Ice wine was once thought to come from the tears Greek god Dionysus cried upon learning that humans stomped on innocent grapes. Taste the essence of wine-god emotion with today’s Groupon to Niagara Fun Tours. Choose between the following options:
- For $69, you get a Winter Wine Tour for two (a $223.54 value).
- For $125, you get a Winter Wine Tour for four (a $357.08 value).<p>
Winter Wine Tours operate on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through April 29. Each tour includes:
- Round-trip transportation from Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake
- Tastings at Riverview Cellars Winery, Reif Estate Winery, Joseph’s Estate Winery, and Caroline Cellars Winery
- Self-guided tours at each winery
- Tour of Chocolate FX chocolate factory<p>
Niagara Fun Tours escorts flocks of oenophiles on day treks to sample ice wine and other vineyard bounties at four wineries studding the Niagara Wine Belt. Tour guests step onto Riverview Cellars Winery’s grounds and behold a 25-acre vineyard, where river-fed soil of silt and clay nourishes multiple varietals. Guests assemble around the winery’s rustic wood tasting bar and sample piquant late-harvest wines and ice wines, which may include award winners such as the 2009 VQA riesling ice wine. Après-tasting, guests can explore the winery to learn how vintners spook grapes into frozen states before harvesting and pressing them into their final liquid form. At Reif Estate Winery, pinot noir, chardonnay, and cabernet franc slosh into tasting glasses after their several-month hitchhike from the winery’s 125 acres of plantings. For up to 40 minutes, guests can peruse the boutique or bask in the building’s coach-house architecture dating to the 1870s.
At Joseph’s Estate Winery, guests gather around the tasting bar to run palates through a gauntlet of nationally recognized wines crafted to VQA standards. Over the course of 45 minutes, guests sip ice wines and late-harvest blends along with a limited-edition Winter Festival of Lights reserve, which thrills taste buds more than the lackluster mouthfeel of actual winter lights. At the final stop, Caroline Cellars Winery’s country atmosphere draws visitors across rolling fields into a rustic wood farmhouse. Once inside the tasting bar, guests pique palates with four wine tastings, including one ice-wine tasting.
Tours end with a challenge to wine’s palate domination at Chocolate FX, where chocolate artisans fashion often-unconventional taste combinations using traditional panning and moulding techniques. Guests peek into the chocolate-making process and view panning in action on a guided tour, which culminates in free samples of more than 85 chocolates as well as screenplay ideas for a chocolate bar’s bildungsroman. Attendees can substitute ice-wine samples for red or white wines at any of the tour stops.
Niagara Fun Tours
The dedicated guides of Niagara Fun Tours escort flocks of visitors around the Niagara region all year round during their fully- guided tours. Summer and Winter wine tours visit, taste, and tour at four award winning wineries studding the Niagara Wine Belt, where settings range from mountain chalets to baroque and modern castle decor to rustic wood farmhouses. For tour-goers that prefer libations other than wine, Niagara Fun Tours offers other seasonal tours that stop at local distilleries, micro breweries, and hard cider distilleries. Guides often conclude their tours with stops at locales such as the heart of Niagara-on-the-Lake or Chocolate FX, where chocolate artisans fashion often-unconventional taste combinations using traditional panning and moulding techniques. Sightseers embark on a new Niagara Beer, Spirits and Hard Cider tour, seasonal winery tours, or private scenic torus of Niagara Falls. Participants enjoy tastings at each location, have a chance to grab some lunch at Harvest Barn Country Market, and receive a wine tasting at Rancourt Winery. Niagara Fun Tours also provides round-trip transportation from multiple locations in Niagara for each tour, loading guests into large shuttle buses that accommodate up to 48 passengers or into vehicles that accommodate up to 21 giraffes.