MIGHTY FINE ICEWINE Toronto Star - Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery
January 17, 2016


FALL FEST (free event)

When: Saturday and Sunday, October 25 & 26

What: It's the season to GET COZY! Help us celebrate the last weekend of the Moyer Marquee with live music, wine, food, cozy fire pits, lawn games and FUN. 

Join us the weekend of October 25/26 for live music from BY DESIGN DUO (Saturday) and THE FEVERISH LEMONS ACOUSTIC DUO (Sunday), as well as award-winning wines and food by SMOKE & MOONSHINE FOOD TRUCK

This is a free, outdoor event! Wine & food available for purchase. Dog friendly. Event open from 11 am to 5 pm both days, live entertainment 1 pm to 4 pm.

 

 





November 2025

THE GREAT GRILLED CHEESE EXTRAVAGANZA

When: Saturday, November 1st 11-4:30, Sunday, November 2nd 11-4

Where: Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery

What:  Experience the best grilled cheese sandwiches of your life, each one perfectly paired with our wines! It’s a celebration of Sue-Ann’s long-time love affair with inventive grilled cheese sandwiches. “Why have tomato soup with your grilled cheese, when you could have wine?”

Ticket-holders are welcomed with a refreshing sip of our Fancy Farm Girl sparkling before setting off on a delicious cheese adventure. Four fabulous grilled cheese stations are set up throughout Sue-Ann’s home, each one offering delicious sandwich samples with our award-winning wines. MENU NOW AVAILABLE HERE

$48.53 per person ($42.95+HST). Gluten Friendly timeslots available! Find all the details and buy your tickets online here: https://www.sue-annstaff.com/collections/events/products/sue-anns-great-grilled-cheese-extravaganza-2025

 

 

Get Wrapped Up!

When: November 8 & 9 AND November 15 & 16

Get Wrapped Up is back on November 8-9 & 15-16! Pick your weekend and join us for festive food and wine pairings at 8 wineries of your choice for only $49.95.

With over 25 Niagara Benchlands Wineries to choose from, use your pass to visit your favourites and discover some new ones: 13th Street Winery (Saturday only), 180 Estate Winery, Calamus Estate Winery, Commisso Estate winery, Creekside Estate Winery, Dim Wine Co., Domaine Le Clos Jordanne, Fielding Estate Winery, Flat Rock Cellars, Harbour Estates Winery, Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery, Kew Vineyards Estate Winery, King's Court Estate Winery, Malivoire Wine Company, Peninsula Ridge Estates Winery, Puddicombe Estate Winery, Redstone Winery, Ridgepoint Wines, Stonewall Estates, Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery, Tawse Winery, The Organized Crime Winery Inc., Thirty Bench Winemakers, Vieni Estates, Vineland Estates Winery, Wending Home Estate Vineyards and Winery.

What:  Purchase one ticket $49.95 + hst/fee per person and visit EIGHT participating wineries of your choice for a delicious wine & food sample. https://niagarabenchlandswineries.com/pages/events

 

Save the Date

Holiday Wine Trail

When: November 29 & 30

Where: Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery, 180 Estate Winery, Malivoire Wine Company, Cave Spring Winery, Fielding Estate Winery

What:  We put the WIN in Winter Wine Trail. One ticket = five delicious wine and small bite pairings at five fabulous wineries. Stay tuned for details! 

 

 

 

Save the Date

Sue-Ann's Annual Holiday Sip & Savour Open House

When: Saturday, December 13

Where: Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winer

What:  It's our annual Open House! A one day event featuring wine, food and holiday shopping. A portion of ticket sales is donated to The Howard V. Staff Memorial Fund at the Niagara Community Foundation, supporting Community Care. 

Watch this space for details and tickets!  


MIGHTY FINE ICEWINE Toronto Star

Celebrating Winter with some Liquid Gold

It started as drunken one-upmanship among a gaggle of winemakers.

“Over a harvest dinner in 1999 at Creekside, all these burly winemakers and I started bantering about who could roll a barrel better,” Sue-Ann Staff told me over a plate of gnocchi and icewine. She’s a leading Ontario winemaker, and I could tell by the uptempo staccato of her storytelling this was going to be good.

“So we all got up and started competing right there and then in the cellars rolling a barrel end over end for about 100 feet. I didn’t just win against all the men; I smoked them! It was hilarious. There was smoke coming from the guys’ ears!”

At the time, she said, she was super fit and competitive having just finished 18 years of figure skating. She’s also very striking, which I imagine threw off her opponents.

The Winemakers’ Barrel Roll Challenge is now an official annual event at the Niagara Icewine Festival, on right now. Watch the race today in Jordan at 1:45 p.m.

Like the barrel rolling, the Niagara Icewine Festival started small and mushroomed into a big deal. Now in its 21st year, it draws 25,000 bon vivants from all over North America.

The quality of Icewine throughout Ontario has never been better. After making icewine in the province for 32 years, local winemakers are hitting their stride, consistently striking the right balance between sweetness and mouth-watering acidity in pretty much every bottle. Good balance is key to pleasure because it lets the wine finish cleanly, rather than cloy — like a mouthful of honey.

The festival kicked off last night with 1,000 people swanning about at the Xerox Icewine Gala — a black tie, $185-a-head soiree at the Fallsview Casino Resort.

For the rest of this weekend, the festival centres on Jordan Village in Niagara’s Twenty Valley region. Catch an outdoor concert, sit down to multi-course meals by celebrity chef Lynn Crawford, watch the Winemakers’ Barrel Roll Challenge and sample all kinds of local wines paired to culinary creations. For a cool and intimate vibe, hit tonight’s after-party in the century-old cellar beneath Cave Springs Winery.

Next weekend, Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) takes the torch and transforms the Heritage District into an icewine village. Sidle up to the world’s largest icewine bar, watch the icewine cocktail competition and sample icewine-inspired food and wine pairings to live music.

NOTL also offers activities throughout the festival such as cheese seminars and the annual White on Ice Dinner — a heated, tented outdoor event where six chefs present complete micro-meals with wine, followed by dancing under the stars.

During the third weekend, Jan. 29 to 31, the festival hub moves indoors to the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls where 20 wineries and 10 top chefs showcase deliciousness to live music.

As well as the goings-on in Twenty Valley, NOTL and Niagara Falls, 40 participating wineries offer unique food and wine pairings developed for the festival, available all three weekends. They’re available a la carte for $10 each, or buy a $40 Discovery Pass ($30 for non-drinkers/designated drivers) to taste at eight wineries of your choice.

In short, the Niagara Icewine Festival is a world-class culinary affair right in our own backyard. And huge fun. See you there!

 

 

http://startouch.thestar.com/screens/f9186ec9-9774-41bd-98e4-ae4b87b865d9%7C6~9KK-~5a_YE.html


Liquid error (templates/article line 201): Could not find asset snippets/beetailer_social_widget.liquid