On the Niagara Wine Trail
Credit: Michael Guo
This past Saturday night, my girlfriend asked, “Do you want to go out and do something?”
I replied, “Want to go to Niagara Falls?”
Less than three hours later, I had a hotel room at Crowne Plaza booked for Sunday and Monday night via Priceline, and we were hurtling westbound on I-90 in a rental car. After driving through the night, we arrived at about 7 AM in Niagara Falls where I then picked up a giant stack of brochures in the hotel lobby. Anything that said “wine” of course caught my eye. However, my girlfriend only gave those a passing glance and tossed them to the side as she perused the other brochures, paying especially close attention to one for a nearby outlet mall.
“Great,” I thought, “We drove nearly 500 miles to go shopping.”
Sunday was spent touring Niagara Falls. For lunch, we walked over to Canada and ate at Kelsey’s where I had quite possibly the best Rickard’s Pale Ale on tap ever. (Yeah, I know. It’s not incredible, but it tasted freaking awesome with those sliders.) A few hours later, I literally started falling asleep while walking, unpleasantly bumping roughly into numerous Canadians and tourists and being an asshole American, but I perked up a bit when we got to the duty free shop. Why I didn’t take a picture inside, I don’t know, but I was bouncing around like a kid in a candy store looking at all the booze.
There was a huge variety of ice wine, all sorts of random liquors, and tons of stuff that you simply can’t buy in the USA. Case in point: absinthe. However, I resigned myself to not actually buying anything due to the laws regarding personal allowances and exemptions for American citizens visiting Canada:
After a stay of 48 hours or less in Canada, a U.S. citizen or resident may return to the U.S. with:
- US $200.00 worth of goods per person, tax and duty free
- Any purchases of alcohol or tobacco products may be subject to duties and taxes
- Any purchases in excess of the U.S. $200.00 allowance may be subject to duties and taxes
Source: Complimentary U.S. - Canada Road Map by Duty Free Americas
Combine the risk of getting taxed with the fact that duty free products don’t truly cost less, and I nixed the entire idea of lugging back cases of booze back with me. Besides, we were walking.
The rules do change for stays over 48 hours, though. Then, you can bring back up to 1 liter of alcohol tax and duty free, but who wants to stay in Canada for that long anyway? (Just kidding, you Canucks!)
Anyway, Monday morning, the girlfriend dragged me outlet shopping, and after several hours of staring at racks of clothing, I finally had the opportunity to drag her on part of the Niagara Wine Trail, which is what this post is truly about!
The Niagara Wine Trail is a group of ten very young wineries mostly clustered in the center of Niagara County, NY. One, Leonard Oakes, is actually in Orleans County. They claim that there is a micro climate in the region between the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario that makes the area very suitable for winemaking, and frankly, I agree. There’s an incredible selection of wines here and some interesting finds that you almost certainly can’t find anywhere else. Plus, there’s the bonus that this is the wine trail that finally turned my girlfriend on to the whole idea of alcohol tourism, particularly visiting wineries. Now, we’re planning a brief trip to the Finger Lakes next weekend (at her suggestion!) for more wine trail fun before she starts at a new job in August and I travel the world for several months on my own.
Here, you should note that before this trip, she had never actually found a wine that she enjoyed. Also, note that my preferences tend toward drier wines whereas she tends to prefer sweeter wines. I think much of the problem here lies in the perception that wine = grapes and that wine must be rigidly broken up into white and red. Quite simply, that’s a mistaken way of looking at wine.
Wine can be made from any sort of fruit. It’s just that in common parlance (and I believe legally speaking), wine means fermented grape juice. Then, even among grapes, there’s more to wine than just white or red. And in Niagara County, you’ll find grapes like Catawba and Niagara, which aren’t exactly common varietals. A trip along the Niagara Wine Trail is sure to broaden any parochial view of what wine can be.
Also, I apologize now for not having taken tasting notes. All of this is from memory, and after tasting something like three dozen wines several days ago, I really don’t remember much!
As we got a late start, we only managed to hit up four of the ten wineries, but I think these should give you a good idea of what to expect on the Niagara Wine Trail. Keep in mind that we chose them somewhat randomly with absolutely no knowledge about the wineries themselves except for what was mentioned in the brochure. In fact, we didn’t even have an adequate map, which is the one thing I absolutely recommend you bring. This map, which was printed in the brochure, absolutely stinks, and we became lost numerous times. Route 425 does some funny things in the middle, and it’s easy to get lost without more details.
The Winery at Marjim Manor
I’ll take one of each!
