Today Myself (and LisaJ) skipped over the river and met with Tracy(Singscountry1967) to go on a wine tasting tour of the Niagara County of New York:

Our first stop was Spring Lake Winery:



The girls got in some wine tasting!:


Then it was off to Vizcarra Vineyards for more tasting (and pig feeding) and then to the "haunted" Winery of Marjim Manor:


With every sip of a new wine the girls were told of another haunted ghost storey about the winery!:


Then our next tour took us to Shultz Winery where we hooked up with Phoenix (Darren). Poor Darren was too young to sample any wines (only 2 more years to go buddy!):


Then we had a lil photo op in front of lake Ontario where we tested our stone skipping skills:



Oh and the real reason we had to stop!:


Then off to the park for a lil bar-b-que (Thanks Darren for the stove and the food!):


Tracy to Brianj....."Hey this tree has *****!"


Then it was back to Tracy'* and then Darren'* (where Darren showed off his Dad'* all original 39 Buick "8":



And finally we capped the evening off with some "all American 4th of July" fireworks:




It was a fun and relaxing day. Niagara county hosts an array of many private wineries that are top notch, but we could only visit a few of the many that were located in the area!
Thanks Tracy for being our tour guide and Darren for being our Chef and Fireworks guide!

Thanks for posting the pics Brian! My camera has died and I have to be creative in getting the pics off the card....I have a good one of Brian bonding with a pig. Yes...a pig.

It'* amazing...I've lived back in this area for five years and needed a visit from my Canadian friends to visit these cool places located within 30 mins of me . Brian also found out that the customs people are not very lenient on paying duty charges on wine...so next time I'll have to keep them for him .

It seems like youy guys had a great time. I would have been happy enough just seeing that Buick 8

That looks 100000000000x more interesting than my 4th of July

yeah that look like a lot of fun for you guys. Great pics

it was realllllyyy fun, thanks for a great time guys

Thanks for sharing the pictures, but how come I wasn't invited? .....Just kidding!

We only got to 4 wineries........you can come when we do the next batch! Just have LOTS of money ready for the Customs guys at the border on the way back!

WHAT!?!?!?!?! You went on a Winery Tour and didn't invite me or even stop in at Carlos Creek Winery for some Reserve Cabernat or my personal favorite ..... Reisling! We've been selling wine like nobodies business -yesterday we had a record day with over $12k in wine being sold, with bottle averaging $17 each (750 ml).

Nice pics there and I bet a good time was had by all, especially the wine comsumers.
So what were the wine'* you drinkers liked the best? The worst?

Well we tasted overall about 20 different wines and I bought 1 bottle from every winery we vistied. Pictured left to right is:

Spring Lake "Gewurztraminer" , Vizcarra "Rusty'* Reisling", Shultz "Vidal Blanc", MarJim Manor "The Lady of the Manor" red blush.

I found the US Niagara wines to have very "fruity bouquets". Personally I like white wine, so only 1 bottle was red, and all were from last year'* vintage. Spring Lake is only 2 years old, their vines will start yeilding some harvest this year. Upto now they have been importing thier grapes from California. I live in a very rich wine region (one of the best know wine regions of Canada (along with BC) and I must say we have some great wines here in the Niagara regions of Ontario, and New York.

Nice "wine" coloured Bonnie! (Singscountry1967'*)