Thank you, Dennis! This is fantastic. We moved to the FLX area a few years ago, but have not ventured that far yet. Your recommendations are going to come in very handy. Cheers.
The biggest difference between the FLX and Niagara-on-the Lake is one of travel and compactness. The FLX is really advancing in quality and is close to the NOTL wineries. The biggest disadvantage in the FLX is the time it takes to get between locations. NOTL is quite easy to navigate, everything within about 50KM. I like it for bike touring also as the area is mostly flat except for the escarpment, and the drivers actually seem to understand that they do not have exclusive ownership of the roads. (except for the Americans from the states of course!)
Hope you all can get up there. Really charming place.
As a local who has done this circuit many times, @Dennis_Borczon’s summary is a great one. Really accurate. I tend to spend more time in Beamsville Bench/Jordan than NOTL. NOTL is more commercial, with generally, larger wineries.
Generally speaking you’ll find lots of producers doing Riesling that is really nice and well well priced. The ‘typical’ style is about 10% alcohol with a little RS (10 - 20 g/l). Also sparkling which I think has really emerged as a strength of this region.
It’s been a few years, but I do recall Ravine doing some of the better reds in NOTL.
If you do make it to the bench, a few thoughts.
Pearl Morissette is the high water mark for me in terms of reds from Ontario. Fully agree that the Cab Francs, specifically the Cuvée Madeline, I’ve tasted from 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 have been awesome and I think would show really well in a tasting of classic Chinon. The value prop is perhaps not the best however. At $58, you’ll be paying more than you would for the other benchmarks for Loire Cab Franc (Baudry, Olga Raffault). Other wines range from solid, traditionally made stuff, occasionally veering into the natural and unusual (skin contact whits/orange, concrete eggs, etc.). Getting a tasting here is unlike every other place in the region (where you can simply drop in), you need to book in advance. Slots fill up fast, and IIRC tasting fees are way higher than the norm.
Tawse is the high water mark for me on Chardonnay. If you like a lean, mineral, reductive style, taste their lineup and don’t miss the Quarry road. Pretty good single vineyard Riesling here too.
Looking at Dennis’ other recommendations I’ve enjoyed wines from Queylus if occasionally I’ve found them to be in a bit ‘bigger’ style than some others I like. I remember liking what I had from 30 bench in reds and Riesling but it’s been a while.
One final recommendation. On the whole I enjoy Leaning Post. They’re geographically closest to me and furthest from NOTL. They can be a little hit and miss especially in reds, but I’ve had some good value Rosé, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir from them. In fact I’ve noticed their Rosé on many local wine lists as an afforable BTG option. Unlike many Rosés from the region theirs is bone dry. It shows more fruit than what you might find in Provence, but with solid acid and a similarly pale color, lightly extracted.
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I’ll add in as I’m also close by and do the circuits every once in a while. LIke Chris, highly prefer the bench area over NOTL, but that’s because I prefer Pinot, Gamay, Chard & Riesling. NOTL in general is perhaps still a bit too attached to the Cabs/ Merlot and icewine genre, which can be more spotty with our climate vintage to vintage. NOTL Chards tend to be a bit richer than bench versions, partly due to higher clay on the plain vs. limestone of the bench and being a somewhat warmer climate.
In Jordan/ Beamsville.
2027 cellars - you can taste at two wineries here (Calamus the other which I don’t have experience with) as they share the barn, via separate entrances. Great chards, very good sparkling & cab franc and Pinot.
Cloudsley (Pinots & Chards) small producer which sources great fruit.
Leaning Post. I think as they’ve grown exponentially recently some quality has been lost in some wines. Not as consistent as 8 years ago.
Still some winners.
NOTL & St. Catherines
13th Street. A bit closer to the NOTL type of operation as the two owner families have created a large winery with an art installation, gallery, shops and small bistro. The hidden gem is the winemaker JP Colas who’s been in Ontario for 20 years, but was winemaker at Domaine Laroche for the 10 years prior and is Chablisienne to the core. I admit he’s become a friend, but his wines are different (not in a quirky/ non-intervention) way, but a less is more approach. Lots of wines made here. So, a tasting is comprehensive vs. some places mentioned that may not have or make much wine. Winners here are the various sparkling, gamays, Chards and cab franc, but almost everything that grows here is made.
