Finding lobster, wine and spectacular coastlines in the Nova Scotia wilderness

My preconceived idea of Nova Scotia was of a vast unspoilt wilderness, spectacular coastlines and great seafood, particularly lobster.

All this is present and correct but it came as a surprise that the province also has 20 vineyards producing world class wines. It’s a young industry and hardly any of their wine gets exported, hence why it’s not well-known. And such is the local demand for the home grown pinots and chardonnays that the winemakers can only produce enough to supply the domestic market.

Eager to learn more, we visited Atlantic Canada’s oldest farm winery, Domaine de Grand Pre, in the Annapolis Valley. It is Atlantic Canada’s wine country with more than 70 grape growers

You can just show up to Domaine and ask for a wine tasting experience, so we did. It’s run by the Stutz family, originally from Switzerland. Opening in 1994, they brought the expertise of European vineyards to Nova Scotia. They are quite adventurous, producing an unusual Orange Wine which is a vivid colour and surprisingly palatable.

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The best seller is their Tidal Bay – the signature wine of Nova Scotia. It was launched in 2012 as a perfect pairing for the fabulous local seafood. It’s a blended wine which I found to be cool, crisp and very moreish.

We stayed on at Domaine and had dinner in a beautiful courtyard overlooking the vineyard. Voted one of the top 20 winery restaurants in the world, the food doesn’t disappoint.

As well as gaining a reputation as a quality wine producing region, Nova Scotia has a fast-growing fine dining scene especially in the capital, Halifax. We visited two new restaurants rapidly gaining a reputation for excellence.

On our first evening we had dinner at Tribute Food Wine Fire Restaurant situated downtown on the boardwalk. It is run by a charismatic young chef, Colin Bebbington, who has trained in top kitchens in London and Paris. He has brought all this experience back home to cook superb food made from fresh, locally sourced produce. My halibut with sunchokes, rhubarb and piccata was a melt-in-the-mouth delight).

Our second night in the city took us to the Mystic restaurant in the Queen’s Marque district on the boardwalk. A chic place with huge windows looking out over the Atlantic.

Two five-course tasting menus are on offer. On mine, the Acadian caviar served with smoked egg yolk, wild sea flora and sea mustard was possibly the most flavoursome dish that I’ve had.

A great way to familiarise yourself with Halifax is to jump on the Halifax Harbour Hopper, a repurposed ex-Canadian military amphibious vehicle. You sit high above the traffic and enjoy a narrated tour around this historic and charming city. Starting at the Citadel Hill National Historic Site, with far reaching views over the harbour, the tour then swings back down through the vibrant downtown.

The best part is when the vehicle makes a huge splash as it leaves the road, enters the water and turns into a boat. We then chugged happily around the Halifax waterfront. Not surprisingly this is the most popular tourist experience in town.

One thing we learnt on the Hopper tour was that the bodies of the Titanic disaster were brought back to Halifax and victims are buried in three graveyards around the city. The Maritime Museum of The Atlantic has a fascinating Titanic exhibition which tells the story of the doomed vessel. Also there are a large number of artefacts on display which were brought back from the wreck site. The most poignant of these being a pair of tiny shoes which belonged to a young boy who lost his life when the ship went down.

Leaving the city on our road trip through the province, we headed down the scenic Lighthouse Route and stopped in at Peggy’s Cove – a beautiful little fishing village which boasts Peggy’s Point Lighthouse, one of the most photographed landmarks in Canada.

This is an excursion stop for the cruise ships from Halifax and can get very busy.

Next on our itinerary was a boat trip around Oak Island with wildly entertaining skipper Tony Sampson, an ex-army survival expert, commercial deep sea diver, reality TV star and owner of Salty Dog Sea Tours located on the Western Shore.

The Curse Of Oak Island is a long-running TV series where two brothers, Rick and Marty Lagina, search for an elusive hoard of buried treasure. Folklore has it that centuries ago pirates, or perhaps the Knights Templar, hid a massive amount of gold or artefacts on the island.

Tony Sampson is the diver on the TV show and films all the underwater scenes. He is also something of a treasure hunter himself and showed us gold coins and jewellery he found while diving shipwrecks all around the world.

You can’t visit Nova Scotia and not have lobster. One of the best places to try this national dish is at Hall’s Harbour Restaurant and Lobster Pound in Centreville, where the fishermen land their catch to sell and right next door is the restaurant.

I must confess I hadn’t actually eaten lobster before, and after I’d made a heck of a mess cracking it open, I found it delicious. A sweet meat which goes down a treat with a local beer.

Nova Scotia is only a six-hour flight from the UK and I got the feel of a province being very comfortable with its fast-growing tourist industry.

The car registration plates say ‘‘Nova Scotia, Canada’s Atlantic Playground’’. It does feel like that with the wide open spaces, forests, ocean views, fresh air, pretty villages with immaculate clapboard houses and ridiculously friendly locals.

We only scratched the surface of all there is to see and do. I feel you could go back multiple times to this magical place and it would never get old.

GET THERE

Air Canada flies from Heathrow to Halifax, Nova Scotia, from £402 return. aircanada.com

BOOK IT

Rooms at The Sutton Place Hotel in Halifax start at £193 a night. suttonplace.com

The Black Forest Cabins in Mahone Bay start at £128 a night. blackforestcabins.ca

Rooms at Digby Pines Golf Resort and Spa in Digby start at £144 a night. digbypines.ca

Rooms at the Evangeline Inn and Motel in Grand Pre start at £161 a night. theevangeline.ca

MORE INFO

atlanticcanadaholiday.co.uk novascotia.com