After researching a number of different wine tours in the Niagara area, I decided to book with Grape and Wine Tours, despite the fact that I could find absolutely no reviews online, because the office staff were very quick to reply to my email inquiry, very friendly, and very accommodating. The tour did not live up to those initial interactions.
Where to start... Three of us (myself and my boyfriend, both in our thirties, and my mother) booked a full day tour with lunch (for my birthday!). We were picked up precisely on time, so that's a positive thing. However, the fellow who picked us up seemed sort of flustered and told us that he wasn't a guide but that he was filling in because our guide didn't show up for work. I'm sure that was the truth, but telling us meant that we knew that he wasn't a guide and had to assume that he did not have the knowledge to do the tour properly. It also made the business sound like it was run by flaky teenagers. Neither idea inspired confidence.
Our first stop was not far away from our hotel. Happily, while we were touring that first winery, someone found us an actual guide to take over from the first fella. I use the term "guide" loosely here; it would be more accurate to refer to him as our "driver". He was perfectly pleasant but had no knowledge about or passion for wine, and didn't offer much in the way of information or actual guidance. I wasn't shocked by this, as I know this can happen with tours like this, but it was a bit disappointing all the same.
Other issues: Prior to booking the tour I spoke with the office person about my need for a gluten-free meal. She assured me that this was not an issue and that they would simply let the restaurant know ahead of time. They didn't. It worked out fine because the server at the restaurant had it together and was very helpful, but, with a fixed menu, it could easily have gone poorly. Points off for the tour company.
Also prior to booking, I had a back and forth about which wineries the tour visited. We really really were not interested in visiting four big, soulless wineries. We're much more interested in small, quirky places. I researched a few tour companies and pretty much all of them said the same thing: they visit one large winery, one medium sized winery, and two smaller wineries. Which we were willing to accept.
But one of the things that swayed my decision to book with this company was that the office person told me that we could put in a request to visit this one particular winery that I was interested in. Sold! Of course, that visit didn't happen. I recognize that on a tour I can't make all the decisions, and I was sacrificing the autonomy to choose for the ease of having someone else drive us around. But I booked with this company in part because they told me we could visit this winery, and we didn't. Not only did we not visit that winery, but we drove past it. Twice. And the driver offered no explanation for why we weren't visiting. Just ignored it as an option. Colour me annoyed.
What made that exclusion sting even more was the fact that the very last "winery" we visited was terrible. Completely terrible. It's a big huge winery, but not even one of the beautiful big wineries. Visiting the large scale wineries can be nice because they're so very lovely. Not so with this one, which seemed like sort of a clearinghouse of wineries - they carried four different wine labels at the 'boutique', all of which are available at the LCBO. Nothing special about that at all. And the physical space was just unattractive. There was a giant building in which the wine is made, which looked like any industrial factory from the outside (we didn't go in). And the store/tasting room was in... a portable? I think that's the only word for that sort of structure. They were clearly still constructing a more permanent building. I say 'clearly' because you couldn't miss the noise and the smell of sawdust was prominent. And, as I said, the wine was terrible. This really isn't subjective. My boyfriend works in a restaurant where they used the main label on offer here as their cooking wine. Nothing interesting, pretty, or compelling about this place at all. I know that the tour company doesn't control the behaviour of the wineries we visit, but they did make a decision to take us here, and I fault them for that. The place I wanted to visit was less than five minutes away, which made visiting this one feel all the more like rubbing salt in a wound.
I'm not saying Grape and Wine Tours are a terrible company. Certainly not. They were prompt, pleasant, and the tour group was small (just my group and one other couple). But unprofessional, fully mediocre, and not able to keep promises? Yup. For sure. And since pretty much all the tour companies in the area offer variations on the same day or half day tours for the same price (90-100$), I think you could do better for your money.
And for those who are interested, the wineries we visited were: the Niagara College Teaching Winery (which did a fantastic tour and tasting!), Reif Estates, Caroline Cellars, and 20 Bees. We had lunch at the Old Winery Restaurant, which had a lovely patio, good food, and good service.