Five Rows (tiny operation) - started by the Lowrey’s who are generally known as having the most sought after NOTL fruit. They kept the best 5 rows for themselves (sell the rest) and sell via online release. They do book tastings in advance. If you want to know what NOTL can do with mature fruit, this is a place to visit, with the understanding you may not be able to buy much (I actually don’t know). Remarkably, their Sauv Blanc is the most sought after wine, along with their old syrah & pinot.
I admit to be less a fan of Pearl Morrisette. Not the resto , which is rightly acknowledged to be top 5 in Canada. The wines to me have been very hit & miss (more miss), but I’m one to call out flaws vs. calling it character.
I mention Lowrey above. If you see a winery using “Lowrey” fruit, that’s worth a stop. Also, “Wismer” Both acknowledged as best of best farmers with great location and suitably old fruit.
If you really want to go down the Niagara/ Beamsville wormhole, sign up for Thomas Bachelders website, then once added you can book a “taste & buy” at his Bat-Cave (only website members can book, no cost). I’m not completely sold on his approach to be the one man to parse out the best or differences in Niagara Terroir in a burgundian way, but a tasting with he or his wife will tell you a lot about differences of soils and climate in many spots. He’s very highly regarded and while I do have a fair number of his wines, I’m not sold on his near pious status among many locals. He’s the flavour of the day, so the locals appear to pad scores somewhat, as there is still lots of nepotism in a small burgeoning industry. Regardless, if you’re looking for something on the opposite end of a tasting at a place like Peller or Inniskillin, a tasting here will give you that. He makes a good amount of wine from all over (including Lowrey, Wismer & Grimsby Hillside, but owns no vines himself). Pinot, Chard, Gamay dominates. I’d add this as a to-do if you’re visiting and have the time. Small near one on one experience.
I’d add Tawse and 1 or two others previously mentioned if it were me and wanted a good overview of the area over a few days.
Oh, for meals, lots of places, but include Treadwell. Pearl may be a tough book as they use Tock and two weeks out you’ll be reliant on a cancellation/ re-book
Enjoy your visit.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve made the short trip from Buffalo, but I was really impressed with Flat Rock. Great Pinot Noir’s and beautiful vineyards.
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We went in June (the second time I’ve been up there). I went to eat at Restaurant at Pearl Morrisette for my fortieth birthday:
Pearl Morrisette is probably impossible to get into at this point, but they are making some of the best Chardonnay I’ve had too. It was markedly better than the previous time I went years ago.
All of the best wineries follow The Bruce Trail close to Jordan. The big ones are Tawse and Cave Spring. Smaller wineries making amazing wine are Cloudsley, Walters Vineyard/Bachelder (they share a production facility), and Megalomaniac. We also visited 13th Street Winery and was impressed with their méthode Champenoise and Cab Franc. Read good things about Leaning Post, but it was too far away. Closer to town, we actually loved the dirt cheap Team Canada Cab Franc from Pillitteri. It was a great pizza wine.
Have fun. Cloudsley, Pearl Morrisette, and Bachelder are making Chardonnay as good as anywhere.
I’ve been very lucky to live in the Toronto, Canada area which is only 60 - 90 minutes away from the Niagara wine region of Ontario. The easy and frequent access essentially allowed me to accelerate my wine growth far more quickly than a normal wino would be able to concurrently with membership on the WB board. I essentially grew up with the area over the last decade.
Assuming you are traveling east as I would to access the area, you would hit the Jordan/Twenty Valley/St. Catherine’s wineries first in an hour’s time. These are located on an escarpment so you will see many varied vineyards at different slopes and heights. Another 30 minute drive east lands you in the Niagara on the Lake wineries which are all located on flat land that is long and expansive and blessed with plenty of sunshine and the moderating effects of Lake Ontario and the Niagara River.
