Canada

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.

History

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 19^th 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 21^st 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 Corporation (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%.

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.

Canadian Wine in Context

In land area, Canada is second only to Russia, but its average annual wine production—which changes dramatically from year to year—ranks about 30^th globally, along with countries such as the Czech Republic and Macedonia. The bulk of Canada’s wine is produced in two regions: the Okanagan Valley, in British Columbia, and the Niagara Peninsula, in Ontario. There are smaller concentrations of vineyards in other parts of these two provinces, but the major wine region in each produces more than 85% of the wine. In eastern Canada, there are many small wineries in Quebec, some in Nova Scotia, and a few in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. In three provinces in central and western Canada—Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—there are no wineries, nor are there any in Canada’s northern territories, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

Most Canadian wineries are small operations, and many are owned by individuals or families. Larger wineries are typically owned by corporations, some of which operate multiple wineries. Arterra Wines has been owned by an Ontario pension fund since 2016, and it now owns eight wineries in Ontario and British Columbia, as well as Kim Crawford Wines, in New Zealand. In British Columbia, the Mark Anthony Group owns six wineries in the Okanagan Valley.

Canada’s best-known wine internationally is Icewine. Inniskillin Vidal Icewine 1989 was the first Canadian wine to win a major wine award, the Grand Prix d’Honneur at Vinexpo, in 1991, and Icewines were Canada’s first wine exports. Icewine still sells well on Asian markets and in Canada to tourists at airport duty-free stores, but production has declined significantly. In the 2010s, more than 100,000 cases of Icewine were produced in Ontario each year; in 2022 and 2023, the numbers were 12,400 and 36,900, respectively.

Table wines, still and sparkling, are now becoming important as exports, and solid markets are developing in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe. Even so, Canadian wines are relatively expensive, and sales are mainly to restaurants rather than to consumers.

Most Canadian wine is sold on the domestic market, where the principal retail channels in most provinces are the government-owned alcohol retail systems established in the 1920s after the repeal of Prohibition and temperance policies. These systems have stores in cities and many towns in their provinces, with smaller selections of wine, beer, and spirits in grocery stores in small or isolated communities, or in locations where a small population swells seasonally because of tourists.

Yet while the image of wine sales in Canada being monopolized by government stores might have been accurate once, it is far from the current reality. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the government-owned retail stores were abolished in 1993 and 2023, respectively, and all stores selling alcoholic beverages are privately owned. Elsewhere, most province-owned retail systems, such as the LCBO stores in Ontario and BC Liquor stores in British Columbia, operate alongside private stores that sell a range of wines and beers. In some provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, wine can be purchased in supermarkets, though in Quebec most of the wine that is not sold in SAQ stores is wine imported in bulk by the SAQ and sold under its own labels.

Canadian Wine Law

There is as no national wine law in Canada. There were attempts to formulate one in the early 2000s, but they foundered on major issues, such as permitted grape varieties. While vinifera varieties are used to make most quality wine in Ontario and British Columbia, hybrid grapes are more important in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and other small eastern regions where cold-hardy hybrid varieties survive harsh winters more easily. Canada has a patchwork of provincial wine laws; British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia each have their own.

Ontario Wine Law

The first wine law was a voluntary code, the VQA, which was created in Ontario by several wineries in 1988 and was adopted as provincial law in 1999. Only wines that satisfied the criteria for provenance, varietal and vintage content, and quality could carry the VQA name and logo. The code remains voluntary, but having VQA certification is generally considered a quality indicator that is particularly important on restaurant wine lists. About 80% of Ontario wineries participate in it.

The terms of the VQA have changed over time. Currently, to be identified with a geographical indicator (GI), a minimum of 85% of the grapes used in a wine must be grown in the GI and the rest in Ontario. (Note that the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority uses GI, viticultural area, and appellation interchangeably.) To be identified with a sub-geographical indicator (sub-GI), 100% of the grapes must be grown there. Ontario has 4 appellations (among them is the province overall, for which 100% of the grapes must be grown in Ontario) and 12 sub-appellations. Wines that qualify for VQA certification are identified as VQA Niagara Peninsula (a GI) or VQA Beamsville Bench (a sub-GI), with the VQA logo on the main label and, optionally, on a neck label.

For permitted varieties, the original list was composed largely of vinifera, but two hybrids were allowed: Baco Noir, because some wineries were making quality wine from it, and Vidal, because it was a popular variety for making Icewine. To label a wine as a varietal bottling, at least 85% of the wine must be made of the variety. More recently, other non-vinifera varieties have been permitted, including Maréchal Foch and Marquette. Others, such as De Chaunac and Millot, may be used for blending in non-vinifera wines.

VQA Ontario permits skin-contact and orange wines, and it changed its rules to allow for the use of screwcaps, rather than mandating corks. There is still a tasting panel that must approve wines to be certified VQA. It initially, and controversially, had varietal typicity as one of its criteria, but that has been abandoned, and the panel now focuses on identifying flaws.

