California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
Philip the Good
Philip the Good was Duke of Burgundy as Philip III from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a cadet line of the Valois dynasty, to which all the 15th-century kings of France belonged. During his reign, Burgundy reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige and became a leading center of the arts. Philip is known in history for his administrative reforms, his patronage of Flemish artists such as Jan van Eyck and Franco-Flemish composers such as Gilles Binchois, the capture of Joan of Arc. In political affairs, he alternated between alliances with the English and the French in an attempt to improve his dynasty's position; as ruler of Flanders, Limburg, Hainaut, Zeeland and Namur, he played an important role in the history of the Low Countries. Born in 1396 in Dijon, Philip was the son of Margaret of Bavaria, his father succeeded Philip's grandfather Philip the Bold as Duke of Burgundy in 1404. On 28 January 1405, Philip was named Count of Charolais in appanage of the duke and became engaged on the same day, at the age of 8, to Michelle of Valois, a daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria.
They were married in June 1409. After Michelle's death in 1422, Philip married Bonne of Artois, a daughter of Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, the widow of his uncle, Philip II, Count of Nevers, in Moulins-les-Engelbert on 30 November 1424. Bonne of Artois is sometimes confused with Philip's biological aunt named Bonne, in part due to the papal dispensation required for the marriage, which made no distinction between a marital aunt and a biological aunt. Bonne of Artois lived only a year. Philip was married for a third time to Isabella of Portugal, a daughter of John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, in Bruges on 7 January 1430; this marriage produced three sons: Count of Charolais. Corneille and Anthony were his favorite bastard sons and successively bore the title Grand bâtard de Bourgogne. Philip became duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders and Franche-Comté upon the assassination of John the Fearless, his father, in 1419. Philip accused Charles, the Dauphin of France and Philip's brother-in-law, of planning the murder, which took place during a meeting between John and Charles at Montereau.
Because of this, he continued to prosecute the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War, which in turn became entangled in the larger Hundred Years' War. In 1420, Philip allied himself with Henry V of England under the Treaty of Troyes. In 1423, the marriage of Philip's sister Anne to John, Duke of Bedford, regent for Henry VI of England, strengthened the English alliance. On 23 May 1430, Philip's troops under the Count of Ligny captured Joan of Arc at Compiègne and sold her to the English, who orchestrated a heresy trial against her conducted by pro-Burgundian clerics. Despite this action against Joan of Arc, Philip's alliance with England was broken in 1435 when he signed the Treaty of Arras, which revoked the Treaty of Troyes and recognised Charles VII as king of France. Philip signed the treaty for a variety of reasons, one of which may have been a desire to be recognised as the preeminent duke in France; this action would prove a poor decision in the long term. Philip's defection to the French would prove not only catastrophic to the dual monarchy of England and France, but to his own domains as well, subordinating them to a powerful centralised Valois monarchy.
He attacked Calais, a possession of the English, but the alliance with Charles was broken in 1439. Philip supported the revolt of the French nobles the following year and offered shelter to the Dauphin Louis, who had rebelled against his father Charles VII. Philip was preoccupied with matters in his own territories and was involved directly in the Hundred Years' War between England and France, although he did play a role during a number of periods, such as the campaign against Compiègne during which his troops captured Joan of Arc, he incorporated Namur into Burgundian territory in 1429 and Hainault and Hol
Beaujolais
Beaujolais is a French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée wine made of the Gamay grape which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally. Whites from the region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made with Chardonnay grapes though Aligoté is permitted until 2024. Beaujolais tends to be a light-bodied red wine, with high amounts of acidity. In some vintages, Beaujolais produces more wine than the Burgundy wine regions of Chablis, Côte d'Or, Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais put together; the wine takes its name from the historical Province of a wine-producing region. It is located north of Lyon, covers parts of the north of the Rhône département of the Rhône-Alpes region and southern areas of the Saône-et-Loire département of Burgundy. While administratively considered part of the Burgundy wine region, the climate is closer to the Rhône and the wine is sufficiently individual in character to be considered separately from Burgundy and Rhône; the region is known internationally for its long tradition of winemaking, for the use of carbonic maceration, more for the popular Beaujolais nouveau.