Credit: Michael Guo
The Winery at Marjim Manor unexpectedly became our first stop after we couldn’t find Vizcarra Vineyards, and we pulled up to the building wondering what our first Niagara County winery experience would be like. Thank God it was this one. I don’t think we could’ve made a better first choice when it came to visiting wineries. The Winery not only has a very wide selection of wines but it also has a fantastic woman manning the tasting room. Deborah held our hands and really made the process easy. She was knowledgeable about the wines, about the history of Marjim Manor, and about Niagara County. Seriously, having someone who truly seemed to care made the experience a hundred times better than it might have been otherwise. She even regaled us with ghost stories related to Marjim Manor, which is considered by many to be a haunted house.
Anyway, The Winery at Marjim Manor is one of two W.O.W. (woman owned wineries) in the state of New York, and the Bittner family not only runs the winery but also neighboring Singer Farms from where most of the fruit comes. They took over the manor several years ago, which was formerly owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph, and have been producing wine since 2004.
The Winery has an impressive selection of fruit, white, and red wines ranging from Merlot and Riesling to Blueberry and Cherry, and we tried pretty much all of them between the two of us. Here are our picks, i.e., what we ended up buying:
- Starlight White Wine
- Applely Ever After Apple Wine
- Peach for the Stars Peach Wine
- Cranberry Crescendo Cranberry Wine
- Blue Beryl Blueberry Wine
Generally, The Winery at Marjim Manor seems to be much, much better at producing fruit wines than regular ol’ grape wines. For example, I found the Merlot somewhat unpleasant and I’m not a big fan of tasting Concord and Niagara grapes (there’s a reason why people associate these grapes with juice rather than wine!), but the fruit wines absolutely shined.
The white and apple wines were my choices, and surprisingly enough, I was also the one who reached for the blueberry wine. Although somewhat sugary sweet, I could easily envision myself drinking bottle after bottle of it with cheesecake. A note on the cranberry wine: the cranberries come from Long Island rather than neighboring Singer Farms. Of course, that makes sense when you realize that cranberries don’t actually grow in Niagara County.
This is also where I bring up the idea of wine with Thanksgiving. In November, people are bound to ask, “What wine should I drink with turkey?” The answer is not white or red; the answer is cranberry wine. Skip that nasty gelatinous canned cranberry sauce and get cranberry wine instead. Your family will think you’re a genius.
Schulze Vineyards & Winery
Schulze Vineyards & Winery
Credit: Michael Guo
Schulze was our second stop, and when we walked into the building, I immediately noticed that it smelled like the building had just been finished the day before. It was incredibly new construction and after talking to the guy running the tasting room (Martin Schulze’s stepson; sorry, I’ve forgotten the name), I discovered that the winery had only been open since May 7. Seriously, May 7. This is when I realized just how young the Niagara Wine Trail was! However, this young winery isn’t any naive newbie to the business.
The vineyards themselves have apparently been growing for decades, and the juice had been sold to others. Only recently did the Schluzes decide to start the winery, and it’s now open to the public.
Here, we once again had a friendly guide who knew what he was talking about and was happy to help us, and we basically tried every wine available, including one of the sparkling wines. (Unfortunately, the sparkling wines themselves aren’t available for sale quite yet, but they should be in a few weeks.) Here are our picks:
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Thirty Mile Point Niagara
Taste the Rainbow
Credit: Michael Guo
I personally found the Cabernet Sauvignon to be spectacular. Now, I don’t have a palate as sophisticated as Parker’s, but I know what I like and Schulze’s Cabernet Sauvignon is definitely it. The bad news is that it was priced that way, too. The Cab cost more than twice that of the Niagara and was the most expensive wine we bought on this trip, though none of the wines were over $20.
As for the Niagara, I can’t really say much about it, but I imagine that it’s great for those who don’t believe that they like wine. (In case it’s not obvious, this was not my choice!) Niagara is apparently really popular with the locals who drink it by the gallon. In case you haven’t tasted Niagara before, then just pick up a bottle of Welch’s white grape juice, take a swig, and imagine it fermented. That’s essentially what Niagara wine tastes like, but don’t worry, none of the wines we tried tasted sickeningly sweet like Kosher wine made from Concord grapes.
If available, I would’ve also bought a bottle or two of the sparkling Vidal Blanc. It was a great sparkling wine that would make any New Year’s party really shine.
Honeymoon Trail Winery
Honeymoon Trail Winery
Credit: Michael Guo
Honeymoon Trail Winery was our third stop on the Niagara Wine Trail and was unfortunately the most disappointing of the four wineries we visited. This wasn’t due to the wine itself but was due to the tasting experience. The problem primarily centered around the fact that the person left in charge of the tasting room was one of the winemaker’s friends, and she had absolutely no clue whatsoever about the wines. For example, I would inquire about what grapes were used to make a given table wine, and she would answer, “I don’t know.” This is not the way to run a tasting room.
