Trillium Chapter Annual Wine Tour 2011

Well time has come for an end of season Cruise and get away for everyone to relax and enjoy themselves after an amazing season of track and autocross events. Oct 22nd we will be meeting at 10:30am at The Mapleveiw Center in Burlington in the south lot (900 Maple Ave) and leaving at 11am to cruise together to the Falls. We will be taking a scenic route through the country and water front on our way arriving mid afternoon at the Howard Johnston on Victoria Ave, written directions will be given out at the meeting spot.

Room rates are $274.95+tax and include 2 adult passes for Sundays Wine tour which includes 3 wineries, tastings and lunch. Rates also include vouchers towards dinner at various places and breakfest voucher as well. Bus leaves at 9:40am for the Winery Tour on Sunday

The evening and night is open time for everyone to enjoy the many great attractions the falls has to offer, be it the casino, site seeing or just hanging at the hotel with that special someone, this weekend is for everyone.


We have a hold on 15 rooms till Oct 14th, rooms will be available after this date, but prices may go up, call the hotel asap to reserve your package deal at 1-800-565-4656
Make sure you mention your coming with The Trillium BMW Club!
The hotels website is http://www.hojobythefalls.com/
Please email me at richie_s999@hotmail.com once your room is booked to let me your coming or if you have any questions
This event is open to all members and their friends, so if you have someone you know that would enjoy the weekend please feel free to invite them.

Rich Simpson
Social Director

Article: 2009 Annual Scenic Drive and Wine Tour a Sight for Sore Eyes

by Dave Cook, Member at large

After a year’s hiatus, the Scenic Drive and Wine Tour returned with a vengeance! This tour more than made up for the missed mileage and wineries of last year. I put 583 kilometers on my MINI, and we toured to five wineries. Kenn Hale did a great job of planning our routes and finding some interesting wineries to visit. He got us away from the usual Niagara wine tour route.

We started our adventure on Saturday October 3rd at the BMW Durham Dealership. They were kind enough to have coffee and doughnuts ready and waiting for us. From there we cruised along the 401 to Brighton, then headed down Highway #33. Just past Hillier we turned east to our first winery and lunch stop, TheThe luncheon was good and the wines also passed muster. Carrying on down the road we came to Closson Chase Winery, which is owned by Sonia Smits and her husband. After enjoying the ambience of a nice sunny day by the vineyard with a drink, we continued until we found another winery to visit. Sugarbush Vineyards is a “garagiste” winery. According to their website, a garagist is “a passionate winemaker who creates limited production premium wine in a garage-sized winery.” Their motto is “you don’t need a big space to produce great wines.” They were right.

Farther along we came to Huff Estates. This is quite the operation. Along with a winery, they have an inn and an art gallery. They have a well thought-out tasting area, nice patio, and the inn and gallery look very new as well. However, the feeling here seemed to be that the previous wineries we had visited had better product and better prices. Maybe Huff is putting more money into their buildings than their wine.

We then headed into Picton for a downtown stroll, and then it was off to The Waring House Inn for the evening. Up until this point the weather had been very cooperative, especially as the weatherman had been quite negative all week leading up to the weekend. My wife, Cathy, and I checked in and made it to the room dry and in time to settle in and watch a storm pass through in comfort. I guess the weather had to play a little catch up for giving us a beautiful day.

Dinner at the Waring House was very good and they gave us a good breakfast as well. Sunday morning started off wet, but the rain subsided as we stopped at the Glenora Ferry and the Lake on the Mountain. Our tour of the vineyard at Waupoos remained dry so we were able to get some great shots of the property and vines. The winery is situated right on Lake Ontario. They have a great view of the lake and have set up a dock for wine tourers arriving by boat. Lunch was very good, as were the wines. The limestone in the area apparently enhances the flavour of the area wines. 

Overall, this lovely weekend gave us an opportunity to have fun, make new friends, and taste good wine. There is nothing like good food and drink to bring people together—except maybe our BMWs.