Upper Bench Estate Winery

Great blue cheese — I really recommend buying yourself a wedge of the King Cole blue and some crackers and then breaking it out for a picnic later in the day. This blue cheese is definitely best when it’s closer to room temperature, rather than straight out of the fridge so don’t worry about not having an ice pack with you!
There are two very friendly dogs on the property. If you’re a dog lover look for them around back and toss a ball for them.
Wine wasn’t particularly special on its own — but I imagine I would have enjoyed doing the wine + cheese pairing flight they offer!

I really enjoyed that this place differentiates itself from other wineries by offering cheese pairings with their own cheeses.
They make the wine tasting seem so much less about day drinking, and much more about the whole experience of tasting things.
Smitten by their cheese, we ordered a picnic basket to go — it came with lots of different cheese, crackers, and other cute accouterments like dried cherries.
The only issue I had with this winery, is that they have a BEAUTIFUL patio, but it doesn’t have a full roof — so if it is raining you cannot be outside without getting soaked. We had our dog with us, so it made our tasting rather difficult to not be able to be outside.

I was really hoping for cheese. All week long I’d been hearing how great the cheese and wine pairing are and how the cheese makes it worth going. So on our last stop leaving the Bench, we veer off course down a road facing away from the lake, and pull into an ample, quiet parking lot.
Inside the tasting room, the air is full of that moldy delicious aroma of cheese. I can feel the saliva starting to form in the back of my mouth. I’m ready for a full cheese assault. Except for one thing — they’re running out of a cheese to sample as the weekend approaches and so there’s none open for us to try. And so, slightly disappointed, we dig into a wine tasting instead.
Tastings include 4 choices of the 7 varietals. Together, Peter S and I made a decision to sample them all, in succession, sharing a glass between us. This was a little confusing for our hosts whose system worked like this: choose your 4. We’ll figure out which order you should drink them in. We explained to the attendant we wanted to try each (and then double up on the one we liked the most), but after the first sip, a steady stream of folks came in, and between that, a new person being trained, and the trainer wearing too many hats, well the two of us were kind of forgotten, lost in a sans-​cheesy haze. So much so, that they took our wine glass away before we’d had our last tasting.
A little shocked at the abruptness of the whole thing, we made our buying decision quickly. The one bottle that stood out, the Pinot Blanc, really spectacular. And then, we were out of there, sensing this place just was not our jam. In comparison to the level of service we received at so many other wineries along this side of the lake, this one went down as my least favourite tasting experience on the bench.