Related to this was the fact that it must’ve taken at least twenty minutes to ring us up at the cash register. After the first total came up, I squinted at it in disbelief and quickly calculated what the total ought to be. She had overcharged us by about 20%! We then stood there for what seemed to be an eternity as she attempted to ring us up over and over again. Eventually, she began trying to reach Garry & Lori Hoover themselves during their Sam’s Club shopping trip but discovered that their cell phone number was nowhere to be found. What saved the day was the Hoovers finally came back and Lori rang us up. Normally, I’m pretty patient, but I was anxious to visit another one of the nearby wineries and this ridiculously prolonged checkout completely killed any chance of our getting to one of them before they closed.
Anyway, let’s talk about Honeymoon’s award-winning wines, which is what redeemed this visit and made it worthwhile. Unfortunately, we only tried five wines each due to the $1 fee for tasting, which is actually only a small fraction of what’s available. I remember choosing a red and white along with a couple fruit wines while my girlfriend mostly stuck to fruit wines. In the end, this is what we bought:
- Pink Catawba
- Cherry Wine
- Strawberry Wine
- Dandelion Wine
By the way, I want to make a quick observation about these tasting fees, which is something that truly annoys me. I understand that winemakers aren’t in the business of giving away wine for free and want to recover the cost associated with tasting, and I don’t mind paying a nominal fee like $1. However, I bet that we would’ve bought more wine from Honeymoon and Vizcarra if we hadn’t been turned off by the tasting fees. Additionally, what truly aggravated me was that we were carded at the wineries that did not have fees but were not carded at the wineries that did have fees. (And believe me, we should be carded; we look like teenagers rather than a couple in their mid-twenties.) To me, the lack of carding is just a little irresponsible, but combine that with tasting fees, and it smells fishy.
That’s one sexy rack.
Credit: Michael Guo
Anyway, back to the wine. The most pleasing wine to me was by far the dandelion wine, which is something that I hadn’t even tried before. To me, it tasted like a slightly sweet, light white wine without much body. This could definitely be drunk in place of white wine and is a definite winner. Unfortunately, this is the bottle that broke the cash register’s back.
I was also a fan of the strawberry wine, which I will almost certainly have for dessert one day. Interestingly, though, I remember not liking the razzleberry (a mixture of strawberry and raspberry). Why? I can’t remember. I just didn’t like it.
Pink Catawba and Cherry were both interestingly my girlfriend’s picks. I haven’t tried them yet, so I can’t really say much about them.
Vizcarra Vineyards
Making wine can be a real pane
Credit: Michael Guo
Vizcarra Vineyards was our last stop. It’s a part of Becker Farms, which is a family-owned fruit and vegetable farm that is a tourist destination in itself. There’s a petting zoo, hay ride, pony rides, etc., and we stared at the goats for a while, too. Interestingly, this is the first winery/vineyard where we actually saw grapevines nearby.
Like Honeymoon, Vizcarra charges a buck for tasting, though they throw in six wines and we were served by the very knowledgeable first lady (for lack of a better term; I think I completely forgot to ask her name). She walked us through each of the wines that we tasted and poured us a freebie tasting of their very excellent blueberry wine. What did we walk away with? Well:
- Erie Canal Catawba
- Quaker Red Rougon
- Rhuberry
Goats…they’re freaky
Credit: Michael Guo
I found the Rougon to be a surprisingly good wine, though I can’t really recall much about it at this point. I’d never heard of the Rougon varietal, and information about it online is scarce. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s an actual varietal, though the Becker Farms website claims it is, so I’ll take their word for it. The other one that I picked out was the strawberry-rhubarb wine. Why? It reminded me of eating a damn good strawberry rhubarb pie. There’s just something about it that made my palate tingle. As for the Catawba, I’m still not sure why my girlfriend likes that grape.
Conclusion & Other Nonsense
The next time you’re thinking of a neat day trip, the Niagara County Wine Trail ought to be high on your list, especially if you live on the East Coast, in the eastern part of the Midwest, or in Ontario. It’s not even too bad of a drive from New England, though it’s at the point where driving and flying are something of a tossup.
These young wineries have an astounding selection of excellent wines, and you’re bound to see something new here that you haven’t tried before. After all, how often do you really get to drink incredible varieties of quality fruit wines? Plus, I’m willing to bet that a trip here is less expensive and less crowded than a trip to somewhere like Napa.
Also, if you’re really enterprising, then you can tack on a trip to the Finger Lakes. In fact, there’s a very high probability of our going on the Cayuga, Seneca, and/or Keuka Lake Wine Trails next weekend before she starts her new job and I start my crazy travel itinerary.
And of course, don’t forget a trip to Niagara Falls, Anchor Bar in Buffalo for real Buffalo wings, and Canada. We did all three.
Other wineries on the Niagara Wine Trail:
More information about the Niagara Wine Trail can be found at their website.
Update: I just found this blog about the Niagara Escarpment, which may prove useful as well.
