Winery Events!

-Mondays and Fridays, Vineyard BBQ Nights! 6pm to sunset

-Dinner and a Movie! Saturday Aug. 14th under the stars!

-Progressive Vineyard Dinner! Saturday Sept. 11th!

New Releases!

-08 Riesling

-08 Cab Franc Rose

-09 Chardonnay Musque

September – 09 York Road (our new blended, house white!)

September – 09 Gewurtz!

Off Site Food & Wine Events!

July 26 – Tasting at the Drake, Toronto www.thedrakehotel.ca

July 28 – Tasting at Provenance Regional Cuisine, Toronto www.provenancecuisine.ca

Aug. 21 – Passion, supporting the Rotary Club of Niagara on the Lake www.niagarapassion.com

Aug. 27 – Mayor’s Au Marche supporting the St. Catharines Youth Fund, St. Catharines www.niagaracommunityfoundation.org

Sept. 21 – Taste Ontario! Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto www.lcbo.com

October – Harvest Event @ Eigensinn Farm (more details to come!)

Experience Southern Style BBQ overlooking the vineyard! This isn’t your typical hamburgers and sausage on a bun. Hang out on the Ravine porch with friends, watch the sun set and enjoy ribs, brisket, pulled pork, half chicken, gourmet sides and desserts and Ravines fantastic wines! Don’t worry if the weather isn’t cooperating, Ravine also has indoor seating and a heated, enclosed porch with a great view of the vineyard.  A great way to start your weekend! Join us Mondays and Fridays 5:30pm to sunset throughout the summer! We look forward to seeing you. No reservations necessary.

$35 Prix Fixe Menu

Includes your choice of appetizer, entree and dessert

Or order a la carte

APPETIZERS

Ontario Asparagus Pizzetta

Forest Mushroom/Thornly Dairy Pecorino Cheese $12

Gummi’s Organic Salad

Ravine Garden Leaves/Toasted Hazelnuts/Dried Tomatoes $10

Pingue Bresaola and Arugula Salad

Seasoned Air Dried Beef/Niagara Ice Syrup/Shaved Bellavitano Cheese/Rocket $15

ENTREE’S

All Southern-Style BBQ entrees come served with Ravine Baked Beans, Country Coleslaw

and Jalapeno Corn Bread.

BBQ’d Pulled Pork

Poppy Seed Kaiser Bun/P.H. BBQ Sauce $22

Grilled ½ Chicken

Seasoned Slow Roasted $30

½ Rack Pork Ribs

Smoked Back Ribs $26

BBQ Beef Ribs

Garlic Rubbed Beef Ribs $29

Vegetarian Market Grill

Created upon request $22

DESSERTS

Field Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

House Made Vanilla Bean Ice Cream $8

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Niagara Cherry Pink Peppercorn Compote $8

Sharing Supplement Charge $6

Please inform your server of any dietary restrictions or allergies upon ordering.

06 Merlot – Less than 15 cases left!

07 Merlot – Our favourite Red will be gone before September. Don’t miss out!

08 Reserve Chardonnay – Less than 30 cases left!

Available on-line in quantities of 6 or 12 or stop by the winery.

Don’t miss out!

2008 Riesling – $28 750ml
“I’ve been following the evolution of this wonderful, small-batch St. Davids Riesling as it has developed, slowly, in the bottle. This is always a fascinating wine with 20% of the fruit botrytised and then made in a sussreserve style. The end result is an even better effort then the 2007 Riesling. Peach, wild honey, grapefruit and lime combine with gorgeous minerality and zingy acidity. It’s a balanced wine, low in alcohol, that comes in layers. Heady stuff. Only 300 cases made.” 4.5 stars -Rick Vansickle, St. Catharines Standard April 2010

2008 Cab Franc Rose – $17.95 750ml
A serious French style Rose. Bone dry and very food friendly. The perfect summer sipper and BBQ companion.

2009 Chardonnay Musque – $14.00 375ml
This fun little wine comes in a 375ml bottle and is not only our first ever screw cap wine and first half-bottle offering; but also our first effort with our estate-grown Musque! With a slight spritz and a veritable tropical fruit salad bouquet, this wine has quickly become a summer favourite on the porches of the Packing Shed.

Stop by the tasting room or order on-line!

The Ravine Merlot vineyard saga has been interesting to witness. The grapes’ development on the vine was slow and stressed this year, Merlot being one of the most climatically sensitive varieties. The berries were abnormally small, with some troublesome tiny dried berries in the clusters, but the sugar and flavour concentrations of the best berries were sensational. Expecting a lower yield than in past vintages, harvest began Sunday and continued with the favourable weather until Monday afternoon. To ensure that only the finest berries would proceed into our flagship wine, the Ravine winemaking team put together perhaps the industry’s most meticulous berry sorting system. Small boxes of handpicked bunches were first toppled onto a vibrating reception/distribution table to begin the process of removing any small twigs, bugs, leaves or stems (these are collectively known in the fine wine industry as “MOG” – - ‘matter other than grapes’).

From there the bunches proceed to make a first pass across a long vibrating sorting table, where a team of four sort everything to remove dried or damaged bunches or berries. The bunches continue up a stainless steel ‘giraffe’ elevator to the de-stemmer. For these Merlot, Ravine is giving Southbrook Vineyards’ new state-of-the-art de-stemmer a serious try-out. Imported last year through a collaboration between Ravine winemaker, Peter Gamble, and his wife, Southbrook winemaker Ann Sperling, this unit was the first of its kind in North America. A brand new concept from Tuscany – with not one single moving part the same as traditional de-stemmers – it has proven to be sensationally thorough and extremely delicate on the grapes. For top-end winemaking, it’s quite incredible!

After de-stemming, the berries proceed across a third vibrating sorting table where another team of four remove any individual berries that are not deemed to be perfect – whether drier, ’sunburned’, scarred or slightly less ripe. A final team of two complete this meticulous process with an additional hand sort as the berries collect in the tote, ready for transfer to the fermenter.

Highly respected winemaking compatriot, Thomas Bachelder from Le Clos Jordanne, brought his entire winemaking team down to witness the process and, frankly, thought we we were slightly crazy! He might be right – it took two full days to sort through only 3 1/2 tonnes!

With the reputation of Ravine’s Merlot as stellar as it is, Shauna White, our passionate associate winemaker overseeing the processing activity, wants to be absolutely sure that the ‘09 will stand out! In a year when excellent winemaking will be paramount, the extra effort on the crush pad and in the cellar may just make the critical difference.