With Revolving Axis you can expect service excellence accompanied by a deep knowledge of wine and Prince Edward County
About Revolving Axis.
We pay attention to every detail from the moment we first connect with you right through until we drop you off at the end of your wine tour. We are going to curate, design and host a wine tour that caters to your appreciation of both wine and Prince Edward County, and shows you the passion behind the wines that are being made here. We’ll show you behind the scenes of winemaking and grape growing in the County. During your tasting we’ll guide you through selecting wines to taste that will align with your preferences, but also challenge you to explore new wine horizons. If you want something to eat during your tour, rest assured it will be freshly assembled the morning of your tour with the best and freshest ingredients (and vegetables from our gardens when in season), and may even include something freshly baked.
We are fully licensed and insured to operate wine tours in Prince Edward County. Regardless of who you choose for your wine tour, be sure to verify this before you book. We are currently partnered with over 20 wineries and cider houses in Prince Edward County, and thus able to provide you with a unique wine tour experience that aligns with your tastes and preferences. No two tours that we provide are alike. We receive no financial compensation from our partners for our client visits. Our partners have been selected on the basis that they serve quality wines and the experience they offer represents the best of Prince Edward County.
About your host.
Dave Williamson is the owner and proprietor of Revolving Axis (and your wine tour and seminar host). He permanently moved to the County from Ottawa in 2022 after retiring from a 4 decades long career in the Software Industry. Dave has been following winemaking in the County since 2004, and since 2016 he has spent a significant amount of time here (going back and forth from Ottawa). Throughout his professional career, he was dedicated to customer success and satisfaction. This skill and experience carries through to the service provided by Revolving Axis.
Wine has long been his passion, study and hobby, and has paired with his desire to travel around the globe and continue learning about new places, cultures, history and food. His work and personal travel have taken him to every continent and his wine journey has followed his travels. He has visited and learned from wineries, winemakers, vineyards and wine regions in France, Italy, Spain/Canary Islands, Portugal/Madeira/The Azores, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Australia, New Zealand, and the US (and Canada of course). All of this has fed his keen interest and support for the development and growth of the Canadian wine industry, and of Prince Edward County winemaking.
Dave was a long time member of the National Capital Sommelier Guild in Ottawa. He has been collecting wines for decades, and has an extensive personal cellar of international and Canadian wines (including a comprehensive library of County wines). He is well read about the history of wine and wine production, has attended numerous wine industry events, and keenly watched the progression and advancement of the Canadian wine industry over the last 25-30 years. Dave is a double century club qualifier for wine tasting (having tasted over 200 wine single varietals during his wine journey). Between winery visits, wine events and personal consumption, he typically tastes over 1,000 unique wines annually.
Dave loves to cook and is always searching out wines to pair with his kitchen creations.
Affiliations.
Revolving Axis is directly affiliated with Heron’s Hollow Airbnb studio apartment, and guests will have the convenience of leaving directly from where they are staying to commence their tour. Guests of Heron’s Hollow will receive a 20% discount from our listed prices for wine tours with Revolving Axis.
About Prince Edward County.
Overview.
The County is the big piece of land (technically an island due to a manmade canal) that sticks out into the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Reachable in less than a half day drive from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Currently home to about 25,000, this is unceded traditional territory of the Anishnaabeg, Wendat and Haudenosaunee peoples that have been present here for thousands of years.
The County was an early colonial settlement and key military outpost for the Loyalists subsequent to the end of the American Revolution in the late 1700s. Our towns and villages are rich in the architecture brought here by the Loyalists. The County is named after Queen Victoria’s father (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent).
By the 1830s the County population had grown to over 10,000 from indigenous, English, Irish, Dutch and German descent.
Agriculture is at the core of the County’s history. We have evidence that indigenous peoples farmed corn, beans and squash (the 3 sisters) here over a thousand years ago. Just over 100 years ago, 1/3 of Canada’s canned goods came from here and the County was home to 75 canneries. In the late 1800s the County was a major supplier of barley to the United States. And we have a rich history of cheese making back to the 1800s when there were over 30 cheese factories here.
Prohibition made the County an optimal location for alcohol smuggling to the US for about a decade in the early 1900s.
The County has over 500km of Lake Ontario shoreline, and at its core is big slab of Canadian Shield limestone covered in a very thin layer of soils (essentially what was left behind after the glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age). The weather here can be unpredictable given the influence of one of the largest Great Lakes. But this is the second driest county in all of Ontario. Our winters can be milder, or hit by a deep freeze approaching -30C. Our summers can see both drought and humidity with temperatures reaching over 30C. It is often windy here, especially near the lake. In mid summer you might need a sweater down by the lake in Wellington and be overheated in shorts and a t-shirt cycling along Closson Road outside of Hillier (barely 10km apart).
