Niagara Icewine Festival

This past weekend, my husband, my sister, my in-laws and I drove down to Niagara-on-the-Lake to check out the Icewine Festival. We have gone to the festival 3 times now (we have been living in Ontario for 4 years) and it never gets old! Basically you can purchase a $30 passport which allows you 6 tickets. You can use them all for yourself, or split them with someone else. Each winery offers food and an Icewine sample. It's well worth the money!

These are the wineries we visited:

We started the afternoon out at Colaneri Estate Winery, a newly built winery owner by the Colaneri family, based on Italian wines. The building is absolutely stunning and really makes you feel like you are somewhere in Tuscany! I had no idea it existed and was very pleasantly surprised! Here we had 3 different pairings: antipasto, Italian wedding soup and mocha chocolate ice cream each paired with a different recioto.

Next we headed over to Hillebrand Winery, one of my favorite wineries, home of the Trius Red wine. They served us an Icewine chili topped with sour cream and dark chocolate chips, paired with the Trius Vidal Icewine. Who knew that would be such an awesome combination! This winery pulls out all the stops; with an outdoor sitting area with fire pits, Muskoka chairs and wool blankets.

   

Our third stop was Jackson Triggs- a more modern looking winery. They served a braised chuck taco with a 2007 Cabernet Franc Icewine. Yum!

Peller Estates was the fourth stop. This is by far our favorite winery. Home of Cityline chef Jason Parsons. If you ever have a chance to eat at the restaurant, do it, you will love it!
This is the experience I look forward to every year. Their homemade Icewine marshmallows roasted on an open fire outside. These marshmallows are massive and so ooey gooey good!

Last but not least, Reif Estate Winery was serving a signature Reif Estate Vidal Icewine with spit roasted porketta on a bun with Icewine apple sauce.

Overall it was a lovely day spent with family!