How do you take your wine...Dan Ackroyd or Sir Cliff Richard?

Canadian celebrity Dan Ackroyd's wine

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Food & Wine Column

Having just returned from a very sunny family holiday in Ontario, Canada, (my wife's birthplace) it was interesting to see the cultural differences from a gastronomic and booze perspective.

I have long been a fan of old world wines, French, Italian and Spain which probably account for 80 percent of my overall drinking. 

So what was I going to wash my 1lb of barbeque Buffalo wings with?

To be fair Canada has an amazing selection of homegrown wines and excellent food to boot.

It had been seven years since I had been back to Canada due to the past economic madness. At that time the Ontario liquor board, a wholly owned government company, was and still is, one of the biggest single buyers of wines in the world. No other company is allowed to sell wine, liquor or beers in Ontario... which is the geographic size of France and Spain combined.

Being the wine snob that I am I felt very limited in what you could buy from the stores. It was okay for one visit but you would find ten times the selection in a local British supermarket.

However, seven years later and things have certainly changed.

One reason for this is the emergence of Ontario wines. The Niagara wine region has literally taken off with international recognition.

Wine has been made in the Niagara region for many years. I first visited a winery there in 1992 when there was a handful of winery's making weird and wonderful grape varieties. The only one back then I recognised was Gerwutztraminer. Nowadays there are nearly one hundred vineyards offering everything from Shiraz, Merlot, Pinot Noir to Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and the most expensive and well known Ice wine, a rich sweet wine created from leaving the grapes on the vines until late in the season when the weather turns cold allowing the sugars in the grapes to intensify. 

Wine is now big business here. Even Dan Ackroyd has his own wine label.

During my three week visit I felt duty bound to taste a good selection of wines from both Niagara and the new and up and coming Prince Edward County. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it. 

We had spent a couple of days in Toronto taking our kids to see the Blue Jays, Toronto's own baseball team in the magnificent Skydome. Three and a half hours later and $100 dollars lighter (just for four hot dogs, fries and a few beers - God bless capitalism!) The Jays lost and we retired to a friend's house for the evening with the promise of Niagara Falls the next day.

The wonderful thing about the trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls is Niagara vineyards is just next door, everyone's a winner.

Niagara Falls was spectacular a roaring beauty of natures power. I never tire of seeing it. And the vineyards are pretty cool too. 

We purchased 13 bottles from a lovely little vineyard. A selection of Ontario's finest.

We also managed a trip East to Prince Edward County 205 mile east of Niagara to sample another dozen wines or so. A fair mix of Ontario wines.

We took them up to a beautiful area North of Toronto called cottage country. Lakes, cottages and canoes. Sheer heaven... oh and wine. 

Personally, I like to mix my wine with a four mile run and a two hour canoe ride. It kind of gets you in the mood. A play in the lake for a few hours whilst drinking some ice cold Canadian Honey Brown Sleeman Ale and what do you know, it's dinner time.

My job was barbecue and wine duties. I had this covered.  I held this position diligently for nearly two weeks.

So what is the verdict?

We had a lot of friends visit during our stay and the wine went down pretty quick. At first we drank nothing but Ontario wines. I then felt duty bound to offer my guests some 'home spun' wines. Spain's Albariño, Italy's Montepulcianno D'Abruzzo and French Sancerre. 

Canada's short wine season.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Ontarian wines They have an incredible indigenous grape, Baco Noir. A full bodied 13.5 % beauty. Highly recommended if you like Malbec or Shiraz. I hope we get to see this in England sometime soon.

Gerwutraminer, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are now scoring in the 90s on Parkers points (worldwide renowned point system). The ones we tried on our budget were very good with the Gerwutztraminer scoring high on the Sheerin scale (my own personal point system, not to be taken too seriously as I usually enjoy more than one bottle at a time).

I personally found the Sauvignon Blanc a stretch too far. It's a short climate for these grapes in Ontario, winter is very hard on the grapes and they need to bury the vines to protect them. I feel they need a few more weeks of sunshine to bring out the best. 

I had to eventually return to my comfort zone. I suppose the most telling moment was the wines I had chosen from Europe were the ones my friends were writing down and asking 'did you get this from our stores'?

I'm looking forward to a very bright Canadian wine future and will toast them this Christmas with our purchase - very delicious Ice wine dessert wine. I may leave the Sir Cliff's wine for another date.

Food & Wine by Paul Sheerin

Pshearse@gmail.com