Let me give you my personal recommendations below first and then I’ll give you a bonus chat about the area itself and the specific wineries. I have visited all the wineries below personally and speak from firsthand experience. First, the recommendations:
JORDAN/TWENTY VALLEY/ST. CATHERINES WINERIES
SPARKLING
- Henry of Pelham
- Westcott
ICEWINE
- Henry of Pelham
- Kacaba
- Vineland
- Cave Spring Cellars
- Tawse
- Westcott
REDS
- Kacaba
- Creekside
- Thirty Bench
- Hidden Bench
- Flat Rock Cellars
- Tawse
- Westcott
- Queylus
- Bachelder
WHITES
- Creekside
- Thirty Bench
- Hidden Bench
- Flat Rock Cellars
- Vineland
- Cave Spring Cellars
- Tawse
- Queylus
- Bachelder
NIAGARA ON THE LAKE WINERIES
SPARKLING
- Kew Vineyards
- 13th Street
ICEWINE
- Inniskillin
- Pillitteri
- Peller
- Jackson-Triggs
- Riverview
- Caroline Cellars
REDS
- Colaneri
- Two Sisters
- Stratus
- iCellars
- Pearl Morisette
- Leaning Post
- Stratus
WHITES
- Southbrook
- Stratus
- iCellars
- Pearl Morissette
- Stratus
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS: RESTAURANTS
Two Sisters
Ravine
Trius
Vineland
Redstone
Pearl Morissette
Strewn
Treadwell (in NOTL town itself, not a winery)
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS: FRUIT WINES
Sunnybrook Farm/Ironwood Cider House
Caroline Cellars
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS: CIDER
Sunnybrook Farm/Ironwood Cider House
Small Talk
Tawse
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS: BEER
Oast House
BONUS RECOMMENDATION: CHEESE
Upper Canada Cheese Company
BONUS RECOMMENDATIONS: VINEYARDS AND FACILITIES
Flat Rock Cellars
Jackson-Triggs
Inniskillin
Frogpond Farm
Westcott
Vineland
Megalomaniac
Ravine
Pearl Morissette
Colaneri
iCellars
Westcott
Malivoire
The Niagara wine region was actually established in the late 1800s with the still standing Pelee Island Winery being the first. The grapes planted were also the grapes used for making commercial food products such as grape juice, jams and jellies (i.e. red Concord, white Niagara, etc.) with wine being an afterthought. This continued all the way into the mid-70’s and is the reason why Canada is renowned for the infamous Baby Duck style of sparkling wine which is essentially just alcoholic sparkling sweet grape juice. Don’t get me wrong, that’s actually fun to drink but I don’t think anyone would consider it real wine. Trivia fact: Baby Duck is still made and sold today and is even available in the LCBO. It’s marketed as a fun throwback nostalgia wine.
Real wine grapes were brought to the region in 1952 by Brights Wines. They got the license for a winery but they essentially just grew the wine grapes in many different vineyards and sat on them for two decades. Though one could argue this was shortsighted, it was also fortuitous because a lot of the prime vineyards in Niagara are way older and more mature than people realize.
In 1975, the late winemaker and horticulturist Karl Kaiser and businessman Donald Ziraldo met by chance while the latter was buying flower splints to grow for a small plot of land in Niagara. After a bit of an argument at Kaiser’s flower nursery between the two men as to what would be appropriate to grow on the land that somehow brought up the topic of wine grapes, Ziraldo dared Kaiser to grow wine grapes in Niagara and the latter agreed if Ziraldo would let him do it on his land. This led to them becoming business partners and establishing Inniskillin winery in 1975. They were the first new winery in the region in over 50 years at that time.
In 1982, Hillebrand Estates produced the first ever Canadian icewine. This caught the attention of the few other wineries in the region and Inniskillin, Reif Estates and Pellee Island Winery all agreed to give it a shot the next year. Unfortunately, everyone involved forgot about the Canadian wildlife who happily munched on the frozen grapes during the winter of 1983 leaving only Hillebrand and Pellee Island able to produce a miniscule amount. Thus, the practice of netting vineyards in winter was introduced in 1984. Icewine production was plentiful as a result. And that’s when the region really took off.
A steady flow of icewine, international sales, and Ziraldo’s excellent salesmanship eventually resulted in the 1991 Vinexpo Le Grand Prix d’Honneur for Inniskillin’s 1989 icewine in Bordeaux, France of all places. This resulted in unprecedented demand and growth in the region as wineries continually sprang up all throughout the 90’s and 2000’s. Wine tourism for the region also sprang up and reached an all time high in the 2000’s.
By 2010 when I first started getting into wine, things were taking an interesting turn. Icewine was still very much in high demand, but most of it was international. Here at home, it was starting to gain the reputation of the pricy wine you always buy and give as a gift but never drank yourself. Further, the region was finding that the fame and acclaim from icewine was also a double-edged sword. It couldn’t shake its reputation as an icewine only maker and wineries trying to craft serious table and sparkling wine were chafing that there was neither respect nor purchases of their other wines. Even many Canadians wrongly think our wine region is only 40 years old because of icewine when both it and the original vines and vineyards are much older.
