast, we started at one of our favorites. Fielding estates is an amazing winery with a great view. Maura and I each purchased a bottle. We bought Chardonnay and another Gamay.

Where to next?

We decided to do Thirty Bench as I don’t recall us having been there before. The tasting room was really nice and they had it set up for another event that was happening this weekend. They are bit on the pricey side but good wines.

I bought their small lot benchmark red.

Then we went to another favorite of ours Kew Vineyards.

We got seated in the large dining room which is more to our liking than the high tables in the main room. We were getting a little hungry again so this time we got the cheese plate with our samples.

I bought the Malivoire and picked up a bottle of the Rose for my coworker Steve. Maura bought a Pinot.

Our last stop for the day was Creekside Estate. It was getting close to closing time but we got there right as a large wedding party was leaving and with enough time to sample.

There was a delightful lady that waited on us. I purchased a bottle of the Laura’s red for my coworker Laura.

We finished the day with a mediocre dinner at Grill on King. A place we’ve never been before. It was a little surprising that the dinner wasn’t that great considering the reviews it’s gotten.

 
by ekuhns on Trip Report

Niagara-on-the-lake – Day 1

For my mother-in-law’s birthday, this year, we decided to take her to the wineries at Niagara-on-the-lake. She expressed her interest in it since we were just up there. I love the area and it’s a fairly stress free vacation so I was more than happy to go.

The drive up was pretty standard and without any surprises since we just did it a few months ago.

We checked into the Hilton and got situated. Maura and her mom wanted to take a little rest so I decided to head to the bar for a beer to clear the dust from my throat.  Amazingly the bartender remembered us from when we were there in January. It was truly shocking considering I’ve been to the same bar in Pittsburgh dozens of times but the bartenders treat you like a stranger.

We chatted for a bit and he told me he lives near Niagara Falls and that they were going to be doing an Earth Day thing where they turn the lights off for the falls. Our plan was to head down that way for a bit anyway so I was worried this might make it a traffic nightmare but that wasn’t the case.

I grabbed my beer and headed back to the room to rest before we made our way back south a bit.

We drove the longish way down to find a casino. I’m not a gambler so it didn’t really make a difference which one we went to but the one that was chosen was the Fall’s View Casino. Someone dug deep for that name.

Before we went there, however, we stopped to look at the falls. It had been about 30 years since my mother-in-law was last here. It was good to know it hadn’t changed that much. We, of course, took a selfie with the falls in the background.

Then it was off to the casino. The plan was to find the bar and deposit me while they went and gambled. I found a nice spot where I could watch the Penguins hockey game. While I drank my beer Maura broke about even and we decided to head back to the lake for dinner.

We decided to try and get some food at the Silversmith Brewery that we discovered the last time. However, we weren’t taken with their menu or the drink options.

I wanted to head further into town and try the Exchange Brewery since they had some great IPAs the last time. Unfortunately, they were closed. So we made our way to The Irish harp.

Even more unfortunately, the Irish Harp is now two-for-two on our trips there. The service wasn’t very good and the food turned out to be kind of bland. Worse yet, we ordered bottles of beer that we discovered too late had expired some time before.

Seeing that the fortunes were against us. Maura got a dessert to go and we decided to call it a night.

 
by ekuhns on Trip Report

Niagara on the lake – Day 2

We like to start our wine adventures with a good breakfast. As the Hilton has a good buffet we started there. This allows for us to also craft a plan of attack. This year we decided to do things a bit differently and go to the wineries on the bench instead of near the hotel.

The bench is an area a few miles away that sits a bit up from the lake. It has a climate that is apparently very suitable for growing grapes and making wine.

Our first stop was Angels gate, a nice winery that sits on a hilltop and has a great selection to try. I sampled the Mountainview Chardonnay, Pinot noir, Merlot, Cabernet merlot. I didn’t buy anything because I knew our next stop is one of my favorite wineries.

Fielding Estate is a great winery. They have an amazing view that looks out over the winery and a catwalk that lets you look at the wine making operation. I tried the Chardonnay unpacked, Viognier, Gamay. Here I bought a bottle of the Gamay and we bought our travel passes for the Ice wine festival.

With wine and passes in hand we head to Rosewood.

Rosewood is a winery and a meadery. I’ve been recently getting in mead and this place was awesome. We tried the origin Chardonnay , sussreserve Riesling,  long rows red, lock, stock and barrel, origin cab franc, spiced mead, cyser Apple honey mead. I bought the spiced mead. Maura bought some honey.

Maura took a candid group shot.

Our next stop was KEW.

We found KEW only a couple of years earlier but its quickly become a favorite of ours. They have a nice table to handle larger groups for tastings.

