Cheapflights.ca Toasts the Harvest Season With a List of Top 10 Wine Regions in North America

TORONTO–(Marketwire – October 5, 2010) –  As the wine harvest season is upon us here in the Northern Hemisphere, Cheapflights.ca, the online leader in finding and publishing travel deals, celebrates this festive time of year with its list of Top 10 Wine Regions in North America. Wine enthusiasts can travel to these vineyards where many festivals and events take place to honour this annual grape harvest tradition.

Also in time for autumn wine season, Cheapflights.ca has launched an Airports Wine Guide highlighting local wines served and sold at airports across Canada and various U.S. airports popular with Canadians. For instance, all of Toronto Pearson’s licensed premises serve local Ontario wine. This includes VQA Niagara Peninsula wines: Jackson-Triggs, Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Inniskillin, Mike Weir Estates and Pelee products are also available. At the Kelowna Airport in BC, the Okanagan Estate Wine Cellar holds regular wine tastings and travellers can take with them some of the finest wines of the region. Up to 12 bottles can be purchased and up to two cases of wine (6 bottles in each case) as carry-on for flights within Canada or two bottles on flights to the US (duty free). The complete Cheapflights.ca Airports Wine Guide is available at www.cheapflights.ca/promos/airport-wine-guide/

August, September and October are the prime time for the annual grape harvest for most wineries in North America and Europe. So for those whose taste for exploration applies to their palate as well as their passport, below are five destinations from Cheapflights.ca’s Top 10 Wine Regions in North America where harvest time is taking place over the next couple of months.

• British Columbia — Beautiful British Columbia has several wine-producing regions — the Okanagan Valley, Similkameen Valley, Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. There are more than 700 BC wineries and independent growers, many of the vineyards open to visitors. The top varietals are the Cabernets (Franc and Sauvignon), Chardonnay, Merlot, the Pinots (Blanc, Gris and Noir) and Syrah. BC’s Icewine, exquisite wine made from grapes frozen on the vine, is justifiably world-renowned. Search and compare cheap flights to British Columbia.

• Ontario — Ontario has four appellations: Lake Erie North Shore, Niagara Peninsula, Pelee Island and Prince Edward County. This year is shaping up to be one of the best ever on the Niagara Peninsula. The perfect summer conditions have conspired to create a vintage that could be better than 2007. Our votes for top wineries of Ontario are: Inniskillin, Le Clos Jordanne, Jackson-Triggs, Stratus, Tawse and Fielding. Search and compare cheap flights to Ontario.
   
• Quebec — The climate in Quebec means there is a short-growing season and wine growers have cultivated grape varietals that can stand up to the below-zero winter temperatures. Whites, reds and roses are joined by late-harvest and ice wines. There are seven wine-growing regions north and south of the St. Lawrence River — Montérégie, Eastern Townships, Centre of Québec, Québec, Basses Laurentides, Lanaudière and more recently Bas-Saint-Laurent. The most important vineyards are Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise and L’Orpailleur, close to Dunham, the centre of Quebec’s wine production. Search and compare cheap flights to Quebec.

• California (Napa and Sonoma Valleys) — It’s almost three-quarters the size of France and produces nearly 90 per cent of the US’s wine. The North Coast encompasses the wine regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma County, the Central Coast Santa Clara Valley, Santa Cruz Mountains, San Lucas and Santa Maria Valley, on the South Coast Temecula Valley, Antelope Valley/Leona Valley and Ramona Valley. Californian wines — Cabernet Sauvignons, Chardonnays, Merlots and Syrahs — are known by their big, fruity flavours and their pleasingly high alcohol content… Search and compare cheap flights to California.

• Washington State — The Cascades run down Washington State. On the West is the Puget Sound wine region, where 1 per cent of the state’s wine grapes are grown. The East has the lion’s share (99 per cent). The Columbia Valley appellation covers about a third of Washington and takes in a little of Northern Oregon too. The wines of Washington reflect the state’s unique terroir, producing delicious chardonnays, rieslings, merlots, cabernet sauvignons and syrahs. Search and compare cheap flights to Washington State.

Other destinations to make Cheapflights.ca’s Top 10 Wine Regions in North America:

• Nova Scotia — This year marks the 300th anniversary celebration of grape growing in Nova Scotia;

• New Brunswick — Winegarden Estate makes New Brunswick’s first commercial grape wine;

• Texas — October is Texas Wine Month with a slew of activities and events;

• New York State — This region is ranked third in the US after California and Washington for wine production;

• Oregon — Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris are the top grapes, and Chardonnay, Merlot and Riesling round out the top five.

For more details on the above destinations to make Cheapflights.ca’s Top 10 List of Wine Regions in North America, visit www.cheapflights.ca/travel-tips/top-ten-wine-regions-in-north-america/. Cheapflights.ca’s has also created a global list featuring the Top 10 Wine Regions Around the World, which features popular vineyards in Europe where the harvest is also taking place now, as well as vineyards in South America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa where the harvest season runs from February to April.

About Cheapflights Media
Cheapflights Media is an international media network providing users with different ways to find low cost travel. Since 1996, Cheapflights Media has been helping consumers research, compare and save on domestic and international travel. Our flagship brand, Cheapflights, is one of the largest flight deals publishers, delivering over 4 million deals daily. With brand-name deals on airline tickets from more than 300 partners and 600 airlines and a team of travel experts hand picking the best offerings, Cheapflights offers visitors a mix of deals they can’t find anywhere else. zugu, the newest brand in the Cheapflights Media portfolio, is a powerful and simple travel search engine that makes it easy to compare and select the lowest available fares online. By organizing flight options by date, airline and time, zugu helps consumers find the best fares based on their travel terms. There are currently Cheapflights-branded sites for the U.K., U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia & New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain. zugu is available in the U.K., U.S. and Germany. For more information, visit www.cheapflights.ca.

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