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Canada is a big country with a small wine industry, and, for many years, its wines were little known internationally. The exception was Icewine, the supersweet wine that, beginning in the 1990s, became a successful export, especially in China. These days, quality Canadian table wines are popular on the domestic market, and they are increasingly appearing on wine lists throughout the world.
Canada is one of the youngest winemaking countries in the Americas, but, paradoxically, it is possible that the very first wine in this part of the world was made there. Around 1000 CE, the Icelandic explorer Leif Eriksson reached the east coast of present-day Canada, and one of his crew, a German from a wine-producing region, recognized grapevines growing wild. Eriksson named the area Vinland, and he established a winter camp there. The location was probably in what is now Quebec, on the north shore of the Gaspé Peninsula, which is the south shore of the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. It seems likely that Eriksson’s crew, having exhausted the beer they brought with them, tried to make wine from the grapes.
Although elements of the story are debated by historians and archeologists, it is intriguing as the possible beginnings of wine production in Canada. There is no evidence that Canada’s Indigenous peoples made wine or other alcoholic beverages, and winemaking was not resumed until other Europeans arrived and settled in the eastern regions in the 1600s.
But just before that time, in 1535, in an echo of Leif Eriksson’s journey, the French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River and encountered an island where wild grapevines were growing up trees. He first named it the Île de Bacchus, after the Roman god of wine, but then more strategically renamed it the Île d’Orléans after his patron, the duke d’Orléans. Situated just downstream of Quebec City, the island is now home to several wineries.
Most of the French and English settlers who established communities in eastern Canada in the 1600s came from regions where wine was consumed only by better-off people. The first French settlers came primarily from Brittany and Normandy, where vineyards were sparse and cider rivaled wine, while the English settlers came from a country where most people drank ale or beer. The colonial administrators and army and navy officers, however, came from the wine-drinking classes, and they had to satisfy their needs by importing wine from Europe.
As in the American colonies at the same time, beer was soon being produced locally, but attempts to make wine from the indigenous Vitis labrusca varieties generally yielded unsatisfying results. Some settlers brought vines from Europe. It is often said, despite ambiguous evidence, that European vines were planted in Nova Scotia in the early 1600s. Louis Hébert, a French apothecary, may have planted vines at Bear River, near the Bay of Fundy, and vines may also have been planted in 1633 at Petite Rivière.
Some of the earliest wines made in Canada from local grapes were produced by French Catholic missionaries. They set off on often yearslong journeys to convert the Indigenous populations with only small supplies of imported wine for use in communion. When their wine supply was exhausted, some turned to the grapes of the Vitis labrusca and Vitis riparia species that grew in many parts of eastern Canada. In 1623, a missionary near Lake Huron, in present-day Ontario, noted that when the wine in the 23-liter barrel he had brought from Quebec City turned bad, “We made some of wild grapes which was very good.” This is the first record of wine being made in Canada.
If the cold winters of eastern Canada proved inhospitable to European Vitis vinifera vines, the climate was more welcoming farther west, at the southwestern end of Lake Ontario, now the important Niagara Peninsula wine region. This area was sparsely populated until the 1790s, when tens of thousands of Americans loyal to Britain (and known as Loyalists) fled the newly founded United States for the British colony in Upper Canada, now Ontario. Most settled in areas today known for viticulture, especially the Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County, and there are sporadic but imprecise references to vineyards during the early 1800s.
Commercial wine production began in the 1840s or 1850s in the Niagara region of Ontario—less than two centuries ago and around the time when wine was first produced in New Zealand. In 1860, a producer named John Kilborne wrote in an agricultural magazine that his wine was selling for $1.75 a gallon, but he complained that it should fetch a higher price, because “it is worth four times as much as the miserable stuff sold by merchants under the name of wine.” Kilborne won a prize (of $3) at the 1862 Provincial Exhibition in Toronto for “the best bottles of wine made from the grape,” which suggests that wines made from fruit other than grapes were also produced at this time.
From the 1860s, commercial production can be verified. One producer was William Kitchener, who planted vines and fruit trees in 1859. By 1876, it was reported that Kitchener had sold more than 50,000 gallons of “Native Wine” at $2.50 a gallon, and that he had 80,000 vines, presumably labrusca varieties.