The restrictive LCBO monopoly and lack of shelf space on their stores wasn’t helping things out, either. The romance of owning and operating a Niagara winery was clashing head on against real world economics of high costs, long work and little payoff. Smaller family run wineries were particularly suffering. Unless there was a money founder behind the winery or the owners had other jobs, a Niagara winery was an extremely precarious way to make a living. Still, a few new small and large wineries were successfully established. So it wasn’t all bad but the signs of change were there.
And then just to make things worse, the international demand for icewine dropped during the 2010s. Both the local and international markets were now saturated. There were still sales, of course, but nowhere near the high volumes wineries were used to from the 90s and 2000s. The one guaranteed moneymaker for Niagara wineries couldn’t be counted on any longer. For many wineries, the honeymoon and the romance was long over. This was now a matter of survival. It was clear that many wouldn’t. A number of wineries were sold off to other owners and corporations with more money as their owners threw in the towel and retired. In the late 2010’s when cannabis was legalized in Canada, the few smaller wineries that were still holding on finally saw the opportunity to get back on their investment and leave the wine business altogether by selling their vineyards off to cannabis growers. Real estate developers also saw prime land for homes and grabbed up as much as they could, causing conflict between the food and wine farmers in the area and themselves.
All this said, the foresight the region showed in tackling the serious production of high quality table and sparkling wine has been paying off as we enter the 2020’s. The late 2010s finally saw many wineries gaining international acclaim for both their sparkling and table wines. Icewine’s declining demand and reputation was being replaced by a much improved outlook and sales of other wines. Many suspected that cannibis sales in the region would increase and wine sales would decrease over the years but in fact the exact reverse has happened. The large and small wineries that held on saw increased demand and sales, somewhat ironically helped out by the recent pandemic. To be clear, nobody in Niagara operating a winery is going to get wealthy off of it – many still just break even – but they are in a much better place going into this decade than they were leaving the one before it.
The best thing I can say about the Niagara wine region right now is that both Canadians and international visitors now think of it and refer to it as a wine region in general. Not just the place where they make the icewine that all the Chinese and Japanese tourists seek out by the busload, but a genuine wine producing region where you go to visit and buy no matter what kind of wine you like. There are actually more non-icewine producing wineries now than there are ones that still make it. There’s something for everyone now. And that’s really the best possible place for it to be in right now.
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Great notes!
It will take more than one visit to do the area justice
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I would be remiss if I did not place a tasting note for a 2010 Stratus Cabernet Sauvignon opened last night. From a relatively warm vintage in this cool climate region, this is what Bordeaux used to taste like in the 80’s and 90’s. With age the pyrazine notes have completely integrated into this wine. What is left is moderately deep, tobacco leaf, dark cherry, earthy wine with a medium plus finish. Pleasantly spherical in presentation with tannins, fruit, and acidity all in balance. If you care for that sort of thing this is a solid 93 on the Parker/Vinous/Jancis etc scale of things. Too bad no one will ever write it up formally in a big publication…because it’s, well, Canadian. And it took ten years to come around and fully integrate. No one has the patience for these kinds of wines anymore, we all want it big, bang, boom up front. I would bet the winemaker slipped in a bit of cab franc in this lovely wine to give it the polished finish.
Oh well, if a tree falls in a Canadian forest, will anyone seek it out? The Stratus whites are probably even more consistent. I for one am glad these old school reds are still being produced somewhere. Fits me like a well broken in pair of jeans. They ain’t exactly cheap, but if you are coming from the US the 25% discount takes the sting out of the price. As a footnote, Stratus makes the best damn Cab Franc icewine anywhere! Not cloying, just lovely balance between fruit and sweetness but not over the top. I can drink a whole 375 of this. If you go make sure you get a taste!
PS Everyone makes a deal about how much you can bring back to the US, driving over the border. In my experience, (although I am not an international trade lawyer), the average border guard on the US side just doesn’t care. As long as you are not bringing a U Haul full of Cubans back with your wine, they have always nodded pleasantly and waved me through. They could fill out reams of paperwork for every bottle over two a person, and assess you a tariff of something like .50c a liter for going over the limit. However these guys and gals (rightly) have lots of better things to do than probably waste 2 hours to collect $10.00 in tariffs. I have made the crossing dozens of times and the biggest annoyance is the long lines when traffic picks up!