The region of Beaujolais was first cultivated by the Romans who planted the areas along its trading route up the Saône valley. The most noticeable Roman vineyard was Brulliacus located on the hillside of Mont Brouilly; the Romans planted vineyards in the area Morgon. From the 7th century through the Middle Ages, most of the viticulture and winemaking was done by the Benedictine monks. In the 10th century, the region got its name from the town of Beaujeu, Rhône and was ruled by the Lords of Beaujeu till the 15th century when it was ceded to the Duchy of Burgundy; the wines from Beaujolais were confined to the markets along the Saône and Rhône in the town of Lyon. The expansion of the French railroad system in the 19th century opened up the lucrative Paris market; the first mention of Beaujolais wines in English followed soon after when Cyrus Redding described the wines of Moulin-à-Vent and Saint-Amour as being low priced and best consumed young. In the 1980s, Beaujolais hit a peak of popularity in the world's wine market with its Beaujolais nouveau wine.
Spurred on by the creative marketing from négociants like Georges Duboeuf, demand outpaced supply for the easy drinking, fruity wines. As more Beaujolais producers tried to capitalize on the "Nouveau craze", production of regular Beaujolais dropped and an eventual backlash occurred in the late 1990s and early 21st century. By this point, the whole of Beaujolais wine had developed a negative reputation among consumers who associated Gamay based wines with the sweet, simple light bodied wines that characterized Beaujolais Nouveau. Producers were left with a wine lake surplus that French authorities compelled them to reduce through mandatory distillation. In response, there has been renewed emphasis on the production of more complex wines that are aged longer in oak barrels prior to release. Recent years have seen a rise in the number of terroir driven estate-bottled wines made from single vineyards or in one of the Cru Beaujolais communes, where the name of the commune is allowed to be displayed on the label.
Gamay noir is now known to be a cross of Pinot noir and the ancient white variety Gouais, the latter a Central European variety, introduced to northeastern France by the Romans. The grape brought relief to the village growers following the decline of the Black Death. In contrast to the Pinot noir variety, Gamay ripened two weeks earlier and was less difficult to cultivate, it produced a strong, fruitier wine in a much larger abundance. In July 1395, the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold outlawed the cultivation of Gamay as being "a bad and disloyal plant", due in part to the variety occupying land that could be used for the more "elegant" Pinot noir. Sixty years Philippe the Good issued another edict against Gamay, in which he stated the reason for the ban was that "The Dukes of Burgundy are known as the lords of the best wines in Christendom. We will maintain our reputation"; the edicts had the effect of pushing Gamay plantings southward, out of the main region of Burgundy and into the granite based soils of Beaujolais where the grape thrived.
Following the 2001 vintage, over 1.1 million cases of Beaujolais wine had to be destroyed or distilled due to lackluster sale as part of a consumer backlash against the popularity of Beaujolais Nouveau. French wine critic François Mauss claimed, in an interview given to a local newspaper Lyon Mag, that the reason for the backlash was the poor quality of Beaujolais Nouveau that had flooded the market in recent decades, he claimed that Beaujolais producers had long ignored the warning signs that such a backlash was coming and continued to produce what Mauss termed vin de merde. This triggered an outcry among Beaujolais producers followed by an association of 56 cooperative producers filing a lawsuit against the Lyon Mag for publishing Mauss' comments. Rather than sue for libel, the producers sued under an obscure French law that punishes the denigration of French products. In January 2003, the court in Villefranche-sur-Saône found in favor of the Beaujolais producers and awarded USD$350,000 which would put the small, employee owned publication out of business.
The bad publicity garnered from the "Shit wine case" was extensive, with several publications such as Le Monde, The Times, The New York Times and the Herald Tribune running critical or satirical articles on the court's decision. In 2005, the highest court of appeal reversed and found that there was no cause of action against the publication
Beaujolais nouveau
Beaujolais nouveau is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks before being released for sale on the third Thursday of November; this "Beaujolais Nouveau Day" used to see heavy marketing, with races to get the first bottles to different markets around the globe. The current release practice is to ship the wine ahead of the third Thursday of November, release it to the local markets at 12:01 a.m. local time. Beaujolais had always made a vin de l'année to celebrate the end of the harvest, but until World War II it was only for local consumption. In fact, once the Beaujolais AOC was established in 1937, AOC rules meant that Beaujolais wine could only be sold after 15 December in the year of harvest; these rules were relaxed on 13 November 1951, the Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais formally set 15 November as the release date for what would henceforth be known as Beaujolais nouveau.
