Curvy Canadian (and Peter) go on a wine tour in Niagara with iYellow Wine Club

Hey Everyone,

I have been totally lucky with winning stuff (up until lately I was the person who would say, "aww, I never win anything..."), and the main reason has been twitter! I won free tickets to go to the Toronto premiere of Bill Cunningham, New York, a wristband to meet Jay Manuel and preview his Fall collection, and recently, I also won 2 tickets for a Niagara wine tour with iYellow Wine Club and In Liberty Village on Twitter. I have you guys to thank, too, because it was a "whoever-gets-the-most-retweets-wins contest," and all you tweeters out there came together to help me win. You are the best twitter friends ever! Thank you so much. Peter and I had such a great time, and I wore something pretty because I thought there would be some really nice photo ops, and I was right. It was a beautiful day.

Getting on the bus...

Stop one was Chateau Des Charmes winery. It was all set up for a wedding and it looked really beautiful.

The wines were lovely. I especially liked their Cab Franc. Delicious. Angela, who was leading the tour, gave us a wonderful tutorial on how to taste wine properly, and it was really interesting. It allowed me to appreciate a lot more of the flavours in each wine. It's a five step process - first, look at the wine and appreciate its colour. Next, swirl the wine to help it aerate. Then, appreciate the aroma of the wine. Sip (some people take a little breath of air with the wine in their mouth to get more of the flavours to come through - it works, suprisingly. But this gets much more difficult to do without dribbling on yourself after you've had a few glasses. Trust me.). Finally, savour it...

Our next stop was a rather popular Ontario winery called Inniskillin. They are well-known for their ice wines, but their whites are really lovely too. My favourite wine here was the P3 (so-named because it is a blend of 3 different pinot varietals). The P3 is sadly not available at the LCBO - only at the winery.

That's the wine grower in the back explaining different elements of the wine's production. Very knowledgeable guy! We were actually given the opportunity to go out to the vine and taste the grapes used in the wine-making. So cool!

Down in the wine cellar...

Then it was off to Southbrook Winery - the only Eco-Diverse winery in Canada, and one of very few in the world. They use lambs to help prune leaves from their vines (so cute) and they make blankets out of their wool every year that you can buy in the winery's shop. I didn't get to see any lambs, though, which made me a little bit sad. I wanted to pet one! All of their wines are eco-friendly, and all the ones we tried were vegan, as well.

The part of this that was the most fun, is that Peter, my partner, is not a drinker. He honestly never drinks, but for this occasion, he agreed to come with me and enjoy himself... He ended up totally inebriated. I am Irish, so all these tastings didn't affect me too much... but Peter?:

Poor guy! LOL.

Outside there was a beautiful reflecting pond, and I decided to take some shots of my outfit in front of it. I absolutely love how these ones turned out! What do you think?

Sweater - Zellers/Cape - ASOS Curve/Scarf and Boots- CBX/Jeans - Forever 21+/Purse and Earrings - Thrifted

I also took some shots of my accessories so you guys could get a better look at them...

After that we visited the aptly-named Creekside Winery and got to enjoy a tasting on their lovely (Creekside) patio. My favourite wine of theirs was the 2007 Merlot. Apparently 2007 was a good year for Ontario Reds.

Our last stop, at Vineland Winery, was easily my favourite. There was such a beautiful atmosphere there and Brian, the winegrower, was so approachable and demonstrated such a passion for his craft. These were also my favourite wines of the day. We liked it so much, we picked up a bottle of their Elevation Cabernet as a hostess gift for my mom for Thanksgiving... I know she'll love it!

 

This is Angela Aiello (does the name iYellow make sense now?), the founder of iYellow Wine Club and our tour guide, rolling up her sleeves and pouring us some great sparkling wine to taste. Love that t-shirt!

This shot was actually taken by Brian, the winegrower! He was so awesome and down-to-earth!

Their fantastic cellar:

And the man himself, the winegrower, Brian Schmidt, @benchwineguy, explaining some aspects of the wine to us.

And the beautiful grounds:

And just one last picture of me with Angela, and we were headed back to Toronto!

It was a lovely day, and I have to thank Angela at iYellow Wine Club, as well as the great people at In Liberty Village, and all the lovely people that we met at the different wineries, who made our experience wonderful.

After we got back to Toronto, we wanted to make sure we got to take part in Nuit Blanche, Toronto's annual all-night art festival. Unfortunately, it has gone SO downhill over the past three years. There is too much corporate sponsor presence (Chevy had displays all down Yonge Street, and this space used to be used for ART - which is the reason why I am there in the first place). Also, many people use the event as an excuse to just stay up roaming the streets of Toronto all night while completely drunk, and are not interested in the art at all. That makes it so much harder for those of us who are there for the art to enjoy it and get around to the different exhibits. It's turned into more of a carnival/mardi gras festival than an art festival, and after having attended every event annually up until now, I am finally saying that I have given up on it as an art event and I won't be returning next year. I think all the good artists have also realized that the event has become something of a joke. It's sad, because it used to be a wonderful opportunity for artists to exhibit and make their art accessible to a wider community. Oh well... Hopefully there will be some less popular art events coming up in Toronto in the near future that I can attend (so that I can actually see some art)! At least the weather is such that I was finally able to break out my cape again. I love my ASOS Curve cape!!!

So what do you think of my post, darlings? Are there any wine drinkers out there? Have you tried any of these wines? Did any of you try to see art at Nuit Blanche (urgh)?