Water to Wine

Imagine this. You’ve just ridden over 1,000km from Quebec City, headed for Niagara Falls. And then you see this:

Good on you Ontario for having bike racks on buses. Though really, I wouldn’t have taken a bus for quids. Except maybe on some of those hills way back when …

I would not want to be on a bus today. Though I have to admit for sanity and safety reasons, we’ve taken a GO train from Union Station in Toronto to Burlington. Riding in and out of cities is not a lot of fun, though I did spy a bike track alongside the railway line for at least part of the journey.

We ride along the waterfront from Burlington. It’s a glorious, sunny day, a Saturday, and people are out and about enjoying themselves.

There’s a long sand bar between Burlington and Hamilton, and that’s where all the action is today. The Waterfront Trail crosses this sand bar, giving access to the water – hurrah!  The trail lives up to its name for about 15km and we love the ride.

The trail then becomes a section where we ride on a service road alongside Queen Elizabeth Way, dipping occasionally into quiet residential streets, where there are rare glimpses of the water. Curse private ownership of waterfront property!

This middle part of the ride is just a slog, and not particularly interesting. The waterfront trail likely continues like this for some way, but we exit at Grimsby, bound for wine country.

In no time we are perched on a hill at Peninsula Ridge Estate winery, enjoying a flight of 3 wines plus an ice wine and a cheese plate. Who’d be on the bus?

We are only about 10km from our destination now, so we enjoy a couple of stops at wineries along the road.

And this is where we learn a new thing. We had believed that this wine area was all part of the Niagara Region. Wrong! This is the Twenty Valley wine region, and due to their specific geography and climate, they make some pretty awesome reds here, predomonantly Cabernet Franc, but there are a couple of places that make Syrah!

Our friendly host at Green Lane Winery (where we enjoy Cabernet Franc and Meritage – that’s a Bordeaux style blend – tastings) points us to Kacaba Vineyards, who, amongst other wines, make Shiraz. We luck out with the young student winemaker who helps us. After we admit to being amateur wine makers, we get gold-plated service, with a number of different Shiraz tastings (wines made from different plantings of the vines) and even a barrel tasting of their reserve blend.

The norm around here is to charge a tasting fee – usually $5 for a flight of three, and waived on purchase. As cyclists, who will not be buying, this is really reasonable, but we do find some of the wineries trying to refuse the fee – probably because we are not wine-swilling tourists, but very refined cyclists. Ha ha.

We swing into Jordan well after 6pm. Wineries are open until 6pm here – very civilised, especially since we only got to the area just before 4pm.

I think today we encounter our first bike-unfriendly driver. We’re climbing the last hill into Jordan, along with a couple of cyclists we met at the last winery, and hear a car horn honking. Could that be at us, we slow, huffing cyclists? That is the very first. In over 1,000km of riding, we have encountered only polite drivers who go out of their way to give us space, and usually right-of-way, whether it is really ours or not.

In Jordan we eat at Inn on the Twenty restaurant, securing the last possible seating at 8:30. The restaurant is great. I am in seventh heaven – they have all my favourites on the menu. I have an heirloom tomato salad, a wonderful beetroot tart and poached peaches for dessert. And of course there is wine. We have a Cabernet Franc from the next-door winery and a heavenly glass of ice wine to finish. We are in ice wine territory. There shall be more.

But the highlight of dinner is Clare, our server. She gives us great, attentive and professional service, but also, after finding out where we are from and what we are doing, keeps coming back for conversation. She spent some time in Australia as a young woman, visiting friends in Melbourne, and working in the Whitsundays, way back when South Molle was the IT island. Thanks Clare – you made our dinner great!

Stats for today:

• Distance: 53.8km
• Climb: 145m
• Average speed: 16.7km/h
• Average temperature: 27C
• Moving time:
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken in the bar at Inn on the Twenty in Jordan, while waiting for dinner.

Along the way today: