Wine

My best friend and I at a winery in Niagara - New Year's Eve 2009

My husband and I, along with two other couples, spent our New Year’s eve in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario. To those not familiar with this location, it’s a big area for wine – the grapes grow well there as it’s on an escarpment and is sheltered from the colder temperatures you typically see in Southern Ontario. It has become a hobby of ours (Brendan and I) to make regular visits to Niagara and sample different wines. We are red lovers, but a very dry white (especially the citrusy kind) will also work well.

If you are a Canadian, or better yet, an Ontarian, I strongly recommend a trip to the Niagara region. Here are some wineries that are fun to visit:

Southbrook

This young winery is into making organic and biodynamic wines – very cool! And their winery is beautifully designed – minimal, modern, and eco-friendly. Great packaging design for their wine labels, and it ties into the environmental graphics at the winery, as well as their business cards, tasting menus, etc.

Tawse

Their Pinot Noir is excellent and their location is a little more isolated, but beautiful. And on a design note, their labels are exquisite!

Jackson Triggs

A bigger winery with a very interesting story. Definitely take the tour and ask about what they did during the building process to make the winery eco-friendly. Their Gewurztraminers are often great (even though they’re not super dry) and they make beautiful ice wines and reds.

Marynissen

A tiny winery but a great one. When you visit, you will likely be introduced to their resident cat, who likes to sleep at the tops of the wine racks. Their best wines: Solstice (red) and 2007 Syrah.

20 Bees

This year’s winner in our mind – their Shiraz is fantastic. The winery is partially owned by Dan Aykroyd – kinda cool!

Strewn

Surprised us this year by offering hot mulled wine as a tasting – it turned out to be excellent, so we brought a couple of bottles home (it’s a Cabernet Franc that comes with a little package of spices to add when you’re heating up the wine on the stove).

A final note

No trip to wine country is complete without a visit to the local cheese shop. A perfect complement to the wines we collect there, a variety of high quality cheeses were the final ingredient in a great New Year’s eve party!