Canadian Wino(s)

How does great wine, delicious food, and fantastic music, all in the idyllic setting of the Beamsville Bench sound to you?

“Graze the Bench” is the premier event for wine, food and music lovers. A week-end of casual and elegant grazing amongst the seven boutique wineries of the Beamsville Bench

Enjoy a beautiful wintery day in Niagara Wine country! Treat your taste buds to an amazing selection of wine, enjoy great giveaways (including signed copies of Donald Ziraldo’s “Icewine: Extreme Winemaking” book), Mix and mingle with other wine club members and lavish in not having to drive or plan a day out of the city! And let’s not forget our amazing iYellow Tour Guides who know how to create a fun and memorable wine experience! This is a great way to spend a Saturday out of the city and in a relaxing winter wonderland!
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Itinerary
Saturday January 30th

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9:30am
Depart Downtown Toronto for Niagara Wine Country
(p/u at the Vineyards Estate Wine Store @ 228 Queens Quay)
Start your day off with a glass of Peller Estates Ice Cuvee, a sparkling wine made with a dosage of Icewine

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11am
VINELAND ESTATES WINERY
Taste 2 of Vineland’s amazing table wines, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine and VICE
and Indulge while enjoying a crisp baguette served with thyme chevre and black-date walnut chutney.

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12:30pm
Free time in Jordan Village
Enjoy Free Time & lunch in Jordan (We recommend the Jordan House)
Stroll the wintery streets and enjoy the peaceful country side.

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2:30pm
FLAT ROCK CELLARS
Experience a customized Flat Rock private tasting and enjoy great Flat Rock table wines as well as the 2007 Sweet Revenge Vidal Icewine while warming up by the open fire, where you can also taste freshly made Icewine marshmallows.

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4:15pm
EASTDELL ESTATES WINERY
Warm up beside EastDell Estates’ two-storey escarpment stone fireplace while sampling spicy vegetable chowder alongside EastDell’s Cabernet Franc Icewine. Then cool off with a taste of refreshing Riesling Icewine presented with a light lemon mousse

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6:30pm
Sparkle & shop
Arrive back at Vineyards Estates Wines Store on Queen’s Quay in Toronto
receive a 25% iYellow discount on all wine accessories
SEATING IS LIMITED
$140 per person or $270 per couple*

Enjoy more than 100 events including winery tours and tastings, concerts, Niagara cuisine, artisan shows, wine seminars, live entertainment and one of Canada’s largest street parades during the 58th Niagara Wine Festival.
Last year the Niagara Wine Festival attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to Niagara’s wine country, making it the largest wine festival in the Country

One doesn’t really think about wine as being unnatural, I mean, it’s grapes stomped by bare feet and dumped into a barrel made of wood until the sugar is fermented into alcohol and then it’s ready to go. Yes? Well, generally, but no! These days the vast majority of commercial winemaking (and grape growing) uses techniques and additives that stray from the above process to ensure consistent taste and quality of the end product. And that’s cool, but don’t you kinda want to know what some of those techniques are? And what influence they have on the alcoholic grape juice that you consume? And while you’re at it maybe you’d like to try some wine from wineries that are going ‘old school’? Then you’ll be excited to know about…

WineCampTO II – September 22 at the Fine Wine Reserve in Toronto.

Exposing and Celebrating Napa Valley’s Crush on Toronto!
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Tuesday October 27th, 2009
The Great Hall (1087 Queen Street West)
8pm-10:30 pm
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Taste 22 Napa Valley Wine Stations
Meet California Winemakers
Socialize with other iYellow Wine Club members
Enjoy the sounds of Toronto House DJ – DJ Dinamo
Explore Queen West’s Vintage Venue The Great Hall
hor’s Deourves provided by On the Move catering company
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$48+gst
*first 50 people to purchase tickets receive a Napa Valley Reusable shopping bag

WANT LIMITED VIP ACCESS?
7pm-10:30pm
Enjoy a VIP Winemaker speed tasting Hour to Meet Winemakers 1:1
limited to first 48 people
$58+gst
* All VIP ticket holders receive a Napa Valley Gift Bag

Limited Tickets Available
Portion of Proceeds will go to Rebecca’s Hope for Leukemia Research

Don’t miss our Annual Canada Day BBQ!

Celebrate the holiday with us at the winery and enjoy wines aged in the very patriotic Canadian Oak as well as local pork and sausage and of course, s’mores cooked over some of our “decommissioned” barrels.

Remember tickets are just $10 per person but reservations are required.

To purchase your ticketsphone 905.468.0503 or email christine@laileyvineyard.com.

Visit the Summerhill LCBO this Saturday, June 20th from 11:30-3:30 to sample Angus the Bull Cab with Weber BBQ’d steaks! The perfect match!

Lifford Wine Agency, in partnership with Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation and Prostate Cancer Canada, is pleased to host the third annual Boys’ Night Out event. Proceeds will benefit prostate cancer research at PMH.

It’s a celebration of guy’s stuff cleverly disguised as a sophisticated wine tasting.

Hot cars, boats, golf, fine wine, steaks, live entertainment, oysters, motorcycles, music, celebs, bbq, auctions, and much, much more – this is the stuff of Boys’ Night Out!

Fermenting Cellar,
Distillery District
Thursday, July 9th,
7 pm to 10 pm
Tickets are $100.

The Great

(good just doesn’t cut it)

• The weather – Saturday was great, wish I could have made it that day too – Sunday the rain held off, and the sky was clear – good view of Toronto from Thirty Bench.
• The Wine – Lovely whites, roses, and even reds that impressed me.
  • Peninsula Ridge – I enjoyed and bought the 2006 McNally Vineyards Syrah Rose, and 2007 Wismer Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc(very smooth, nice citrus flavors), tried the Chardonnay but wasn’t quite buttery enough for my tastes.
  • Thirty Bench – Walked out of there with 2007 Thirty Bench Red, and 2008 Riesling(really could see myself drinking this one weekly), and many reasons to go back.
  • Angel’s Gate – I probably would have bought their Riesling if I hadn’t discovered the one at Thirty, and there were too many wines, and too little time, that I didn’t want to rush through them, will have to return to this one later this summer.
• The Food – Great selection, very tasty, would have loved to have a little from each winery – perhaps a day tasters pass next year.
• The Music – Nice variety
• The Crowds – every winery I went to, people were asking about the graze the bench event, seems like it was a success
• The Audis – R8 and A5…

The Bad

• The hours – it was so much fun, wish it would have started earlier, and ended later.. only had time to enjoy 3 wineries – was hoping to do at least five and ideally all 8. And with some of the wineries shutting down the food/music at 4, left me with no choice other then to go to Copcabana, near the falls.
• The lack of kid friendly food, saw quite a few children running around, and wasted a good half hour making a wendy’s run for some chicken nuggets, would have been nice to have some hotdogs, or corn on the cob, or chicken and fruit…
• Probably would have been a good idea to receive a tasting sheet when you received your glass at the start of the day, to see what each winery was offering and base your day off the type of wines you mind find interesting.

The Ugly

• Wineries charging 8$/glass – 5$ would have been more reasonable.
  You could go inside and taste for free or pretty close to it…
  Or you could buy a glass for 10$ which included a Riedel glass.
  Didn’t seem to make any sense to pay 8$ for just the wine.
  The way we go through wine glasses – it made more sense to just get a new Riedel glass each time, and start a collection.

All in all, looking forward to next year.

Thanks Beamsville!