Surprised you omitted the “Bat Cave” (unless I missed it). Thomas is one of the best advocates of Niagara wines by word and by bottle.
The other people who have chimed in have done a great job - I’d say Pearl Morissette, Tawse, Stratus, Leaning Post, Cloudsley, and Bachelder are my top picks.
Chardonnay for most, but I really do like Leaning Post’s reds, especially their Syrah - they manage to be the only folks who really capture the meaty/peppery side of the grape here.
Sorry to be reductive (and butt in) but I have a friend going there this week and she won’t be able to dedicate as much time as I’d hope.
Am I more-or-less good with telling her to go to Tawse, Stratus and 13th Street? Those seem to be the consensus must-do’s.
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Those sounds good and are varied in attitudes, terroir and specialties. Great threesome actually.
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I mentioned it in my post, but as I’m sure you know, booking takes some planning.
Shame on me for forgetting Thomas “The Silver Fox” Bachelder! 
Especially since I was one of his earliest visitors when he first opened up and have met up with him twice more at other wine events. I have added him to the list of my recommendations.
Absolutely. These will be great to take her to. Enjoy.
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My final large post in this thread are some general notes on the wineries and what I believe visitors would find appealing about them in a visit. The wines, the facilities, the vineyards, the people, or a combination of any or all of these factors.
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Henry of Pelham: Started by the three Speck brothers on their parents farm. The facility is beautiful, built in a rustic coachhouse and barnyards. The restaurant is in fact called The Coach House. Beautiful vineyards. As large as the more commercial wineries but still family owned. Great icewine and sparkling. Reds and whites are decents and they have managed to make great wine out of the much maligned native Baco Noir grape. Youngest brother Daniel Speck is the VP Marketing and a great guy to talk to.
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Westcott Vineyards: You’re here for the wines. Small family owned single farmhouse winery. Lovely to sample their wines out on their picnic tables. Their sparkling, Chardonnays and especially their Pinot Noirs are outstanding. I have never had an Ontario Pinot Noir as fine as their 2016 vintage.
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Flat Rock Cellars. Beautiful vineyards with a man-made pond and a unique facility I affectionately refer to as The Lighthouse that gives you a literal 360 degree view of the beautiful vineyards. Owner Ed Madronich is a hoot, a great storyteller and extremely passionate about wine. The wines are universally very good. I have a fondness for their Rieslings, Chardonnays, Pinots and Gewurztraminer if they still make it.
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Vineland. Beautiful sloped rolling vineyards. There’s a guesthouse for rent if you want to make a weekend of it. Great restaurant. Great icewine, Rieslings, and good reds and whites.
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Cave Spring Cellars. They run a store facility in the town of Jordan and keep their vineyards separate. They are Riesling specialists and rightfully call themselves “The House That Riesling Built.” Other wines are decent but seeing all that Ontario Riesling can do from the driest table wine to the sweetest icewine is why you visit.
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Malivoire. One of the first to make exclusively organic wines in the region. Unique military bunker facilities built into the escarpment itself. Decent to good wine.
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Frogpond Farms. A really small family run organic winery that also happens to be an open wildlife farm/exhibition. Believe in as little intervention as possible. Wines are good but can be an acquired taste.
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Tawse. Renowned for their quality, as owner Maury Tawse is also a Burgundy landowner and wine producer there as well and has long believed in Ontario’s ability to produce quality wine. Everything is good. They recently suffered the tragic loss of their winemaker Paul Pender who was murdered outside his home by a mentally ill drifter from the nearby city of Hamilton who is facing 2nd degree murder charges this year. If I write what I really feel about this this entire thread is going to be flagged. I’ll just say I’d love to have a private conversation with that a**hole to let him know how I really feel about the mentally ill and he’d find out real fast that I’m a very different conversationalist than a winemaker is. I have no idea how they are recovering from this immense tragedy but they deserve everyone’s support under the trying circumstances.
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Megalomaniac. Really interesting vineyards as they are located high on a hill above the actual facility. The facility is built with a lot of stone and has a beautiful iron gate entrance.
