Cool wine comes out of Niagara

The trip to Klaus Reif's winery leads through a tranquil river valley in Canada with snow-covered deciduous forests, orchards and vineyards. Along the Niagara River in Ontario, you'll pass farms, parks, and historic mansions. Finally, a sign with a red, white and blue family crest appears, along with a flagpole with a German flag.

Behind the manor building with a turret on the roof, vineyards stretch as far as the eye can see. If the country weren't so flat, you'd think you were on the Moselle or in the Palatinate. Especially since the winemaker welcomes German-speaking visitors to his winery with a perfect Palatine accent.

Klaus Reif comes from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse and moved to the Niagara region almost 40 years ago. For connoisseurs, it no longer only stands for the famous waterfalls, but above all for first-class wines. More than 120 goods and numerous excellent restaurants make the region in southeastern Canada a popular culinary destination.

The trip is particularly worthwhile in winter. Then the ice wine is celebrated, made from frozen grapes that hang on the vines well into winter and are collected at night when the temperatures are below zero.

Canada is the world's largest producer of these naturally sweet dessert wines, which are also popular in Asia, the USA and Europe. The majority comes from Niagara, the most important growing region in the country. Here you can taste Icewine and many other fine wines, especially Riesling, Müller-Thurgau and Merlot, but also various cuvées.

The property's location near Niagara Falls, casinos and entertainment venues is also attractive. Canada's largest metropolis, Toronto, is only a two-hour drive away. The season, with its wine and music festivals, extends throughout the year and offers the ice wine harvest as a highlight in winter, as well as a large ice wine festival every year in January, where local specialties can be enjoyed in a clinking atmosphere.

Then the region shows itself as a winter wonderland with snowy estates, white forests and cozy villages. Add to that the historic flair of the colonial era – many settlements and farms date back to the 18th century.

Klaus Reif can also come up with tradition. His family in the Palatinate has been cultivating vines for 13 generations. In Canada, in his late fifties, the Reif Estates Winery produces wine and ice wine on 50 hectares. He started with one employee, today more than 50 employees keep the business running. More than 300,000 visitors come every year, including tourists from abroad.

That was not always so. "We were among the first wineries here," says Reif, while pouring his guests a Riesling. Back in the 1980s, there were only a dozen wineries in the region. Canada was known as the country of beer drinkers, and Reif, who took over his uncle's business, almost went bankrupt. "When we started, we almost exclusively had older customers, many of whom came from Europe," he reports. "Today, on the other hand, young people are buying my wine cellar empty, and sometimes I have the impression that they know more about wine than I do."

A joke, of course: Before he emigrated, Reif studied at the Geisenheim University, one of the most renowned wine-growing schools in the world. He brought his knowledge with him to Canada. "My motto is: quality, quality and more quality." In the Niagara region, he was involved early on in the development of new quality standards.

Many winegrowers improved their cultivation methods, some brought in experts from Europe for help. "The brew of yore turned into really good quality wines," explains Reif. There are interesting differences in taste: wines from Niagara often have less acid than German wines, but more alcohol. "In Germany, many of the wines would be classified as late harvest," says Reif. Elegant in taste, but just a little sweeter.

The question of the climate remains: Wine – in Canada of all places? In a country with almost six months of harsh winter? It's a question that Paul Gallo often hears as well. He works as a tour guide for the Peller Estates winery a few minutes downriver. He makes it clear: “We have good conditions. Geographically, we are almost on the same level as Bordeaux or Tuscany.” Similar to the Loire in France, the Niagara River in Canada also has a formative influence on the microclimate.

Likewise the adjacent Lake Ontario, one of the great lakes of North America. “In the summer the river and the lake mitigate the heat, in the winter the cold. Most years we have a little less snow than elsewhere in Canada,” says Gallo. The steep slopes of Niagara, where the waterfalls rush over 50 meters down a few kilometers further, offer protection from the wind.

In Niagara, the sun shines around a third longer than in the Palatinate and almost as long as in the Napa Valley in California. The soils surrounding the falls are mostly sand and clay — ideal terrain for things like Burgundy grapes and white wines, says Gallo as he guides a group of visitors through Peller Estates. The listed winery is one of the top dogs and has locations in several growing regions in Canada.

