For a week we traveled through the Chautauqua area of New York and the Niagara area of Ontario. We stopped at four wineries on the Chautauqua Wine Trail including Liberty Vineyards and Winery, Willow Creek Winery, Woodbury Vineyards and Merritt Estate Winery.

Continuing on our journey we passed through Buffalo into the prolific wine region, Niagara-on-the-Lake. Our first stop was Colaneri Estate Winery, a family owned and operated vineyard and winery. Visitors to Colaneri can enjoy the wine tasting experience and the architecture of the winery and tasting room. The facility reminds one of an old Italian village. Other wineries we visited were delightful and each one offered a different story.

In addition to the Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries, Ontario has several other wine regions. On our travels this month we visited wineries the Niagara Escarpment & Twenty Valley that includes the Beamsville, St. Catharines, St. Davids and Vineland areas.

On our return trip through New York, we stopped at 21 Brix Winery, Johnson Estate Winery and Noble Winery. Then we discovered a surprising winery – Sensory Winery. This winery tasting room is a combination art gallery and wine tasting room. The owner/winemaker works with artists to produce wine blends that change just as the art in the gallery. The artist creates the wine bottle labels. For approximately four months the artist displays his creative art. Visitors can taste wine and browse the art displays. As far as the special blended wines, according to our tasting guide “when it’s sold out it’s gone.” Certainly this is a creative and unusual one of a kind winery tasting rooms.

We visited many wineries and will post our articles about the winery experiences as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keep watching our Winery Reviews section.

Cheers! Kathy