Niagara-On-the-Lake Ontario (NOTL) is located about a half-hour north of Niagara Falls and an hour and a half south of Toronto at the point at which the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario. Its location by the deep lake sufficiently moderates temperatures to give the region a short, but still productive growing season for a wide range of grapes. And cold Novembers provides a unique opportunity to produce some of the best, most sought-after ice wines in the world.

NOTL, however, offers much more than wine. Typically referred to as the “Prettiest Town in Canada,” it is a small, but lovely walking city and is the home of some excellent restaurants and the annual George Bernard Shaw Festival. We had 24 hours to do it all. While not enough time, it gave us a taste of what to expect on our next visit.

NOTL Ice Wines and Beyond

Our first priority was to taste wines at as many of the region’s top wineries as possible. We found an amazing number of superb ice wines, a handful of very nice red and white varietals, and two absolutely world-class (not to speak of highly environmentally friendly) wineries.

As for the ice wines, Vidal is by far the most popular, and certainly one of the most consistent ice wines. The cool weather grape has skin that is thick enough to protect it from the rigors of freezing. Other grapes such as Riesling, Chardonnay, and occasionally reds have thinner skins making freezing more problematic. Of the reds, Cabernet Franc (the most consistently good red in the region) is most popularly used for ice wines, with occasional use of Cabernet Sauvignons and Shiraz.

Some of our favorites were:

• Pilliteri (09 Vidal, 07 Chardonnay and 07 Shiraz);
• Konzelmann (09 Vidal and 08 Cabernet Sauvignon);
• Peller (07 Signature Series Riesling);
• Megalomania (07 Coldhearted Riesling);
• Inniskillin (07 Oak-Aged Vidal and especially its Cabernet Franc;
• Jackson Triggs Proprietor’s Reserve Vidal and Grand Reserve Riesling, Cabernet Franc and best of all, Gewürztraminer;
• Lailey 07 Vidal VQA; and
• Coyote Run 08 Riesling.

For our tastes, on-ice wines were somewhat less consistent and less impressive. Few of the white varietals (Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Gewürztraminer, Vidal) excited us. We fared somewhat better with reds. We had some decent Cabernet Sauvignons, Cabernet Francs, Merlots and especially Bordeaux-based blends, although only a few (see below) really rang our bells.

There was, however, one red varietal in which we were, unfortunately, almost universally disappointed with the local wares. We found almost all of the local Pinots Noirs (except for that from Tawse (see below) to be acidic and too lightly extracted. By the time we hit our second to last winery (Konzelmann), we were amazed to find a more balanced and fuller bodied Pinot Noir. Only after expressing our surprise did we learn that the grapes for its WineMaster’s Collection 06 Pinot were sourced from Argentina!

Tawse and Stratus—Two Wineries Apart

This being said, we were extremely impressed by the facilities, commitments to sustainability, the people, and especially the wines, of two wineries—Tawse and Stratus. Both wineries were modern and designed to incorporate sustainable practices, such as gravity-fed processes and energy conservation, and reuse. Stratus, meanwhile, is LEEDS Silver-certified. Tawse is organic and biodynamic and is planning to install solar panels.

Their most important distinctions, however, are the wines. Although both certainly had wonderful ice wines (especially Tawse’s 08 Quarry Road Chardonnay and 09 Twenty Mile Bench Riesling and Stratus’s 08 Riesling and Semillon), both also offered very nice single individual varietals. Whites included Tawse’s 010 Riesling and 09 Robyn’s Blend Chardonnay and Stratus’s 08 Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay and its 09 Gewürztraminer. Single varietal reds were exemplified by Tawse’s 08 Van Bers Cab Franc and David’s Block Merlot. Stratus’s particularly by its 08 Merlot and 07 Cabernet Franc.

Both also field some very nice premium blends. While Tawse limits its blends to a Meritage (currently 08), Stratus currently offers four: Its 07 Signature White (Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Semillon) and Red (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc) and two 08 ice wines, its White (Riesling, Semillon and Vidal) and Red (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Mouvedre and Syrah). Tawse, believe it or not, even had nice fruity, but tart locally-grown Pinot Noir (its 09 Grower’s Blend) which we enjoyed sufficiently to order at dinner.

Overall, no trip to NOTL would be complete without stops at both Tawse and Stratus.

A Taste of NOTL Food and the Culture

Although one could easily justify a trip to Niagara-On-Lake for the wine alone, we think that would be a mistake. While our time in NOTL was limited, we squeezed in three lovely meals—two at what we would almost consider to be destination restaurants:

• Treadwell is scenically located on the water in Port Dalhousie. We thoroughly enjoyed a lunch of housemade gnocchi with wild mushrooms and a large charcuterie plate which included chicken liver mouse, pork pate, salami, and smoked duck breast.
• Stone Road Grill (now closed) was somewhat inauspiciously located in a NOTL strip mall. But it far surpassed its site in décor, service, and especially food. We fully enjoyed the PEI mussels with red pepper cream sauce, the Albacore Tuna pork belly, wild mushroom, and roasted chanterelles. All went very well with a bottle of 09 Grower’s Blend Tawse Pinot.

On a more modest, but still delicious note, we needed a fast (but good) lunch before heading off for our final hours at Niagara Falls (see our next blog). After our tasting guide at Status gained our complete trust, we entrusted her with the choice of our last lunch restaurant. She recommended Stone Road Grill (at which we ate dinner), Epicurean (which looked very interesting, but had too long a line), and the somewhat less centrally-located Old Winery, which specialized in crispy-crust wood-fired pizzas. After seriously debating between their “Chardonnay” pizza (almond pesto, chicken, roasted peppers, and ricotta) and their “Gamay” pizza (tomato sauce, sausage, spinach, mushrooms, hazelnuts, and truffle oil), we selected and fully enjoyed the Gamay.

But as attracted as we were to the region’s wine and food, we were also attracted to its culture. Every summer and fall for the last 50 years, NOTL has held its Shaw Festival. While it specializes in plays by George Bernard Shaw, it includes dozens of other playwrights, from old masters to promising newcomers. Since our short visit allowed us to select only one play (not to speak of a limited number of plays from which to choose at one specific date and time), we chose Heartbreak House, one of Shaw’s masterworks. Although ostensibly a romantic farce, the socialist social critic could not help but to incorporate multiple layers of meaning and commentary on matters such as the spiritual bankruptcy of Victorian England’s class-based society, the vacuity of aristocrats, the relative moral virtues of idealists versus capitalists, the follies of romanticism and what he felt was Britain’s misguided entry into World War I.

The second act was a bit long and in our view, overly farcical, but overall, it was a fun and thought-provoking evening.