A few members of the UIVB saw the potential for marketing Beaujolais nouveau. Not only was it a way to clear lots of vin ordinaire at a good profit, but selling wine within weeks of the harvest was great for cash flow. Hence the idea was born of a race to Paris carrying the first bottles of the new vintage; this attracted a lot of media coverage, by the 1970s had become a national event. The races spread to neighbouring countries in Europe in the 1980s, followed by North America, in the 1990s to Asia. In 1985, the date was changed to the third Thursday in November to take best advantage of marketing in the following weekend. Beaujolais nouveau is made from the Gamay noir à Jus blanc grape, better known as Gamay; the grapes must come with those of the ten "cru" appellations excluded. They are grown in "stony, schistous soils". Both Beaujolais Nouveau and Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau are produced. Nouveau's production is about 25% of overall production in Beaujolais; as of 2017, there are 2000 producers producing 27.5 million cases, with 40% exported from France.
By law, all grapes in the region must be harvested by hand. The wine is made using carbonic maceration, whole berry anaerobic fermentation which emphasizes fruit flavors without extracting bitter tannins from the grape skins. Grapes are loaded into a large sealed container, filled with carbon dioxide. Grapes that are crushed at the bottom of the container by the weight of the grapes start to ferment, emitting more CO2. All this carbon dioxide causes fermentation to take place inside the uncrushed grapes; the resulting wine is fresh and low in tannins. Part of the success of Beaujolais Nouveau is due to the Gamay grape - it can make this straightforward wine and make more complex wines. Most other red wine grapes would not make nouveau-style wines." This "Beaujolais Day" is accompanied by heavy advertising. The traditional slogan in English-speaking countries, was "Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!", but in 2005 this was changed to "It's Beaujolais Nouveau Time!". In the United States, it is promoted as a drink for Thanksgiving, which always falls one week after the wine is released.
Many producers release the nouveau with colourful or abstract design that changes every year as an evolution from the previous year's design. Duboeuf has silk ties made each year with their label's abstract design, releases them through select wholesalers and distributors. In several metropolis areas in east Asia, Nouveau on the 3rd Thursday in November is seen as a status symbol and a luxury item. There is so much emphasis on this date that there are many air shipping companies who have online articles about how they arrange the air shipments, starting in late October. Beaujolais nouveau is a purple-pink wine reflecting its youth, bottled only 6–8 weeks after harvest; the method of production means that there is little tannin, the wine can be dominated by such fruity ester flavours as banana, strawberry and pear drop. The wine is recommended to be chilled to 13 °C. Beaujolais nouveau is intended for immediate drinking. While some nouveau can be kept for a few years, there's no real reason to, as it doesn't improve with age.
For comparison, standard Beaujolais AOC wines are released the following year and can be stored for one or more years before consuming. The wines show definite variation between vintages, as such are considered to be an early indicator of the quality of the year's regional wine harvest. For a period around the late 90s some wine critics criticized Beaujolais nouveau as simple or immature. For example, the prominent wine critic Karen MacNeil wrote that "Drinking it gives you the same kind of silly pleasure as eating cookie dough." Another well-known wine critic, Robert M. Parker, Jr. disagrees, calling those opinions "ludicrous" and describing the better vintages as "delicious, exuberant, vibrantly fruity" wines. There seems to be general agreement that this is a wine intended to be enjoyed but not analyzed, quaffed rather than sipped; the commercial success of Beaujolais nouveau led to the development of other "primeur" wines in other parts of France, such as the Gaillac AOC near Toulouse. These wines are released on the third Thursday of November, just like their counterparts in Beaujolais.
The practice has spread to other wine producing countries such as Italy, Spain
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley is a 150-mile long valley in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides – the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Range to the west, the Calapooya Mountains to the south, it forms the cultural and political heart of Oregon, is home to 70 percent of its population including its six largest cities: Portland, Salem, the state capital, the cities of Gresham and Beaverton in the Portland metropolitan area. Eight of Oregon's ten – and 16 of its 20 – largest cities are located in the Willamette Valley; the valley's numerous waterways the Willamette River, are vital to the economy of Oregon, as they continuously deposit fertile alluvial soils across its broad, flat plain. A massively productive agricultural area, the valley was publicized in the 1820s as a'promised land of flowing milk and honey'. Throughout the 19th century it was the destination of choice for the oxen-drawn wagon trains of emigrants who made the perilous journey along the Oregon Trail.