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Kacaba. A smaller family run winery. Very good wines overall and they only make icewine selectively when they feel it’s right to do so and always make outstanding ones as a result. As such, they are a rarity to begin with and are always a different varietal every production run.
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Creekside. Winemaker Rob Power has studied the New Zealand style of winemaking closely and strongly feels it is closer to what Ontario can and should make. So he has gone against the grain of emulating Burgundy and brings his wines closer to that style instead. The result is really good reds and whites across the board overall. One of the few to barrel age their icewines which produced an outstanding Shiraz/Syrah based once a few years ago.
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Thirty Bench. Excellent Rieslings and reds. They enjoy experimenting once in a while which led them to produce their traditional method sparkling Riesling which is pretty good.
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Hidden Bench. Owner Harald Thiel is a now retired lawyer and lifelong foodie and wine lover who founded both Hidden Bench and the nearby Upper Canada Cheese Company. Outstanding wines in every category.
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Inniskillin. For historical reasons alone it should be visited, but the facility is also very beautiful, a mix of the old and modern architecture. Outstanding icewine as expected. Table wines coasted for a very long time as they enjoyed the success of icewine for so long, but to their credit they have been working hard to improve them after first and second generation winemakers the late founder Karl Kaiser and then Bruce Nicholson left.
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Jackson-Triggs. A beautiful modern facility, an outdoor amphitheater, and easily accessible vineyards you can walk through. Good icewine and I don’t think they get enough credit for the work they put into their table wines. Select reds can be very good.
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Stratus. Another organic trailblazer. Beautiful concrete patio overlooking their vineyards. Great wine overall.
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Sunnybrook Farm/Ironwood Cider House. Very small facility that specializes in fruit wine and cider. Check it out for something different.
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Southbrook. Insanely beautiful modern winery. All glass, concrete and steel. Can’t miss their long horizontal sign and man-made pond. Owner Bill Redemeyer is an incredible guy, passionate and humble about wine. Everything is good. Also an organic wine advocate and they love experimenting. They made Ontario’s first orange wine and first vin jaune (French dry sherry) wine.
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Ravine. Beautiful barns serve as the store, the restaurant, and the winemaking facility. Very pet friendly. Beautiful vineyards. Great restaurant. Often feels more like visiting someone’s cottage than a winery. I’m fond of their current winemaker Lydia Tomek both as a person and as a winemaker.
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Colaneri. Family owned winery. Beautiful building and fountain in front, vast vineyards out back. Their facility was designed to emulate an Italian chateau and they have so much space inside they still hadn’t decided what to do with it when I last visited them pre-pandemic and were debating whether or not to make event facilities or even airBnB style facilities to rent out. I personally offered to move in and live there. I’m friends with one of the family members Tara Colaneri and try to get together with her if she’s free whenever I am out there. They specialize in appasimento wine and have produced some really outstanding reds and dessert wines as a result with plenty of aging power. Honestly, they’re really underrated IMHO but you also have to enjoy the appasimento style of wine to begin with to truly appreciate what they’re doing.
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Leaning Post. Kind of out of the way, but they produce what is IMHO insanely well-textured red wine that I feel is really underappreciated. They have by far the best texture and mouthfeel of any red wines from Niagara I’ve tried and they reproduce it consistently over and over again. I have no idea how they do it but I’d kill for their secrets. As mentioned in my 2014 Chablis pool party post, I’m genuinely gobsmacked by the fact that my fellow TWEC ™ members don’t love their red wines anywhere near as much as I do.
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Strewn. Good restaurant and decent to good wines. They experiment constantly with their sweet wines producing botrytis, icewine and late harvests.
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Reif Estates. Here we have the German influence on Ontario winemaking. Decent to very good wines. Facility looks like a little German chalet. Historical value to the visit as it was one of the first four modern wineries along with Inniskillin, Hillebrand and Pellee Island.
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Peller Estates. Beautiful facility with the feel of a mansion. You can’t miss the elegant piano and sitting salon as you enter. Wines are decent to good if a bit commercial. Icewine and sparkling are very good.
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Trius. Beautiful facilities and restaurant. Visit can be interesting in that you have the main facility where the standard Ontario wines are but you can also visit their upstairs facility where for a small fee you can taste and then purchase the really good stuff. It’s like the Stonecutters Society of Ontario wine except that the secret handshake/password is to simply ask to go to the upstairs facility. And the upstairs white labeled vineyard designated red and white wines are really good. So much so that I actually won’t buy any of the standard wines downstairs myself.