Other producers established wineries in the Niagara region and in Prince Edward County, a peninsula on the north shore of Lake Ontario (not to be confused with Prince Edward Island, on the Atlantic coast), that now has its own appellation.
In the 1870s, a winery was established on Pelee Island, in Lake Erie, Canada’s southernmost inhabited land. Vin Villa was owned by three entrepreneurs from Kentucky, and they sold finished wine in Ontario as well as Catawba grapes to Ohio wineries along the south shore of Lake Erie. In 1888, the Pelee Island Wine and Vineyard Company was established on the island, and, by the 1890s, it was producing a well-regarded sparkling wine called L’Empéreur Champagne. It is considered Canada’s first commercial winery, and its ruins are now a tourist attraction.
Repeated references to adulterated wines suggest that Ontario wines came in a wide range of styles and quality levels, but there are seldom references to grape varieties or winemaking methods. Yet by the end of the 19th century, a small wine industry had been established in Ontario: the 1891 census listed 28 wineries in the province, most (23) along the north shore of Lake Erie and the rest on the Niagara Peninsula. Although there were fewer wineries on the Niagara Peninsula, the region produced 60% of Ontario’s grapes, compared with 12% on the north shore of Lake Erie. Indigenous grapes made up most of the plantings on the north shore of Lake Erie, but the Niagara Peninsula was planted with higher-yielding American hybrid varieties, such as Isabella, Delaware, Catawba, and Concord.
Prince Edward County had seemed promising for viticulture, but it became mainly a vegetable-growing area until viticulture began to boom again at the beginning of the 21st century. Before long, the north shore of Lake Erie became an important region for tobacco, a more profitable crop than grapes. The Niagara Peninsula remained Canada’s only significant wine region in the early 1900s. By that time, there was wine production elsewhere in Canada—in British Columbia, Quebec, and Nova Scotia—but not on a commercial basis.
What might have become a rapidly growing wine industry in Ontario was set back by the province’s version of Prohibition. In 1916, partly reflecting pressure from temperance organizations and partly as a means of increasing agricultural and industrial productivity during World War I, Ontario passed the Ontario Temperance Act, which forbade the production and sale of beer and distilled spirits. The grape and wine lobby was influential enough that wine was permitted to be produced and sold, but with two important restrictions: wine could be purchased only at wineries and in minimum five-gallon volumes. The purpose was clearly to limit access to alcohol among the masses but to allow access to wealthier citizens.
Various policies limiting or totally restricting the production and sale of alcohol were enacted in all Canada’s provinces from 1916 to 1920. These provincial laws are often referred to as Prohibition, but not all were particularly restrictive, although their effect was generally to close bars and other public drinking places. Still, many Canadians had legal access to alcoholic beverages.
Ironically, Ontario’s restrictive temperance law proved beneficial to its wine industry. When the Ontario Temperance Act was passed, in 1916, there were only 10 operating wineries, but when the act was repealed, in 1927, there were 57. Most were in the Niagara region, but others were on the north shore of Lake Erie, where they could easily be accessed from the cities of Windsor and Detroit, where US Prohibition was in force.
To provide wine to people throughout the province, wineries were also established in unlikely places, such as northern Ontario, where grapes had to be trucked, without refrigeration, over long distances. But the focus was on quantity and profits, not quality, and Ontario became a source of vast volumes of low-grade wine.
During the short life of the Ontario Temperance Act, the people of Ontario became wine drinkers simply because there weren’t other alcoholic beverages. In 1920, Canadians consumed 1.1 million liters of Canadian wine, but, a decade later, 10 million liters of wine were consumed in Ontario alone.
Restrictions on alcohol also boosted wine production in British Columbia. There was no wine industry when Prohibition was introduced in 1917, but, when it was repealed in 1921, a winery was established on Vancouver Island. It was followed by others in the Okanagan Valley. The basis of an industry was established by the 1930s.
One by one, starting in the 1920s and ending as late as 1948 (as on Prince Edward Island, for example), the provinces repealed their temperance or Prohibition laws, and all of them established government-owned networks of stores to sell alcohol on a retail basis. These stores replaced the private stores that previously sold wine, beer, and spirits, and their purpose was to control the sale and consumption of all alcoholic beverages. The new retail systems included the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (BCLDB), the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission (NSLC), and the Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ).
