Ontario Wine Spot #6 - Inniskillin

The story-
This is the second time we visited Inniskillin. They also have a winery in the Okanagan valley, and estate vineyards there as well. The one in Ontario is famous for their icewine, which is basically a wine made from grapes left on the vines until they freeze at least two nights of consecutive minus ten degrees Celsius. They are typically picked in the middle of the night in full winter gear. This is not the only thing that drives up the price though. The grapes freeze, meaning they yield way less liquid than they typically would. Higher in sugar, but less liquid, meaning the basically crush to grape syrup. The syrup is then fermented in the same way regular grapes are, and let reach around 7-9% alcohol(usually). The problem is that though Inniskillin pioneered Canadian icewine and is almost single handedly responsible for it's ascent to world class icewine, it has since been bought. The company that bought it is Vincor, which in turn is owned by Constellation, who also happen to own every mexican beer possible and a couple other global brews as well. A large company to say the least. As it goes, Inniskillin is lacking a bit of soul. Their icewines are syrup, because they can easily produce them in massive quantities for relatively cheap. Their tasting room is in fact a gift shop, and though our tour was educational, it showed very little besides a massive manufacturing facility. I guess you can't really insult success on this level, but it's not appealing. However, I do think it's prudent to mention that our tour guide was pretty cool, recommended brazilian steakhouses to us, and even brought us in independant of the group to taste other wines because we displayed interest.

The wines
-Cab Franc icewine- so syrupy my teeth hurt, couldn't think of anything else.

-Viognier- Actually not a bad option, very lime driven, which I wasn't expecting. Some floral notes as well.

-Cab-Merlot- A decent table wine, cheap enough price point to make it pretty drinkable. Spicy and Plum-ey.

-Sparkling Icewine- A pretty interesting combination, seeing as only some wineries in Niagara make icewine, and barely any make sparkling. Combining the two is to create a very unique wine. Sadly I don't think the though process was anything but "how can we sell even more, with even less?" and this popped out. It's still sweeter than chugging honey, but the sparkling takes away some of the mouthfeel of syrup. Good idea for people who can't stand syrupy wines.