Have You Met Archie at Reif Estate Winery

Niagara on the Lake, Canada

Of all the people I met this weekend in Niagara, Archie from Reif Estate Winery left the biggest impression on me. From the moment he introduced himself and I saw his curly moustache I knew this was going to be interesting.

Reif Estate Winery has European roots and so it looks very traditional, definitely not some place I would gravitate toward but it is a place I’d be on the must-go list if only to meet Archie.

Matt and I signed up for a wine and food pairing and after me apologizing again that I forgot to tell them Drunkntrvlr was vegetarian Archie wanted to know if we were prepared to have our mind blown. He said he was about to change the way we thought about ice wine and we would learn so much in such little time.

 

 

I was a bit skeptical. I had already decided that I liked ice wine, what more could I learn?

 

Turns out so much more.

 

It was simple, we needed to keep the wine in our mouth for 8 seconds and see how the flavours went from too sweet to buttery and finally quite mild. Archie taught us how our mouth reacts to wine and how we shouldn’t be treating our tongue like an ice wine shovel because we were missing the flavours of wine.

It was a quick visit but I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to Reif again, I know now how to drink ice wine but what about the regular stuff?

 

 

Disclosure: Reif Winery offered the tasting for me, but they did not request that I write a review at all, or even complain when I told them at the last minute I was with a vegetarian.