Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario – My wife and I are driving down a two-lane road bordered by vineyards, a scene you’d say was vintage Napa Valley. Except for one thing: We’ve just pulled off the Queen Elizabeth Highway after the hour-and-a-half drive from the north shore of Lake Ontario at Toronto and find ourselves in the storybook town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, where the vineyards of Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula spread out across a 30-mile plain.

Tulocay is one of the proposed American Viticultural Areas that is currently on hold pending review of recommendations offered by the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.