Welcome to Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery! We are a boutique winery in Jordan, ON (Lincoln, Niagara Benchlands) offering award-winning wines and memorable tasting experiences.
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
Have a listen to Whitehorse now - and then enjoy them again at#WinterWineFest2016. They are our headliners at our Opening Night Concert on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 on Main Street, Jordan Village. Some tickets still available: http://www.20valley.ca/site/buy-tickets
Thanks to CBC Radio 2's Top 20 Chart for their continued support of Leave No Bridge Unburned.
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It's been a remarkable year for Fancy Farm Girl wines!
First launched in the LCBO in February 2015 the FRIVOLOUS WHITE & FLAMBOYANT RED have been very well received! Thank you one and all for purchasing and enjoying these wines...you had a hand in its success! Thank you for your patience as well. We have heard many stories of the LCBO being OUT OF STOCK over the holiday season. But...an exciting future lies ahead as they are re-released and re-launched in new LCBO programs in February 2016. More stores... more wines. So do keep tuned in for new exciting details to follow in 2016....Cheers!
ANDRE PROULX, GUEST COLUMNIST
On Tuesday morning I watched Premier Kathleen Wynne pat herself on the back and purchase the first six-pack of beer at a grocery store in Ontario.
I watch social media fill up with cheers and applause that we can finally — in late 2015 — get beer in a grocery store like so many civilized jurisdictions on the planet.
I do need to tip my hat to the province for allocating 50% of the shelf space to craft beers.
But I am still scratching my head figuring out how craft beer leapfrogged over our local wine producers to be put on such a pedestal.
It would appear that the provincial government is still in the process of giving the middle finger to small local producers of wine.
Don’t get me wrong I’m a huge fan of craft beer.
But it strikes me as odd that as a craft beer producer I could set up in any city or town in the province and have a shop within the city limits.
I can use ingredients that could largely be sourced from outside the province and produce it in the city.
Meanwhile, we are forcing our wineries to sell wine out of their cellar doors, largely located an hour or two outside of major urban centres.
If I don’t make enough wine I don’t even have access to the LCBO’s shelves and have to rely on word of mouth and people making the trek to my winery to taste my product.
Not to mention that VQA wines are made using 100% locally grown grapes while your favourite craft beer may well be sourcing their hops from outside the province.
As a producer of local wines, I am being denied access to the largest markets in the province.
What about Wine Rack and Wine Shop stores?
Both of these publicly-traded companies have grandfathered licences from pre-NAFTA times allowing them to carry wines from a handful of wineries.
Much of the wine sold in the Wine Rack is bulk wine made mostly from imported grapes, with some Canadian grapes.
In terms of the quality, I don’t feel they are a fair representation of wines produced in Ontario.
There are dozens of world-class wineries that don’t have access to the market solely because they aren’t producing enough wine to be listed at the LCBO.
When the Ontario government is asked why it’s taking so long to make the shift to selling wine in grocery stores the answer is invariably, “it’s complicated”.
I have a hard time taking that at face value given that in B.C. there are already a large number of private stores and even government-run ones that sell B.C. wines exclusively.
There is no excuse for Ontario to be so far behind.
There is no way that B.C. is so different from Ontario that it can serve as an excuse for hindering progress.
I’m looking forward to buying my first six-pack of beer from a grocery store. It’s a step in the right direction.
But don’t think for one minute I am going to raise my pint while thinking this is good enough.
It’s been 90 years since the end of prohibition and I’m sorry, Premier Wynne, but this is not good enough.
The fact it has taken 90 years to make this small change is not something to be celebrated. It’s a reminder of how our government continues to fail us.
— Proulx is a wine writer and has appeared on Global and CTV
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/12/15/why-no-wine-in-the-grocery-store-premier
MEDIA RELEASE
December 8, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TRADITIONAL TRUMPS THE SPICE
The inaugural “Shortbread Showdown” at Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery held December 5th and 6th , 2015 saw the daring deed of pitting Grandma against Grandma. In this “Generational Throwdown” shortbreads from each of Sue-Ann’s Grandmothers were tasted with discerning customers, neighbours, family and bloggers.
Of course, in any family debate, there can be no winners. However, a slim majority (60% of the votes) favoured the “Traditional Blue” recipe of Lu Staff, Sue-Ann’s paternal grandmother. The award? Bragging rights only.
Obviously, admires of Edith Burrows’ (Sue-Ann’s maternal grandmother) Savoury Cocktail Shortbread are devastated in their defeat. Their originality in flavour, ingredients and texture cannot be discounted.
Voting may have been rigged due to the popularity of the 2014 Riesling Loved By Lu. Brix was not present for the vote count hence the results are not “Brix Approved”. In point of fact, Brix is immensely dismayed that he wasn’t even given a sample of either shortbreads nor wine pairings.
Mark December 3 & 4, 2016 for an expanded “Shortbread Showdown” at Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery. The winery hopes to include entries from local bakeries, shortbread aficionados and local home bakers.
Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery, also home of the “Fancy Farm Girl”, is a premium winery in Jordan, ON, Canada on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment. It is the ultimate assemblage blending over 100 years of family grape growing experience with Sue-Ann’s international winemaking acclaim. Clay soil with limestone rock beneath provides wine with intensity, minerality and longevity. The onsite retail store is open daily on the 200 year old family estate.
Contact:
Sue-Ann Staff
Proprietor / Winemaker, Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery Inc.
sue-ann@sue-annstaff.com or 905-562-1719
@TodayMagazine Sue-Ann Staff will be featured in Shopping issue. Winemaker & owner of Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery.
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