About ice wine
 

Hello. I will be visiting my friends in Toronto from end of this month for my new year holiday. And I am interested in visiting ice winery if there is ANY near TORONTO. I knew that ice wine is very famouns in Canada from TV, and I would like to buy one and if there is any winery tour or something, I would like to go.
If anyone have any information, pls advise.
Thanks in advance.

You can buy ice wine at any liquor store (LCBO) in Toronto, but as it is rather expensive, your best bet would be to buy it at the airport duty free shop when your are leaving.

The Niagara wine region is very close to Toronto (about a 90 minute drive), and there are many wineries that offer tours. Some of the more prominent are Iniskillin, Vineland Estates, Hillebrand and Cave Spring.

For more information check this website:

http://winesofontario.org/

Before you spend money on a regular bottle of ice wine, I would suggest you try one of the small "airplane" bottles they sell at all liquor outlets. Icewine is very, very sweet and not for everyone.

Ice wine is sweet, but the best ice wines are not at all in the "sickeningly" sweet category. There is a wide variety among ice wines...we have tried many different ice wines from Germany and Austria (the two other places besides Canada where you can find true quality ice wines) and the range in taste is quite surprising.
If you find that you really like it, the famouse Riedel wine glass company has ice wine glasses. We use them with our ice wines and find they really do enhance the flavor (and they were developed with the input of Canadian ice wine specialists).

We tasted the most divine ice wine at the Peller estate in Niagara on the Lake. I do not have a sweet tooth and I thought it was wonderful- BUT it was 95 CAN$ a bottle.

The ice-wine harvest was featured on TV last night in the Toronto/Niagara area-looks like 2006 will be one of the most abundant harvests yet. That may bring the price down a bit-but the demand is up as the fame of the Niagara area spreads. And, of course, that vintage won't be ready now!

There are a number of varieties of icewine, not all of them exceedingly sweet. Some of the Cabernet versions are less so.
After trying icewine and deciding on your tastes, you may decide to purchase some, but the other product I like that's available at most Ontario liquor stores is Kittling Ridge Icewine & Brandy. It's more in the $22 range and is very good too.

http://www.kittlingridge.com/Descrip...mp;_Brandy.htm

The best of both to my way of thinking.

Try this instead:

http://www.kittlingridge.com/products.htm

If you want to visit an ice winery they are primarily located in Niagara. This would be a very worthwhile excursion if time permits. You could make it a day trip. It only takes about 11/2 hours from TO. The most wineries have tours and some have fabulous restaurants.