Jump on the Magic Wine Bus in Wolfville and Sip the Fine Wines of Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is a wine destination. I never, ever thought I’d be writing about Canadian wine but this province has all that they need to become a world class place to taste wine and their farmers are growing more and more vines instead of the traditional crops like apples and fruit.

Colleen at Gaspareau Vineyards told us about the exciting teamwork that’s built up a whole wine tourism business in the Annapolis Valley.  As more and more vineyards have opened, the opportunities to grow all together becomes better.

Like the way a town such as Northampton does well because there are so many restaurants, each new vineyard adds to the itinerary of wine lovers who drive through the pretty countryside following the blue signs to find the next winery.  Some like Domaine Grande Pre, have been making wines for decades, others like Luckett Vineyards only opened a few years ago.

Gaspareau’s rose wine was perfectly dry and a great way for Mary, a red lover, and me, a white prefer-er, to meet in the middle. There are now 16 wineries in this region in the north of Nova Scotia, and it’s likely there will be even more in the years ahead.  So why can’t we buy these wines made with the L’Acadie grapes and others in the US?  Blame it on the byzantine regulations that the government places on wine makers.  They have trouble just shipping wine even to other parts of Canada, but out of the country? No way.

So the only way to sip their wine is to come up here and enjoy it poured by knowledgable staff like Colleen, who poured every one of Gaspereau’s wines for free. At Luckett Vineyards they charge $7 for a generous flight of tasting. There is a service called the Magic Wine Bus Wine that will shuttle sippers to four of the wineries near Wolfville for $20. You can get on and off and if you want to stay at one winery  you can wait til the next one comes. Brillant!