British Columbia Wine Law

In 1999, British Columbia wineries adopted a modified version of the VQA Ontario rules, identified as British Columbia VQA or BC VQA on labels, as a voluntary code. It became wine law in 2005, and it is now regulated by the British Columbia Wine Authority. About 80% of the province’s wineries participate. The others are generally small producers that easily sell their wines from the cellar door without incurring the cost and time to have their wines certified.

The VQA rules in British Columbia are similar to Ontario’s with respect to varietal percentages: if a wine is labeled British Columbia VQA, 100% of the grapes must be grown in the province, but if it is labeled by a regional GI (such as Okanagan Valley or Vancouver Island) or a sub-GI (such as Naramata Bench or Okanagan Falls), 95% of the grapes must come from there. If a wine is designated by vineyard, however, 100% of the grapes must have been sourced from it. British Columbia VQA recognizes all vinifera varieties and a wide range of hybrids. To be labeled as a varietal wine, the variety must constitute at least 85% of the wine.

Quebec Wine Law

For many years, the Quebec wine industry was largely an unorganized population of very small producers, but one sign of its maturing was the adoption, in 2018, of Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) certification for table wines and other agricultural products. Wine grapes must be grown within a defined area of Quebec: bounded by the Laurentian Mountains to the north, the Ontario border to the west, the US border to the south, and the Appalachian Mountains to the east. To qualify, a region must have at least 900 growing degree-days.

Quebec’s IGP rules permit any grape variety, including vinifera, hybrids, and crosses. Wines must be vinified at the vineyard and must be made by “best practices.” Any submitted for certification are subject to laboratory testing and a blind-tasting panel to ensure that they are free of faults. Wines must be certified or recertified each vintage. Wines that pass can be labeled IGP Vin du Québec. These wines must have less than 15% ABV; white wines must have at least 8% and red wines at least 9.5%.

Nova Scotia Wine Law

Nova Scotia introduced wine standards and certification in 2004. In 2022, the provincial government created the Nova Scotia Wine Authority to oversee winemaking regulations. Wines labeled Wine of Nova Scotia must be made from at least 85% grapes grown in the province, with the remaining 15% grown anywhere in Canada.

There is another important appellation, Tidal Bay, defined by style as well as provenance. These wines must be low in alcohol (maximum 11% ABV) and show “lively fresh green fruit flavors, dynamic acidity, and characteristic minerality.” Tidal Bay wines must be made entirely from grapes grown in Nova Scotia, and one or more of four hybrid or crossed varieties (L’Acadie Blanc, Seyval Blanc, Vidal, and Geisenheim 318) must account for at least 51% of the wine. Another 11 varieties—some vinifera, including Riesling and Chardonnay, others hybrids and crosses—may compose up to 49% of a blend, while other specified varieties may compose up to 15%. In all, about 20 varieties can be used in Tidal Bay wines. The wines must be approved by a tasting panel and pass evaluation at the sensory laboratory at Acadia University.

Icewine Wine Law

Icewine is a separate category in all of Canada’s provincial wine laws. Canada is party to several international agreements on the production of Icewine that seek to protect the Icewine brand—meaning wine made from grapes naturally frozen on the vine—from sweet wines made by artificially freezing grapes and from sweet wines fraudulently labeled as Icewine.

In 2000, a nonbinding agreement was signed by the main wine organizations of Canada, Germany, and Austria. Canada also signed agreements in 2007 with the World Wine Trade Group and in 2015 with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, both of which protected the definition of Icewine. These were key agreements, given the importance of Icewine to Canadian wine exports at that time and the extent of Icewine fraud. It has been estimated that, at times, as much as half the Icewine on some Asian markets was artificially sweetened wine or wine made from grapes not frozen on the vine.

Grapes destined to make Icewine must be “naturally frozen on the vine,” meaning they must remain on the vine until they are harvested, which can take place when the temperature has fallen to at least minus 8 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit). In Ontario and British Columbia, grapes must remain attached to the vine, but any that fall from the bunches may be caught in nets hanging below and used for Icewine.

A wine law for IGP Vin de Glace du Québec (Quebec Icewine) was adopted in 2014, four years before IGP Vin du Québec regulations were applied to table wines. The zone of production for IGP Quebec Icewine is smaller than for IGP Quebec table wines, and all the grapes used for it must have been grown in this area. In 2015, the Quebec IGP authorities redefined “on the vine” differently from how other Canadian provinces define it. There is much more snow in Quebec than in other Canadian Icewine-producing regions—so much snow in some years that it buries bunches of grapes hanging on the vine. For this reason, Vin de Glace producers in Quebec are permitted to cut bunches from the vine and leave them to freeze on nets at the top of the vines, above the snow.

This procedure has been challenged by signatories to the international Icewine convention. The question is whether the grapes are harvested when the bunches are removed from the vine and placed in the nets, or when the frozen grapes are collected from the nets. Defenders of the Quebec procedure argue that there is no difference between using grapes detached from the vine and frozen in the nets and using grapes that fall from the vine and are caught in nets, as permitted elsewhere in Canada.

