Supporting local wineries and chefs – sip & Savour Ontario recap

In my old age I rarely party on a school night but exceptions have to be made. Especially when I was invited to be part of sip & Savour Ontario! I wasn’t ready to fly solo for this so I thought it would be a lovely way for the hubs and I to celebrate my brother’s birthday, so that was his gift! Recently I’ve been getting in the habit of giving experiences as gifts because we all have so much junk. Why add to it? Also experiences mean having an excuse to try something you might have not indulged on your own.

So off we went, expecting stuffy suits and firs, after all tickets came up to nearly $100 once you tallied up the taxes and processing fees, no rif-raf here! The Fermenting Cellar seemed like the perfect venue for a night of local food and wine exploration but on arrival we soon learnt that everyone wanted a piece of the action and it got packed and sweaty pretty quick. That did not stop us from visiting nearly all of the 28 wineries and sampling their reds. I did sneak in a few whites but I was  in a red kinda mood. There was a good mix of young and old, suits, wine geeks and wine snobs which made for a relaxed atmosphere.

This was a great opportunity for us to sample from some previously unheard of wineries which was a great surprise for us having explored parts of Prince Edward County and pretty much all of the Niagara region. While I do agree that I’m not a fan of most Ontario wines at the LCBO at events like these I’m always amazed by the breadth of wines produced by our local wineries. I always find new wines but sadly some of these have to purchased directly at the winery. Don’t get me wrong, I sampled quite a few I didn’t like and off they went into the spit bucket! We definitely loved the free for all vibe after all the ticketed events we’ve been to lately (click here and here !). Definitely felt a lot more civilized and we indulged but keeping in mind that we all had early meetings the next day!

Wine show stoppers include :

• Burning Kiln Winery’s Cab Frank 2o11 (named after Frank the winemaker!)
• Chateau des Charmes’ Brut
• Hinterbrook Estate Winery’s 2011 Riesling
• Kacaba Vineyards’ 2009 Single Vineyard Syrah
• Sandbanks Estate’s 2010 Baco Noir Reserve
• Tawse Winery’s 2010 Grower’s Blend Cabernet Franc 
• Vineland Estate’s 2009 Elevation Cabernet.

Most of these are at Vintages so be sure to drop by your local LCBO store!

Accompanying the wines were food stations highlighting some of our local talents. It was a great experience being able to speak with the passionate chefs and finding out why they paired their meals with their chosen wine. As a glutton I will have to admit that I was expecting more food options but at the end of the night there was still plenty of food available and our bellies were quite content. We discovered the Stonemill Bakery bread station and can’t wait to stock up on their delicious breads. ACE Bakery just got some competition in our house! Other food favourites include Trish Steen from Crush Wine Bar’s smoked spring trout with zucchini and carrot cream on a wonton cracker, Adam Hynam-Smith from El Gastronomo Vagabundo’s lamb manti with yoghurt ( I think I ate 10 of these!! Didn’t even get a picture!)  and David Chrystian from Victor Restaurant’s duck liver ice cream cones with Saskatoon berry preserve.

So will we be back for next year’s 9th sip & Savour? Most likely.. and so should you! If it gets moved to a weekend and an airier venue, we’d be in for sure! All in all it was a great experience and a fun way to spend what would have otherwise been a pjs in front of the telly kinda night!

Cheers everyone! Have a fabulous family filled Turkey Thanksgiving weekend! If you need some easy last minute recipes checkout this post!