With the repeal of laws restricting access to alcohol, the wine industries in Canada’s provinces changed in different ways. Many of the Ontario wineries established between 1916 and 1927 went out of business as their customers returned to beer and spirits. It was common for these wineries to sell their licenses—which also included the right to operate a retail store—to more sustainable wineries, leading to a concentration of ownership. One winery, Brights Wines, purchased 13 licenses and was thus able to operate 14 stores—which could sell only Brights wine—throughout Ontario. By the early 1930s, there were only 8 wineries in Ontario, down from 57, but they operated 57 wine stores. No new licenses were issued until the mid-1970s.
During this time, French hybrid varieties gradually replaced American hybrids. Concord and Catawba remained popular, but Baco Noir, Maréchal Foch, Seyval Blanc, and Vidal plantings increased. In the 1950s, several wineries began experimenting with planting vinifera varieties, and in 1956 Brights Wines produced a Chardonnay, Ontario’s first wine made entirely from a vinifera variety.
Similarly, in British Columbia, where labrusca and hybrid varieties had dominated from the 1930s to the 1950s, vinifera varieties, including Chasselas, Pinot Gris, and Riesling, were planted in the 1960s and 1970s. Steady planting of vinifera grapes continued in both Ontario and British Columbia during the 1970s and 1980s. New vineyards planted with hybrids were still being established, but vinifera plantings increased much more rapidly—by 500% between 1976 and 1986 in Ontario, compared with a mere 3% for plantings of hybrid varieties.
But even in 1986, vinifera vines composed only 10% of Ontario’s vines, whereas they accounted for a quarter of the vines in British Columbia. Some producers focused on vinifera, but most were not confident in its ability to withstand cold winter temperatures. It was conventional wisdom for many decades that vinifera grapes would not grow on the Niagara Peninsula. Producers would plant parcels of vinifera varieties but not extensive vineyards of them.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, there was a wave of new wineries across Canada. In 1975, the Ontario government issued the first winery license since the repeal of the temperance legislation, and, by the late 1980s, another 12 wineries had opened, including Cave Spring, Henry of Pelham, and Pelee Island. New wineries in British Columbia included CedarCreek, Sumac Ridge, and Wild Goose. It is estimated that, by the mid-1980s, there were about 90 small, family-owned, noncommercial vineyards in Quebec, all planted with hybrid varieties. In Nova Scotia, the first winery opened in 1980, then closed seven years later; it was revived in the 1990s.
One of the innovations at this time was Icewine, made from grapes frozen on the vine and pressed while frozen. With their water content frozen, grapes release a tiny amount of highly concentrated, sugar-filled juice that can be fermented into wine. Icewine has been made in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland since the 1800s. It was first made in Canada in 1978 by a German immigrant, Walter Hainle, who founded a winery in British Columbia. In the early 1980s, several Ontario wineries began to produce Icewine on the Niagara Peninsula, where temperatures consistently reach the temperature of minus 8 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit), which is needed before the grapes are harvested. Icewine quickly became an important style of wine for Ontario.
In 1988, just as the wine industries in Ontario and British Columbia seemed to be advancing, there was a major disruption: the Canadian and American governments signed a free-trade agreement (CUSFTA) that established a schedule for eliminating tariffs on trade between the two countries. It would eventually open the Canadian market to American wines (which at that time meant California wines) at much lower prices than Canadian wines were fetching. It was expected that wines from big California producers, such as E. & J. Gallo and Robert Mondavi, which achieved economies of scale not available to Canadian producers, would undercut Canadian wines on price and quality. Most Canadian wine was still made from hybrids, and most of these wines were mediocre. These threats accelerated the trends toward quality wine. The British Columbia government subsidized the ripping out of hundreds of acres of labrusca and hybrid vines, leaving the province with only about 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of vines, 90% of which were vinifera varieties. In Ontario, the government committed CA$50 million for compensating growers who ripped out inferior varieties, and for providing wineries with forgivable loans to upgrade their facilities and equipment. Between 1986 and 1991, Ontario’s vineyard area contracted by a fifth, but the representation of vinifera varieties rose from 10% to 25%.
