Inniskillin is at 1499 Line 3. Daily tours are $5 a person. For details, visit www.inniskillin.com.
THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT
ROSEWOOD ESTATES WINERY & MEADERY When this 16-hectare estate opened in May, it quickly sold most of its inaugural 2006 vintages. And the release of Rosewood's 2007 pinot noir and pinot noir reserve are hotly anticipated. But the draw here isn't just grapes. It's a far more ancient cocktail: mead.
That's because owner Eugene Roman's first love is bees. A second generation beekeeper, he got his first hive at age 6 and now has six apiaries in Beamsville where bees feed on wildflowers, clover and orchards. The honey is then transformed into a pale golden mead that is vintage dated — all the honey is collected within the same calendar year, and each displays differing characteristics — and tastes nothing short of amazing.
Three styles are on offer. These range from the nearly dry Harvest Gold to the sweet and rich Ambrosia. In the middle is Mon Cherie, a blend of Niagara cherry juice and mead.
Rosewood is at 4352 Mountain View Rd. Free tastings are on offer daily. For details, visit www.rosewoodwine.com
HIDDEN BENCH VINEYARDS AND WINERY To get a taste of Hidden Bench you'll have to go to the source. When the winery opened last June, it won immediate acclaim for its 2005 vintage. Then it picked up a shiny wine of the year award for the semillon-sauvignon blanc blend called Nuit Blanche. But despite its cult status, the wines here are distributed only to club members and the province's top sommeliers.
Why the tight controls? Owner Harald Thiel is after the ultimate expression of terroir. His estate is shrewdly located on three of the best vineyard sites along the Niagara Escarpment. Locust Lane surrounds the winery itself, while Rosomel and Felseck are situated nearby along the Beamsville Bench. These are the names that you will see on the estate's top wines, single vineyard selections that are made only in top years. In years deemed less suitable, parcels are blended to create an often overachieving estate-bottled wine.
Hidden Bench has also recruited winemaker Jean-Martin Bouchard, who has worked in Australia, France and Germany and has an intuitive sense of when to step in and when to let the wine follow its own course of evolution. The result: Both the reds and the whites here possess an uncommon richness and ripeness that is rare in the Niagara Peninsula. In addition to powerful pinot and chardonnay, the red Bordeaux blend called La Brunante is perhaps the finest in Canada.
Hidden Bench is at 4152 Locust Lane. Tastings ($10 for three) are on weekends. For details, visit www.hiddenbench.com.
TAWSE WINERY Morey Tawse opened his 30-hectare winery to the public in 2005. But it's only recently that his patience has paid off: The wines here are now counted among Canada's best — and ongoing experiments with organic and biodynamic viticulture promise even better results to come.
The gentle transformation of the grapes is conducted in a stunning six-level winery that is both energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Using the natural slope of the Niagara Escarpment, grapes move from the reception room at the top of the winery to the bottling line at the bottom without the harsh action of a pump. Heating and cooling are achieved with a geothermal energy system rather than power from the grid. Wines are matured in naturally controlled underground barrel cellars.
Recent vintages are refined and silky. And the 2007 pinot noirs from different parcels are worthy of comparison with anything the world has to offer. Tawse is at 3955 Cherry Ave. Daily tastings are $2 or $5 for three samples. For details, visit www.tawsewinery.ca.
John Szabo is Canada's only master sommelier. To read his tasting notes on Niagara wines, visit www.wineaccess.ca/blogs/jszabo.
