Savour the sweet taste of autumn on a rural journey past fields and farms. Meet the farmer at the local market and chat with the winemaker at one of the new wineries springing up in York and Durham regions. This is autumn as it’s meant to be: fresh from the farm.

Atop the Oak Ridges moraine, near Stouffville, Willow Springs Winery and Vineyard has pioneered 11-acres of cold hardy-vines to make premium VQA wines. Visitors enjoy samples at the new Cape-Cod-style winery. Magnotta is Canada's most award winning winery. The Vaughan location features a state of the art wine making facility, microbrewery, copper pot distillery, extensive original art gallery (and an impressive wine boutique.

Apples thrive on the sandy hills of the moraine. What better way to spend an autumn afternoon that strolling through the orchard and picking a bag of the best mutsus, macs or melbas from Nature's Bounty or Pine Farms Orchard.

Enjoy apples in their liquid form at Archibald Orchards and Estate Winery where the award-winning Spiced Winter Apple wine is redolent with aroma of apple pie. Surround yourself with history while sipping a VQA or fruit wine at Ocala Orchards Farm Winery in a century barn with hand-hewn beams.

Colourful displays of gourds and pumpkins set the mood for Thanksgiving at dozens of roadside farm markets along the route. Throughout Durham and York weekly farmers' markets in historic towns are at their best in fall when stalls are filled with everything from orchard honey to organic beets. Both Markham Farmers' Market and Newmarket Farmers' Market feature entertainment and events continuing through October.

On a day when onions are being harvested it's possible to smell the produce growing in the rich, black fields of the Holland Marsh. Willow trees shade the canals that irrigate row upon tidy row of vegetables on 7,000 acres of land in the Holland River Valley. As the weather cools greenhouses extend the growing season. Shop for a wide array of herbs at Richter’s and great veggies at Forsythe Family Farms.