Decanting Digest - Give your January a sweet ending at the Niagara Icewine Festival
/How sweet it is – the Niagara Icewine Festival is back! Following a two-year hiatus, the festival has returned this January and sees nearly 30 wineries pairing their sweetest libations with culinary creations prepared by chefs from local restaurants and professional caterers.
Curious about icewine and what goes into making it? Click here to find out!
A Discovery Pass entitles its holder to visit up to six wineries for food and icewine pairings through the course of a festival weekend. My partner acted as the designated driver and cameraperson for the day, so we purchased a Discovery Pass for me and a Driver’s Pass for him. We visited the festival during its first weekend and took full advantage of our passes by visiting the six wineries below. Read on for our impressions of the pairing at each location, as well as what excited us and what didn’t as we made our way through the day.
Stop 1: Queenston Mile Vineyard
2017 Cabernet Franc Icewine - $65 for 200 mL
Located just off the QEW, Queenston Mile Vineyard is a logical first stop on the way into Niagara-on-the-Lake. For the festival, they’re pouring their first-ever icewine, a 2017 Cabernet Franc that offers up aromas and flavours of strawberry rhubarb jam with a pleasant mix of tartness, tannin, and sweet notes. It’s paired with dry-rubbed Cajun chicken wings, which are coated with toasted spices including plenty of chili pepper, which calms down the tannin and accentuates the delicate sweetness in the wine. On the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered water or soda.
Stop 2: Reif Estate Winery
2019 Vidal Icewine - $46.95 for 375 mL
Reif is one of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s original wineries, and their pig roast is a festival tradition. This time around, it appears in the form of pulled pork sliders with a spiced apple chutney, paired either with a 2019 Vidal icewine on its own or mixed as a cocktail with Reif’s sparkling Chardonnay. I opted for the latter and found it refreshing: the icewine provides some up-front sweetness with candied citrus notes that complement the barbecue flavours, and the Chardonnay clears the palate and provides a dry, clean finish that amplifies the apple in the chutney. On the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered red or white grape juice.
Stop 3: Ferox by Fabian Reis
2017 Dornfelder Icewine - $125 for 375 mL
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sample a Niagara Dornfelder icewine again! This grape is a hybrid that originated at the Weinsberg Institute in Germany and is named after the winemaking school’s founder, Immanuel Dornfeld. It’s a challenging and low-yield grape to work with for icewine, but Niagara provides an ideal environment for it. The hard work pays off in dividends with a rich, deep red colour, aromas of dark fruits, and a complex palate with dried cherry, blackberry, plum, and undertones of chocolate. The winery is down to its last few bottles and the staff say they won’t make another icewine for at least five years, so don’t miss the chance to snap some up for yourself. The food pairing is a foie gras tart; on the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered water.
Stop 4: Harbour Estates Winery
2017 Riesling Icewine - $55 for 375 mL ($45 at special festival price)
Harbour Estates offers a very warm welcome and a wide variety of tasting options. The official pour for the festival is their 2017 Riesling icewine, which presents with floral and light citrus aromas along with flavours of ripe pear, vanilla caramel, and more citrus and floral on the subtle and delicate palate. If that doesn’t strike your fancy, they have several more icewines available, and you can pair whichever wine you choose with two of their five food options: sausage with sauerkraut, squash soup, jalapeño marinated icewine, deep fried ice cream, or icewine-marinated berries. On the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered a Nojito, an alcohol-free cocktail that riffs on a Mojito and looks and tastes great with mint, lime juice and soda, topped with fresh berries.
Stop 5: GreenLane Estate Winery
2015 Late Harvest Riesling - $29.95 for 200 mL
If a full day of sipping icewine sounds like a lot of sugar for your taste, work GreenLane into your itinerary. They’re pouring a Late Harvest Riesling instead, which falls between an off-dry Riesling and an icewine on the sweetness scale, making for a pleasant change of pace. This one brings forward very prominent apple aromas and assertive lemon on the palate that transitions into a more complex apple flavour toward the finish. The pairing with a spicy and coconutty Thai green curry soup is ideal as each complements the other well enough to bring out flavours that would otherwise go undetected. On the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered a mix of pomegranate juice with ginger beer or ginger ale.
Stop 6: Redstone Winery
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon icewine - $37.05 for 200 mL
This popular Benchlands spot went pure farm-to-table for their festival offering. The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon icewine smells and tastes like eating homemade strawberry jam straight out the jar with a spoon, and it’s paired with a classic chili made from beef raised on the estate and topped with a jalapeño sour cream and old cheddar. A little more chili pepper in the chili might have helped to draw some complexity out of the wine (though admittedly, that may also come from the jalapeño in the sour cream, which I had to skip due to dietary restrictions). On the Driver’s Pass, my partner was offered pop or juice.
The best part
Seeing a wine festival return to glory.
Festivals have a way of encouraging people to try new wineries and types of wine they might not otherwise consider, which helps open up the world of wine to more people and drive business to the many wineries that are still in pandemic recovery mode. I was also extremely impressed by how well the wineries we visited handled my dietary restrictions. The Discovery Pass guide has gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, and vegan options clearly marked on many food pairings, which makes it much easier for people with special dietary needs to make informed choices.
The biggest disappointment
The Driver’s Pass.
Full marks to Harbour Estate Winery, who get an A for effort and pulled out all the stops to make a mocktail that made my designated driver feel like a part of the festivities. GreenLane also took the time to mix something up. The rest didn’t offer anything special, though, and with the Driver’s Pass being only $10 less than full price and advertised as offering “six winter-themed non-alcoholic cocktails,” we felt this promise fell short.
There’s one more weekend left to go in the 2023 Niagara Icewine Festival! For more information or to purchase Discovery Passes for the final weekend of the 2023 Niagara Icewine Festival, visit niagarawinefestival.com