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Two Sisters. Beautiful facility, outstanding restaurant, and superb red wines.
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13th Street. Smaller winery with a separate gift and food shop. Very good sparkling wine.
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Kew Vineyards. Sparkling wine specialists. IMHO the best sparkling wines in the entire region along with Henry of Pelham and Westcott. Try the sparkling wine flight.
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Angels Gate. Lovely hillside gated facility. These guys love experimenting with wine and always have some new interesting takes on things. The experiments may not be to everyone’s tastes but they have to be respected for just the sheer amount of different things they try.
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Caroline Cellars. Family run. Just built their restaurant add-on recently which serves a pretty good lunch. Really good variety of icewines and fruit wines, easily the most number of different icewines behind Pillitteri and their number of fruits wines are only beaten out by Sunnybrook/Ironwood. I actually enjoy their icewines and fruit wines equally well. Table wines are decent to good as well. All of it very affordable as well.
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Rosewood Winery and Meadery. Specialize in making Mead wines as they also have their own beehives on site. Their other wines are decent to good, particularly their Sussreserve Riesling.
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Pillitteri. Insanely large amount of icewines and late harvests, easily the most different varietals made. Look for the higher end table wines from their better vineyards and their appasimento line.
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iCellars. I had the distinction of literally being this winery’s very first visitor along with the friends we were traveling with. We walked in on opening day after finding them purely by chance and were blown away by the work they were doing. Outstanding reds and really good Chardonnays. The owner is an engineer who emigrated from Turkey. He built his entire facility himself and applied his engineering skills to teach himself winemaking. Boy did he do a good job at both.
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Pearl Morissette. IMHO, the gold standard in both restaurant and winemaking in the region. Appointment only. Literally only make great wine as far as I’m concerned. The most educational visits I’ve ever had in the region. Not sure if winemaker Francois Morissette or his assistant winemaker still handle the appointments personally but you’re in for an experience if they do. Francois has a ridiculously high winemaking pedigree as he has trained in and made wine at Chambolle Musigny, Domaine Henri Gouges, and Domaine Roulot. That he chose to come to the Niagara, Ontario wine region to help fulfill its potential when he could’ve literally written his winemaking ticket to anywhere in the world for far more money is mindboggling. He has also embarked on a California project and some say this affected the quality of Pearl Morissette wines as he split his time but I have yet to personally experience evidence of that. Let me be clear here: if you can get in for either the winery and/or the restaurant, DO IT.
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Oast House. One of the first Niagara breweries to start up. Great facility with an attic/loft that has been converted into a tasting room. Almost has the feel of a German brew pub. Very good beer and growlers are available. I don’t even like beer and I’ve enjoyed drinking their brews.
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Upper Canada Cheese Company. Locally made cheeses. All of them are great and they are generous with the tastings. The Comfort Cream is a favorite.
This covers most of them off the top of my head. If I remember any others, I’ll add to the post. So many more wineries than the few I’ve mentioned that are available to explore. If you don’t care for what you have at one, there’s always another one nearby. You’ll find something you enjoy for sure. We really are blessed to have so many wineries within easy reach of each other.
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Lots of input here, which is terrific. I also am much more a fan of the Bench these days than the NOTL area.
If you like Appassimento-style wines, then Foreign Affair and Big Head are worth stopping in to see what they’re doing. Two Sisters’ stuff is quite pricey but in a bigger style they do sometimes get some hits. iCellars–founded by a Turkish couple—is also getting up in price but have been good.
Westcott and Hidden Bench are definitely my two top stops now. Others I have enjoyed on a consistent basis are Honsberger Estates (lovely Cab Franc Brut, but not much of it left now), Queylus Estates and occasionally Kew Vineyards, Malivoire and Kacaba. If you can get an appointment with Thomas Bachelder’s operation, well worth it (not sure if the Niagara-side Le Clos Jordanne is open for tastings yet). Southbrook on the Niagara side often makes good and interesting wines too.
Finally, of note, talented winemaker Kelly Mason has finally opened her own estate/vineyard winery. The initial tastes were terrific.
13th Street–I don’t visit for the wines anymore. I do visit for the bakery 
Enjoy!