Great Auk Winery — Attraction in Twillingate

We stopped by here while we were staying in Twillingate. They have many interesting wines all not made from grapes.

We each tried a 5 wine tasting for $10 and we shared each wine so we each got to try 10 wines. We also tasted the Raspberry Screech wine for an extra $2.

They give you a list of their wines from the dryer wines at the top to the sweeter wines at the bottom. We started with Vinland Red (Blueberry / Crowberry). It was nice and I did not find it that dry compared to some red wines made from grapes.

Next was 3 Sheets to the Wind White made with Rhubarb. We both liked that one and decided to buy a bottle.

We also tasted Funky Puffin (Blueberry / Rhubarb), Jellybean Row (Strawberry / Partridgeberry), Krooked Cod (Blueberry / Raspberry) which I liked all of them.

Next we tasted Kiss Me Arse (Blueberry / Dandelion) which we both really liked so bought a bottle of that as well.

We tasted Frig Off (Strawberry / Raspberry) and liked it but wanted to only bring back 2 bottle due to storage issues. We tried Moose Joose (Blueberry / Partridgeberry) which was the hosts favourite wine as it tasted like juice. The last wine of our 10 we tried was Half Cut (Dandelion) which we liked.

We bought 2 regular bottles of wine of the 3 Sheets to the Wind White and Kiss Me Arse to take home with us. We also bought smaller bottles of Vinland Red and Vinland white to have with our dinner that night. I also purchased a blue t-shirt with some Newfoundland sayings on it that I liked.

We had lunch sitting next to the Newfoundland Ponies then left to head back to our place. Come here for the great wine...

Me and my boyfriend recently travelled to Twillingate to see some family, and it was his first time there. So naturally I wanted to take him somewhere I enjoyed so much as a teenager. When we walked into the dinning area, nobody was greeting us because they were all very busy talking about each other personal lives and ignoring customers. The dining room was empty. My boyfriend walked up and asked about getting a table. The severe told us no we can’t seat anybody right now because we have two tour busses and that we would need to return in 2-3 hours?! For service. I then proceeded to ask can we order take out? The girl we were originally talking too said no immediately, but another server spoke and said yes they can order something if the kitchen agrees to make it. Me and my boyfriend ordered the wedges poutines. The kitchen said yes. So we waited around for poutines looking around at the gift shop stuff. After about 10mins I went back. One of the wonderful kitchen staff came out and greeted me with my food and had to go looking around for the 5 servers that was there originally that disappeared. The food was amazing as per usual, but service is not the best and why wouldn’t you treat Newfoundlander’s the same as tourist? Don’t they want to come to get a newfie experience? I’m assuming yes, so why would you attempt to turn away people they want to be around? I truly won’t be back and don’t think anybody should support a company that acts in such a way. Even if you had a sign saying reserved for specific times? I just don’t understand and truly upset that my favorite place has...

On our visit to Twilingate, we enjoyed lunch and a winery tour & tasting at Auk Island. I would highly recommend that you partake in the tour and tasting, even if you’ve done them before at other places. We learned that locals provide much of the berries and dandelions used in the wine (all except for raspberries and strawberries so you can imagine how many hand-picked blueberries are being sold by locals to this winery!). What a unique idea and great way to engage the local community to make something special. You can buy iceberg wine (slightly less sweet than a traditional dessert wine), which is made with water taken from an iceberg. I’ll leave you to ask them how they collect that as it’s very interesting! The wine itself, we found ourselves having a hard time to choose which we loved the most, so we ordered a whole case and got it shipped back to Edmonton for $40 flat rate. We loved the names of the wines – they’re very creative as you’ll find out and tons of fun! Great visit, great food, and the people made it extra special. Thank-you for the hospitality and hope to see...