Foreign Affair
One of my favorite wineries in the region doesn’t have a fancy kitchen, nor is it located in a faux château (it’s in a retrofitted stone-fruit research facility tucked behind some Ministry of Agriculture greenhouses). The wine, however, has deep umami depth you’d expect in Tuscany, not Ontario. Foreign Affair’s charismatic owners Len and Marisa Crispino—who fell in love with Amarones while working for the Canadian government in Italy—are brimming with unabashed enthusiasm, keen to teach visitors about the appassimento process that imbues their wine with its complexity. This was the first winery in Ontario to begin using appassimento: Grapes are left to dry on straw mats, until the fruit becomes concentrated, bursting with sugar and tannins. Stop by the tasting room, which has been decorated to look like a Florentine villa, and try some of my favorite reds being produced in Niagara.
One of my favorite wineries in the region doesn’t have a fancy kitchen, nor is it located in a faux château (it’s in a retrofitted stone-fruit research facility tucked behind some Ministry of Agriculture greenhouses). The wine, however, has deep umami depth you’d expect in Tuscany, not Ontario. Foreign Affair’s charismatic owners Len and Marisa Crispino—who fell in love with Amarones while working for the Canadian government in Italy—are brimming with unabashed enthusiasm, keen to teach visitors about the appassimento process that imbues their wine with its complexity. This was the first winery in Ontario to begin using appassimento: Grapes are left to dry on straw mats, until the fruit becomes concentrated, bursting with sugar and tannins. Stop by the tasting room, which has been decorated to look like a Florentine villa, and try some of my favorite reds being produced in Niagara.
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