In 1972, a disastrous vintage led the Canadian government to agree to allow wineries to import foreign wine and add up to 25% of it to their Ontario wine, so they would have enough volume to remain profitable. This short-term measure became permanent. In the early 1980s, while most Ontario wineries were transitioning from labrusca and hybrid vines to vinifera varieties, they were expected to have a temporary shortfall in production, so the permitted amount of foreign wine was increased to 70%. In 1993, when Ontario’s wine harvest was extremely small, the amount was increased to 90%.
Since that time, Ontario wine has accounted for between 25% and 30% of these blends, which are now called International Domestic Blends. Predominantly made from inexpensive bulk wine purchased from other countries, these blends are generally priced lower than 100% Ontario wines, and they easily outsell VQA Ontario wines. In 2023, the LCBO sold 9.4 million liters of VQA Ontario wine and 32.7 million liters of non-VQA Ontario wine—almost all International Domestic Blends. Consumers often think these blends are Ontario wines, as they are made by larger Ontario wineries and feature these familiar names on the labels.
Another sign of a new concern for quality was the creation of the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) in Ontario, in 1988. This was a voluntary association of wineries designed to guarantee the geographical provenance of grapes, with regulations regarding grape variety, vintage, and quality. To qualify to carry the VQA logo on a label, which became an indication of quality, a wine had to be made from approved varieties only. They were mostly vinifera, but hybrids considered superior (such as Baco Noir and Vidal) were permitted. All labrusca and other indigenous varieties were excluded. In 1999, VQA rules became Ontario wine law, now enforced by the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority.
British Columbia adopted a version of Ontario’s VQA rules in 1990. They remained an informal, voluntary system until 2005, when they became provincial law. Today, the British Columbia Wine Authority regulates British Columbia’s wine law.
The introduction of wine laws, the gradual increase in wines made with vinifera varieties, and general improvements in wine quality gave consumers more confidence in British Columbia and Ontario wines. Instead of the wine industries in both provinces disappearing under a flood of California wine, the number of wineries in them increased: in British Columbia from 13 in 1988 to 63 in 1999, and in Ontario from 30 in 1990 to 60 in 2000.
Big players also began to enter the market. In Ontario, the Vincor corporation was founded in 1994, and it soon owned several wineries, including two of Ontario’s largest, Inniskillin and Jackson-Triggs. (These wineries are now owned by a different corporate entity, Arterra.) In British Columbia, Anthony von Mandl bought an abandoned winery in the Okanagan Valley near Kelowna and planted vinifera vines in the mid-1990s. Now the Mission Hill winery, it became a destination winery, and von Mandl, through the Mark Anthony Group, owns six wineries in the Okanagan Valley.
There was also movement in Prince Edward County. Vineyards of vinifera and hybrid varieties were planted beginning in the early 1990s, and three new wineries opened by 2002.
By the early 2000s, the shift to vinifera was well established. In 2002, 60% of the Niagara Peninsula’s vines were vinifera, 21% were French hybrids, and the rest were labrusca. The vinifera varieties were used for certified Ontario wine, the hybrids were used in International Domestic Blends, and the labrusca grapes were used largely for juice and jelly production. The most important vinifera varieties were Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Gamay.
In the 1990s, research institutions designed to help wineries and, in some cases, to train winemakers and viticulturists were established. In Ontario, the key institutions are the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute at Brock University and Niagara College, which offers degrees in winemaking and viticulture. In British Columbia, the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, has the Wine Research Centre. More recently, in 2016, the federal and Nova Scotia governments funded a wine research center at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia.
With the maturing of the Canadian wine industry came foreign investment. In 1998, the French Groupe Taillan partnered with Constellation Brands Canada to establish a winery (Osoyoos Larose) to make a Bordeaux-style wine in the Osoyoos district of the Okanagan Valley. Meanwhile, Burgundy’s Boisset company collaborated with Vincor to make wine from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at a new winery, Le Clos Jordanne, in the Jordan valley, on the Niagara Peninsula.
The period from 2000 to the present is the latest phase in the history of Canadian wine, and it has been characterized by a rapid increase in the number of wineries. There are now about 700 wineries in Canada, with over 300 in British Columbia, over 200 in Ontario, about 150 in Quebec, and 20 in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have fewer than 10 between them. New wineries in Ontario and British Columbia today plant vinifera varieties, while hybrid grapes continue to dominate in Quebec and Nova Scotia.
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Compiled by Lewis Kopman (April 2024)
Edited by Stacy Ladenburger