I sampled the 2010 Rosalie, 2014 old vine Riesling, 2014 Marsanne, Soldier’s Grant Cabernet. I ended up buying the barrel aged gamey noir. It seemed to be the theme of the night.

From KEW we headed to Mailvoire and wanted to do the Ice Wine pairing.

At the entrance we were treated to a cheese sampling that was really good. We proceeded to the back of the winery where we had roasted duck ice wine pairing. It too was really good. We also did another wine pairing. I had the Bidous Brut NV, 3014 Mottiar Chardonnay, 2013 Stouck Merlot. I also bought another Gamey. Outside they had the food truck for the cheese monger, the Cheesy Guys. It was really good and Maura bought a bunch of cheese.

We then make a stop at Vineland Estates for their ice wine pairing a dark chocolate and venison stew with their merlot. The rest of the group seemed to really enjoy it but Maura and I didn’t. We also tried their 2010 Riesling with golden bilth cheese and rosemary sea salt cracker cinnamon bark jelly that was really good.

Our next to last stop was Creekside. They’re a favorite of ours. We did the ice wine pairing which was a  chicken liver pate with iconoclast red. I enjoyed it. Maura had zero interest so I took hers. Now it was time for dinner.

Our first choices for dinner weren’t able to accommodate a group our size for that night so we headed to Trius which turned out to be a high point of the whole trip.

Here the photos do way more justice than I could to describe how awesome this meal was.

Check out this awesome smoked salmon.

That was the end of this day. It was a wonderful start but more to come tomorrow.

 
by ekuhns on Trip Report

Niagara on the lake – Day 1

Every January we head north to Canada to meet with some friends for the annual Ice Wine festival. This year we also happened to be traveling on the same day I had to take an important call for work.

As is usually the case we like to get up early and try to get on the road before rush hour traffic starts. We usually mess this up somehow but we did what we could.

Along the way we realized we weren’t going to make it across the border before I had to take my call so we got off the road in Buffalo. We were looking for an antique spot for Maura to check out while I had my call but only found a shady looking place that was more pawn shop than antiques. So instead we stopped in a supermarket lot and I took my call while Maura napped.

After the call we quickly made it across the border into Canada on a day when I honestly thought there’d be more trouble because of the Trump inauguration.

We made it to the hotel in pretty good time and were way ahead of our friends so we decided to try and take a nap. The unfortunate thing though was the floor beneath us was being renovated so there was terrible noise the whole time and what sleep we got just made us more tired.

Since Maura’s Buffalo antique shopping was a bust we decided to try our luck in Niagara on the lake. We found one place that was open that we had been to in the past and Maura bought a picture. We also discovered these old trucks by the side of the road.

By this point I was getting hungry and thirsty. The first order of business was food. We weren’t really in the mood for anything so we did a very rare thing for us and got McDonald’s. I had Big Mac with Bacon which is apparently a thing no one thought to have until now. I don’t remember what Maura had.

Still thirsty we went to a brewery we’ve never been to in Niagara, Silversmith brewery. It’s great to see craft beer creeping its way up north as the last time we were in Toronto it was pretty hard to locate but I think we’re spoiled in Pittsburgh.

We didn’t realize they had a kitchen there or we would have skipped the McDonald’s and tried their food as well.

I really liked this brewery and we’ll definitely be coming back. Maura liked their logo enough to get a growler but we didn’t take any beer with us since the point of the trip was really wine.

Unfortunately while we were there they didn’t have anything on their cask pull.

Back to our original plan to return to Oast House since we were there before so we wanted to check them out. We only stopped for a quick drink there because we wanted to go to the Irish pub for dinner and have a couple of drinks there. Oast House has a unique decor and looks like a remodeled barn.

From there it was time to head up to Niagara on the lake proper and see about the Irish pub that we usually have a great time at while we’re there.

We ended up parking a little further away and walking through the town a bit. They have an old apothecary that is never open when we’re there but we remain hopeful. I’m glad we walked though because we found another brewery that had opened the previous year that we somehow missed.

The Exchange Brewery is a very slick, clean looking brewery and they have some great double ipas amongst their line up.

While we sampled some beers we began a conversation with the couple next to us who also happened to be from Pittsburgh and in town for the Ice Wine festival. Small world.

It was time to eat so we headed to the Irish Harp Pub expecting some delicious clams and to see the band that usually plays. However, what we got was quite different. Our hostess was a bit rude and didn’t want to seat us. The band was a new one that made several derogatory remarks about the USA that got on our nerves. Instead of hanging around we got what we could takeout and went back to the hotel to eat.

We decided to call it a night and looked forward to wine and friends in the morning.