Today the valley is considered synonymous with "Oregon Wine Country", as it contains more than 19,000 acres of vineyards and 500+ wineries. Much of the Willamette's fertility is derived from a series of massive ice-age floods that came from Lake Missoula in Montana and scoured across Eastern Washington, sweeping its topsoil down the Columbia River Gorge; when floodwaters met log- and ice-jams at Kalama in southwest Washington, the water caused a backup that filled the entire Willamette Valley to a depth of 300 to 400 feet above current sea level. Some geologists suggest that the Willamette Valley flooded in this manner multiple times during the last ice age. If floodwaters of that magnitude covered Portland in 2010, only the tops of the West Hills, Mount Tabor, Rocky Butte, Kelley Butte and Mount Scott would be visible, as would only some of the city's tallest skyscrapers. Elevations for other cities in the valley are Newberg, 175 feet; the lake drained away, leaving layered sedimentary soils on the valley floor to a height of about 180 to 200 feet above current sea level throughout the Tualatin and Willamette valleys.
Geologists have come to refer to the resulting lake as Lake Allison, named for Oregon State University geologist Ira S. Allison, who first described Willamette Silt soil in 1953 and noted its similarity to soils on the floor of former Lake Lewis in Eastern Washington. Allison is known for his work in the 1930s documenting the hundreds of non-native boulders washed down by the floods, rafted on icebergs and deposited on the valley bottom and in a ring around the lower hills surrounding the Willamette Valley. One of the most prominent of these is the Bellevue Erratic, just off Oregon Route 18 west of McMinnville, it is believed that the Willamette Meteorite was rafted by flood and ice to the location near West Linn where it was found in 1902. The valley may be loosely defined as the broad plain of the Willamette, bounded on the west by the Oregon Coast Range and on the east by the Cascade Range, it is bounded on the south by the Calapooya Mountains, which separate the headwaters of the Willamette from the Umpqua River valley about 25 miles south of Hidden Valley.
Interstate 5 runs the length of the valley. Because of differing cultural and political interests, the Portland metropolitan area and Tualatin River valley are not included in the local use of the term. Additionally, the east slopes of the Coast Ranges and the west slopes of the Cascade Range from Oakridge to Detroit Lake can be considered part of the Willamette Valley in a cultural sense, despite being mountainous areas. Cities in the valley include, from south to north, Cottage Grove, Corvallis, Dallas, Keizer, McMinnville, Oregon City, Portland, St. Helens. Parts of the following counties, from south to north, lie within the valley: Douglas, Linn, Polk, Clackamas, Washington and Columbia. Sometimes the area around Albany and Corvallis and surrounding Benton and Linn counties is referred to locally as the Mid-Valley. Marion and other counties are sometimes included in the definition of the Mid-Valley; the climate of the Willamette Valley is Mediterranean with oceanic features. This climate is characterized by dry and cloudless summers, ranging from warm to very hot, followed by cool and cloudy winters.
The precipitation pattern is distinctly Mediterranean, with little to no rainfall occurring during the summer months and over half of annual precipitation falling between November and February. Temperatures are predictable throughout the year, with daytime highs reaching the low to mid 80s in the summer and the mid 40s in the winter. Lengthy stretches of 90 °F days occur every summer reaching 100 °F. Cold days where the daytime high fails to rise above freezing are rare and may occur only two or three days per year, not at all in the lowest elevations of the valley. Temperatures of 5 °F or lower occur only about once every 25 years. Spring and fall days are between 50 and 70 degrees, with occasional surges of summer-like or winter-like temperatures that last more than a week. Precipitation varies across the valley and is correlated with elevation. Annual totals range from 36 inches (
Niagara Peninsula
The Niagara Peninsula is the portion of Golden Horseshoe, Southern Ontario, lying between the southwestern shore of Lake Ontario and the northeastern shore of Lake Erie. Technically an isthmus rather than a peninsula, it stretches from the Niagara River in the east to Hamilton, Ontario, in the west; the population of the peninsula is 1,000,000 people. The region directly across the Niagara River and Lake Erie in New York State is known as the Niagara Frontier; the broader Buffalo Niagara Region includes the Niagara Peninsula, the Niagara Frontier, the city of Buffalo, New York. The greater part of the peninsula is incorporated as the Regional Municipality of Niagara. Cities in the region include St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Port Colborne and Welland. Towns include Niagara-on-the-Lake, Pelham and Fort Erie, as well as the townships Wainfleet and West Lincoln; the remainder of the peninsula encompasses parts of the City of Haldimand County. The area was inhabited by a First Nations people called the "Neutrals", so named for their practice of trading goods such as flint arrowhead blanks with both of the feuding regional powers, the Wyandot and Iroquois.
