Cuvée 2015

This past weekend was a kid free one for the hubs and I and we made the best of it! Friday saw us as the Cuvée Grand Tasting event at the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls where we enjoyed a night of fine wines and culinary delights. As part of an online contest hosted by Wine Country Ontario, I had won a package consisting of a night at the Fallsview Casino Resort and tickets to Cuvée 2015.

I hadn’t heard of Cuvée until this year ( to think it’s in its 27th year!!) and let me tell you, the Ontario wine community sure knows how to party! Cuvée is a true celebration of excellence in Ontario winemaking and wine geeks of all walks of life were in attendance. From wine makers to winery owners and even students from neaby colleges and universities were at the event. It was most definitely a swanky one where guys were looking dapper in suits and the women were dressed to the nines in ballgowns and sparkly dresses. The hubs and I had been counting down to this night for a while, that’s for sure!

Our evening started with a special invitation to attend the awards ceremony where the Ontario wine community acknowledged their peers and those helping to spread the love and excellence of Ontario wines. It was an intimate affair and you could tell that the community really respected each other as there was much love in the room. After the one hour ceremony we joined the main festivities at the Grand Tasting event.

Tickets to the Cuvée Grand Tasting event were available to the public and the promise of the opportunity to sample the best wines and food was delivered. Over the course of two hours the hubs and I filled our bellies to our heart’s content! Each winemaker had chosen one wine to feature at the tasting event and so there were over 50 wines for us to sample as we dined through the 13 or so live food stations. Beautifully dressed guests were all stuffing their faces and learning about the wines as they explored the gorgeously decorated event space.

With so many wines to learn about and sample it’s hard choosing my favourites but after much thought my top choices are Colaneri’s Insieme red blend 2012, Megalomaniac Grounded Reserve Merlot 2010, and Reif Estate’s Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2012. 

There was plenty of food and below are our favourites. We were SO stuffed that we made the rookie mistake of eating more than drinking and given that the after party only had sparkling, icewine and beer , I missed my wine very much. At least everything was done in moderation, so that’s a good thing!

After the Grand Tasting event there was an Après Cuvée party featuring Icewine, sparkling wine and craft beer bars. The after-party was definitely very wedding-esque as guests flocked to the dance floor to dance to the tunes of a DJ and a live band. With good music to keep us all company, I enjoyed many icewines – unlimited icewine is a dream come true! Of course the sweetness got to me so I enjoyed a couple of beers to balance it all out. As the lights shutdown on the event I could tell that the entire Ontario wine community deserved the celebration and I was happy to have chatted with a few members of that community. Proceeds from the 2015 Cuvée wine weekend went to support grape and wine scholarships and research initiatives at Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI). It’s all about giving back and supporting the industry.

Tickets to the event also came with passports to the Cuvée en Route program which ran all weekend long and included a special tasting flight at each participating Ontario winery. For $200 you definitely get your money’s worth and you’re also supporting the fantastic local wine community.  Unfortunatey we had other plans on Saturday and Sunday so we missed out on using the passports but lesson learned for next year! We have no weddings to attend this year and Cuvée made up for that – fine wine, fab tunes, delicious eats and the chance to dance the night away! Would we do this again next  year? ABSOLUTELY! It may just become our annual ‘getaway from the kids’! We’re also counting down to Get Fresh and Sip & Sizzle this spring which are worth checking out if you’re looking for a fun outing.