Harvest Time on the Brome-Missisquoi Wine Tour

By Doug & Morri

It’s the perfect end to a perfect day. Under a canopy of grapevines on the terrace of the Orpailleur vineyard in Dunham, we toast the start of the grape harvest with sparkling champagne: Orpailleur Brut de Brut. Only 5,000 bottles of this Intervin International 2002 gold-medal winner are produced each year, so we grab a few for ourselves ($25/bottle) at the vineyard’s boutique, the best place to pick up l’Orpailleur’s nine other superb wines including its award-winning ice wine.

The Vignoble de l’Orpailleur is one of 11 vineyards on the official Brome-Missisquoi Wine Route, whose blue Route des Vins road signs with stylized grapes lead you along a scenic 132-km loop through charming hamlets; by apple orchards and cidreries, corn fields and market gardens; and to the largest concentration of vineyards in Quebec, several nestled just outside the picturesque Loyalist town of Dunham.

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We tour l’Orpailleur’s impressive facilities with Charles-Henri de Coussergues, an affable Frenchman and son of French vintners. He arrived in Quebec on a lark more than 20 years ago and ended up as one of four partners in what now is a major tourist destination. Its guided vineyard tours, lectures, wine museum, wine tasting, boutique and gourmet restaurant, Le Tire-bouchon (the corkscrew), keep the place bustling from mid-April to New Year’s Eve. Like everyone we meet on our day-long tour, de Coussergues is passionate about his business and committed to continually improving his award-winning vintages.

Up the road at Cidrerie Fleurs de Pommiers, owner Hélène Levasseur and her cider master Marie-Andrée Tremblay, the first woman maître de chais in Quebec, enthusiastically explain the nuances in taste of their six different ciders as we happily sip along. We learn that the Cuvée de la Pommeraye ($12.95), a bubbly, dry cider, is perfect with white meat, crêpes and fish, while the delicate, berry-flavoured Cuvée de Noël ($14.95) can be served as an aperitif or with cheese cake. These are nothing like your common variety ciders. These are aged, like fine wine, in oak casks, with alcohol contents ranging from 6% to 9%. The Pommeau d’Or ($19.95), with 16.5% alcohol, is what Mme Levasseur dubs their “fire cider” because its sweetness is concentrated over wood-fired heat. This fortified apple liqueur has won five international medals. The day we visit, their roadside stand is overflowing with freshly picked Lobos, Spartans and Macs; the shelves stocked with delicious cider vinegar (Pick up their cider recipe book for $2), and a mouth-watering selection of marinades, jams, jellies and pâtés. Mme Levasseur uses her own apples, local berries and other produce to make these produits du terroir (regional food specialties).

Our next stop is Domaine de la Chevrottière, an ideal spot for a family farm outing. Owners Monique Bouchard and Gilles Vennes have opened their 50-acre farm, complete with hiking trails, to the public for free. Families are invited to picnic on the lawn, pet the miniature horses and goats, the llama, donkey and friendly herd of long-eared Nubian goats. Mme Bouchard uses rich goat’s milk as the base for handcrafted soaps and creams she sells at her stand. She also offers her wild honey, homemade sausages, pâtes, terrines and goat meat. In March and April, families can help the couple harness up a big Belgian horse to collect maple sap, which they boil down into maple syrup in their traditional sugar shack. (Call to reserve.)

In nearby Brigham, you and the kids can get up close and personal with lamas, yaks, wild boar, emus, Sika deer, bighorn sheep and a Texas Longhorn at Vignoble de la Bauge, where vintner Simon Naud also runs a grape research program. For a modest $7.00 ($3.50/child), you can enjoy an hour-long guided tour in a tractor-drawn covered wagon, learn all about the different grape varieties, and visit the farm’s exotic animals and birds. The fee also includes a sampling of the vineyard’s seven wines, its boar terrine and red deer sausage, all produced on this extended family’s 350-acre property. La Bauge offers several tourist packages: a two-day watercolour workshop in August, and a full-day harvest package in September and October where you pick the grapes, press them and bottle your own special vintage, which you can pick up the following spring.

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In keeping with the artistic flair of the Route des Vins, Quebec artists have erected huge, fanciful sculptures among the animal enclosures at La Bauge. Art is also a major attraction at Vignoble Domaine Côtes d’Ardoises, in Dunham, where you can wander the gardens and vineyards to enjoy strategically placed sculptures by 18 Quebec artists. (The current “Nature and Creation” exhibit ends October 17.) Thanksgiving is the final weekend for a self-drive tour of 20 local art studios. Meet the artists, watch them work, discuss their techniques … maybe even commission a custom work. La Tournée des 20 represents a wide range of art styles, in drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass, jewelry and mixed media.

Historic Dunham, dominated by Le Relais de la Diligence, a reconstructed Stagecoach Stopover, is the perfect place to lunch and shop. Inside, Le Bistro Seely offers a gourmet lunch menu in its elegant dining room, sheltered terrace and comfy smoking-room bar. La Rumeur Affamée bakery overflows with flaky croissants, brioches and specialty breads – their cranberry-chocolate loaf is a our favourite for breakfast or afternoon tea. Across the hall, the Hansel & Gretel chocolate shop beckons with chocolate-covered wine jellies and hand-dipped Belgian chocolates.

“Dunham was the first county created in Lower Canada, in 1797,” explains Suzanne Dubé, a co-owner of Au Fil du Temps, the antique shop across from Le Relais. So passionate is Dubé about the town’s history that she guides horse-drawn wagon tours, known as the Circuit patrimonial, every weekend from July to Thanksgiving ($5/person).

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