I attended the annual Taste Ontario event at the beautiful Fairmont Château Laurier in Ottawa April 2 featuring wines from the four major Ontario wine regions: Lake Erie North Shore, Niagara Escarpment & Twenty Valley, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Prince Edward County.
Let me start by saying that I was amazingly surprised to see so much representation from the Niagara Escarpment & Twenty Valley region. This is an emerging region and the products are amazing.
I’ve been attending this event for a few years now and another interesting observation is the growing number of people every year. Ontario wines definitely got noticed these past years and appreciation for VQA wines of Ontario continues to grow. According to the Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario: "Ontario wineries have 44% of the total market of all wine sold in the province. In most other international wine regions the domestic market share is consistently above 70%. There are significant opportunities to grow the sales and market share of Ontario wine given increasing wine consumption, continuous quality improvements and competitive pricing.”
The annual Taste Ontario event is a perfect occasion to rekindle with your Ontario favs wines and discover new ones while chatting with the representatives and catching up on what they’ve been up to and what new wines they are offering.
These are the 10 wineries I visited at the Taste Ontario event:
- Colio Estate Winery (Lake Erie North Shore)
- Malivoire in Beamsville (Twenty Valley region)
- The Foreign Affair Winery (Niagara Escarpment & Twenty Valley)
- Southbrook Vineyards (Niagara-on-the-Lake)
- The Hare Wine. Co. (Niagara-on-the-Lake) – discovered and loved it!
- Grange of Prince Edward Vineyards and Estate Winery (Prince Edward County)
- Huff Estates winery (Prince Edward County)
- Karlo Estates (Prince Edward County)
- Keint-he Winery & Vineyards (Prince Edward County)
- Norman Hardie Winery and Vineyard (Prince Edward County)
My top 5 wines I had at Taste Ontario 2020 were:
And a big thank you to Savy Company for organizing the fun Pop-Up Wine Shop that Monday evening after the Taste Ontario event showcasing wines from Niagara. That’s where I got to taste and discover Two Sisters Vineyards’rosé and Westcott Vineyards’ Brilliant sparkling and Temperance Red Blend.
What is your favourite wine from Ontario?