The Neutrals were wiped out by the Iroquois c. 1650 as the latter sought to expand their fur-trapping territory as part of the Beaver Wars. From this point until the arrival of United Empire Loyalists following the American War of Independence, the region was only sporadically inhabited, as the Iroquois did not establish permanent settlements in the area; the Niagara Peninsula became one of the first areas settled in Upper Canada by British Loyalists in the late 18th century. The capital of the new colony was established with the founding of Niagara-on-the-Lake called Newark. Many English and Irish immigrants settled in the peninsula, but by the 1800s, Italian and German immigrants populated the peninsula and were the chief sources of immigrants followed by French and other Central Europeans. Following the agricultural period of European settlement, the Niagara area became an important industrial centre, with water-powered mills joined by hydro-electric power generation in Niagara Falls and electricity-intensive industry in both Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.
While agriculture – fruit farming along the shore of Lake Ontario – remains important to this day, it was joined in the 19th century by industrial developments. A succession of canals were built to connect the markets and mineral resources of the upper Great Lakes with the St. Lawrence Seaway. General Motors built a considerable presence in St. Catharines with auto plants and a foundry, a number of auto-parts manufacturers followed. Dry docks were built at Port Weller on Lake Ontario. Heavy industry has been diminishing for the past decade or more due to the slow-down of the North American automotive manufacturers. Thousands of jobs have been lost at long-time area employers such as General Motors, Thompson Products, Deere & Company, Dana Canada Corp, Port Weller Drydocks, Domtar Papers and Gallagher Thorold Paper; because of this, local municipalities have been forced to look at new and diversified opportunities to prevent an exodus of well trained staff. Hospitality and tourism has attracted numerous visitors to the area for more than 150 years thanks to Niagara Falls.
New development beginning during the mid-1990s has spun off an upscale hospitality boom throughout the whole Niagara Peninsula. Today, more than 10 million guests visit the peninsula annually to see the beauty of the Falls and the Niagara Parks. Ecotourism has become more popular with more people finding and exploring out of the way places such as the Niagara Escarpment, named a world Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1990. Another area of major tourism growth in the past thirty years has been the expansion of the grape and wine industry; the Niagara Peninsula is one of four recognized viticultural areas by the VQA in the Ontario wine industry. The many European-style wineries and vineyards have played a major role in attracting visitors seeking a unique cultural experience. Most of the local wineries offer full tours of their facilities with a few offering onsite dining featuring unique Canadian cuisine paired with their own VQA vintages, it is common for many of these wineries' world-class chefs to use fresh ingredients that are grown or acquired from local farms in season.
Some wineries feature live music and theatrical performances in the vineyard during the summer months. Visitors come during the coldest months of the year to watch some varieties of grapes being harvested and pressed outdoors in the vineyard as part of the process of creating the sweetest, among the most expensive, wine on earth – ice wine. A few Niagara Peninsula wineries have won the most prestigious international awards for their ice wine products, many of which are only available from the vintner. There is an official Wine Routes Guide for those that wish to self-drive while transportation companies offering wine tours operate out of major hotel and bed and breakfast establishments in Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Toronto. Another major attraction for the well travelled looking for cultural activities is the famous Shaw Festival Theater located in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. A resident repertory company of actors uses three theatres during a six-month season. Niagara-on-the-Lake is the location of Fort George, a British-built and -occupied fort during the War of 1812.
It is open during the summer months. Other key historical locations