Culture and Tourism.
We’re pretty easy going and chilled here and not running at city pace. Things here do run on County time so prepare to wind it down a bit when you visit us. Our villages and towns are quaint, small and a great places to stroll around, do a little shopping, visit a gallery or two, and enjoy some great local food and drink. Historically this is an agricultural area and today tourism and agriculture are deeply intertwined with local farms, wineries, cider houses, breweries, distilleries and restaurants all connected in a supply ecosystem.
The County has been a tourist destination for two centuries. Sandbanks has long been an attraction for the sandy beaches and dunes, and some of the best swimming waters on Lake Ontario due to its sheltered location and warm water. Sandbanks Provincial Park is the most sought after camping location in the province. We’re a thriving community of wineries, cider houses, distilleries, craft breweries, farm to table restaurants, the arts, art galleries, theatre, all of the activities at Base 31, and so much more. Lots of rolling hills and country roads to cycle on, and the Millennial Trail.
But agriculture is still at the core of the County’s backbone, and grape growing has become an integral part of farming here.
About The County and Wine.
Grape Growing.
Grapes have been grown here on and off for a long time. By the indigenous peoples, and by farm workers in the 1800’s to produce their own wine. But commercial vineyards first really started to appear in the 1990’s. So the County is a wine infant in commercial wine production with the first wines only about 1/4 century old. Many talk about Bourgogne (Burgundy) and The County in the same breath. Yes both have a limestone bedrock, sit at a similar latitude, and have a similar growing season. And both can produce some pretty tasty Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. But that’s kind of where the similarity ends. We are approaching 50 vineyards, and almost 30 wineries in the County - most of which are small boutique and family run. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are our signature grapes. But our vineyards are also home to about 20 other grape varieties including Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Viognier, Frontenac Gris, Frontenac Blanc, Melon de Bourgogne, Vidal, Gruner Veltliner, Chenin Blanc, Pecorino, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Gamay, Baco Noir, Marquette, Frontenac, St. Laurent, Tempranillo, Carménère and others. Being a young wine region we are still experimenting and learning about what works here (and what doesn’t). When you visit us you can taste that evolution and decide for yourself.
Wine Production.
The County became an Ontario VQA appellation in 2007. This is a cool climate wine region and a difficult place to make wine (from our travels to vineyards around the world we know that making wine is at its core farming, so really not easy anywhere). In the County, it can get so cold in winter that the vines of European varieties (vitis vinifera) must be buried, or covered in geotextile fabrics to survive. The County has been on the bleeding edge of harsh winter wine viticulture since the beginning. Many will say that winemakers in Ontario are as well prepared for climate change as anywhere in the world because they’ve been fighting adversity from the start. Hybrid varieties have been developed for this climate at the University of Minnesota and Cornell University, and survive it naturally without protection. There are a number of hybrids in various states of trial and/or maturity with several wineries across the County.
The yields here are small in comparison to almost anywhere else. In a good year, growers here will produce less than 1/3 of optimal Bourgogne Grand Cru tonnage. As a result the winemaking here is vigilant and focused. Our summers can be warm, dry and humid, but Lake Ontario keeps the nights cool and the acids in the grapes high. We have an almost perfect growing season for optimally ripening Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The rocky limestone and clay loam soils hold the heat and moisture to keep the grapes ripening through our growing season. We have many microclimates in the County, and the vineyards across the County reflect that in the wines produced. For the most part our growers and producers are families that are passionate about what they’re doing. Revolving Axis aims to show you that passion to you when you visit.
“The challenges of winegrowing in this marginal area have stretched patience and pocketbooks since the first grapevines were planted in the mid-1990s. Growers have faced known unknowns — and unknown unknowns — as abundant as anywhere I’ve seen on the planet. But the patent quality of a recent lineup of wines tasted at WineAlign headquarters vindicates the Quixotic folly of the early pioneers and reflects a maturing industry growing in confidence and competence. It now appears sufficient wineries have moved beyond the beginner stage to collectively produce a critical mass of quality wines, enough to put PEC firmly on the map of established regions in Canada.” - John Szabo, WineAlign April 2023
“Prince Edward County has always been a paradox, a tiny wine collective that farms grapes at great cost in an inhospitable climate yet, more often than not, delivers magical results. Chasing that magic in the form of soulful wines such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is just too big a draw for adventurous vignerons who call the bucolic wine region of Prince Edward County home. The work is hard, the climate can be cruel and vineyards, what little there are compared to Niagara, need a lot of love to keep them from freezing to death each winter. It’s not about the glitz and glamour in The County, there is little of that, it’s about bare-knuckle farming on the edges, passion, and a living that’s as honest and rewarding as it can be difficult.” - Rick VanSickle - Wines In Niagara October 2023