Afternoon in the Vineyard

Con pan y vino se anda el camino.

[With bread and wine you can walk your road].

Spanish Proverb

Out among the vines of pinot gris and baco noir grapes the Time Traveller and I enjoyed a personalized tour of the wonders of wine-making with the owner of Calamus Estate Winery. Each winery has its own story and each wine carries its own characteristics, literally drawn up from the soil through the plants' deep roots and mixed with wind and sun to produce its own "terrior".

Here, on land that decades ago hosted diary cattle and their feed crops, a Toronto broadcaster and his wife established 22 acres of vines with production and retail facilities housed in the property's two old barns. Centuries before, Indians wondered the land leaving behind stone tools and chert arrowheads. Linking the present to the past, Derek Saunders and Pat Latin called their winery "Calamus" which is the Latin word for 'arrow'.

Inside the rustic little barn that dates back to 1888 we sampled Calamus' 2011 Pinot Gris, truthfully described as "dangerously easy to drink". After sampling a few other 'vintages' we departed with a couple of bottles on the back seat and a smile on our faces.