Posts Written ByBryan Calandrelli

Black Willow Joins the Niagara Wine Trail

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor I recently made my first visit to the region's newest winery, Black Willow Winery, in Burt. The tasting room for is housed in a newly renovated barn that sits right on Lake Road (Rt. 18) less than a mile from the southern shore of Lake Ontario. There isn't an adjacent vineyard yet, but with all the orchards surrounding the property, it has the quaint rural feel that you associate with wine country. Once inside, I was immediately impressed with the crisp and delicate nature of the whites. With grapes sourced from Cayuga Lake, the…

Niagara Restaurant of the Year: Carmelo’s Restaurant

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor I’d love to say that deciding Niagara’s Restaurant of the Year was a difficult one, involving dozens of meals and a few days of intense deliberation. In reality it was the opposite. Carmelo’s Restaurant in historic Lewiston wins hands down in Niagara Wine Country, USA – and it would be hard not to declare it restaurant of the year in Western New York in general. The fact is there’s no other restaurant that comes close in matching the effort chef Carmelo Raimondi makes towards sourcing local ingredients and local wines. The result is an…