The property not far from the Niagara River looks expansive like a castle. Spread over several wings, there are tasting and sales rooms, bars, restaurants, event locations. There is already a lot going on in the winery at midday: two black stretch limousines are parked at the driveway, wedding guests in elegant dresses and tuxedos populate the estate, groups of day-trippers stagger through the corridors, slightly tipsy.

On the way down to the wine cellar, Gallo offers visitors parkas with winter fur. They are intended for the Icewine Lounge, a tasting room for ice wines that resembles an igloo. It consists of 13 tons of ice, inside it is minus ten degrees. In North America, the audience loves such productions.

You enter through a cold store door. "Minus ten degrees is also about the temperature at which we harvest ice wine grapes at the end of December," explains Gallo before pouring samples into frozen glasses. Four types of ice wine are produced at Peller: Vidal, Vidal from the oak barrel, Riesling and Cabernet Franc. The slim bottles are a hit in duty-free shops all over the world.

The ice wine festival in January, a mixture of Christmas market and snow party, is also popular. Guests in Canada Goose jackets and thick boots gather around tents, cabins and barns with colorful fairy lights on the roof and toast the new vintage in freezing temperatures. There are also crackling campfires, colorful ice sculptures and sweet maple snacks shaped on the bed of snow. In 2023 it will take place on the last three weekends of January.

"Icewine's frosty image fits Canada perfectly and serves as a door opener for many winemakers to their other wines," says Loretta Pietrobon, a Niagara-on-the-Lake guest and wine guide. The pretty little town is half an hour north of the waterfalls at the mouth of the Niagara River in Lake Ontario, and it impresses with its tranquil streets, cafés and brick houses.

Thanks to its convenient location and dollhouse image, Niagara-on-the-Lake has established itself as a center of festivals and wine tourism. But sometimes the frost comes too early there, or the temperatures drop unexpectedly. In this case, many producers have equipped their cultivation areas with wind turbines, which stir up cold air on the ground and supply warmer air to the grapes. Vineyards dotted with white propellers are hard to miss as you make your way upstream towards Niagara Falls.

This is also the case at Ravine Vineyard, a boutique winery that specializes entirely in organic wines. The estate is less than ten kilometers from the waterfalls and, with 13 hectares under cultivation, is one of the smaller producers in the region. Like so many long-established wineries in Niagara, it was long a farm and orchard before the family switched to vines five generations later and has scooped up award after award ever since.

Especially the spicy Riesling and the red cuvées from Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc and Merlot are top class. The locally inspired cuisine with delicacies from the estate's own field or the associated butcher's shop is also popular: smoked ham, pickled antipasti, pickled vegetables.

It's an ideal stop for foodies, but also for visitors to Niagara Falls. 13 million people visit the Canadian side every year - eight million on the US side. For many, a wine tasting or a souvenir from a winery completes the visit experience. "Tourism at the falls has accelerated the rise of Canadian wines," tour guide Pietrobon is convinced of.

Time for a good wine with a view. The Table Rock House Restaurant in Niagara borders the lip of Horseshoe Falls, the most famous part of the falls. Through panoramic windows you can see how 3000 tons of water fall into the depths every second, framed by a bizarre mosaic of huge icicles, crystals and formations of frozen spray. Serve with a glass of Niagara Cabernet Franc. Or the specialty of the house: the Table Rock House Signature Icewine Martini.

Arrival: For example with Lufthansa or Air Canada to Toronto, continue with the rental car.

Accommodation: The historic "Riverbend Inn" (riverbendinn.ca) is located between Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake across from the Peller Estates winery in the middle of grape vines, double rooms from $209. "The Woodbourne Inn", cozy house from 1839 with a lot of history; Ravine Vineyard is within walking distance, doubles from $229 (woodbourneinn.com).

Wine tasting: Reif Estate Winery (reifwinery.com), guided wine tours $20, wine tasting from $12; Well Peller Estates (peller.com), tours $45, sample $27; Ravine Vineyard (ravinevineyard.com), tours 30 euros, wine tasting 25 euros.

Eat and drink well: The "Table Rock House Restaurant" (niagaraparks.com) offers a fantastic view of Niagara Falls. The Flour Mill Restaurant (oldstoneinnhotel.com) in a former mill building is known for gourmet menus.

For more info: destinationontario.com; niagarafallstourism.com

Participation in the trip was supported by Destination Ontario and Niagara Falls Tourism. You can find our standards of transparency and journalistic independence at axelspringer.com/de/Werte/downloads.