The Grapes of Canada

The wide diversity of growing conditions in Canadian vineyards allows for the cultivation of a considerable range of grape varieties. There are very few labrusca varieties left, as almost all of them were pulled out by the 1990s. The varieties planted today are primarily vinifera and French or American hybrids, with vinifera dominating in British Columbia and Ontario, and hybrids in Quebec and Nova Scotia.

Because the Okanagan Valley and the Niagara Peninsula together produce the bulk of Canada’s wine, the main grape varieties of these regions are the main varieties of Canada. Yet there are other key varieties in different regions.

There are only a few vinifera varieties that are grown in all four main wine-producing provinces, and their importance varies. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, for example, are among the most cultivated varieties in British Columbia and Ontario, but they represent only a small percentage of vineyard area in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are also grown in all four provinces, with varying representation. Because each province produces a distinct varietal profile, each will be discussed individually.

Note that it is difficult to draw comparisons between regions, as the wine authorities in each province publish different statistics of plantings. British Columbia, for example, publishes the acreage of each variety, while Ontario publishes only the ranking of varieties by acreage.

The Grapes of British Columbia

British Columbia encompasses many different growing conditions, and general province-wide statistics conceal important regional variations. Some varieties, such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, are grown widely in varying conditions, while others are concentrated in specific regions. Although hybrid varieties represent very small percentages of British Columbia’s wines, they are the most important varieties in some of the smaller GIs. In Fraser Valley GI, for example, Pinot Noir is the most planted variety, but the next three are Bacchus, Siegerrebe, and Blattner Cabernet Foch; while in Shuswap GI, the most common varieties are Maréchal Foch, Ortega, Siegerrebe, and Pinot Noir.

Merlot: The most planted red variety in British Columbia, Merlot, is concentrated in the warmer areas of the province, such as the southern Okanagan Valley. These wines tend to have more structure, more intense flavors, and higher tannins than the softer styles of Merlot that are common elsewhere. Although Merlot is often used in red blends, varietal wines are also made. In the cooler areas of British Columbia, the wines tend to be lighter in weight, with fresher acidity and more elegance.

Pinot Noir: Pinot Noir plantings are increasing much more rapidly than those of Merlot, so it is possible that Pinot Noir could overtake Merlot as the most planted variety in the next few years. The wines range from deeply hued styles in warmer areas, with fuller body and intense cherry flavors, to lighter-colored styles in cooler areas, with sour or sweet cherry flavors, bright natural acidity, and light or medium tannins.

Pinot Gris: Pinot Gris (almost always labeled this way, rather than as Pinot Grigio) is British Columbia’s most planted white variety. The common style lies between the drier, leaner style of quality Pinot Grigio from northfern Italy and the richer, more luscious style of Pinot Gris associated with Alsace. British Columbia’s Pinot Gris is generally made in dry or off-dry styles, with well-defined tropical and soft stone-fruit flavors and fresh acidity.

Chardonnay: Most British Columbia Chardonnay is fermented or matured, or both, in oak barrels, though winemakers today are minimizing the influence of oak. Naturally high acidity and focused flavors yield flavorful, often elegant Chardonnay. British Columbia’s Chardonnay has been very successful in international competitions.

Cabernet Sauvignon: Grown almost exclusively in the warm southern Okanagan Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon demonstrates red and dark fruit, good structure and tannins, and balanced acidity. Oak maturing common, with longer periods in wood for higher-tier wines, many of which can age for a decade or more. Cabernet Sauvignon is also an important component, and often the major component, in the red blends that are the icon wines of many producers.

Cabernet Franc: Grown most widely in the Okanagan and the Similkameen Valleys, Cabernet Franc generally delivers ripe red fruit flavors without any greenness, but with notes of tobacco and spice. These wines are plush and generous in texture, with soft tannins and well-balanced acidity.

Syrah: Syrah is regarded as one of British Columbia’s top-performing varieties. Planted mainly in warmer areas of the Okanagan and the Similkameen Valleys, Syrah produces wines of distinctive quality that are often characterized as lying between the plush, fruit-led Shiraz of Australia and the structured, defined Syrah of the northern Rhône. The wines are generally complex and layered, with flavor profiles led by red fruit, and with top notes of spices. They show balanced acidity, and many are very ageworthy.

The Grapes of Ontario

Quality wine in Ontario is almost always made from vinifera varieties, except for table wine made from Baco Noir and Icewine made from Vidal Blanc.

Vidal Blanc: The most widely planted grape in Ontario, Vidal Blanc, is planted almost exclusively on the Niagara Peninsula, but it is produced as a varietal wine by only a few wineries. It can yield a well-flavored, aromatic wine with good acidity, but these wines rarely achieve much structure or notable character. Generally, the table wines made with Vidal Blanc are blends, mostly in the International Domestic Blend category. Vidal Blanc is the variety most used for Ontario Icewine. Its acidity offsets the sweetness, and it provides pungent tropical and soft fruit flavors.

Chardonnay: Chardonnay is planted throughout Ontario’s wine regions, where it produces wines with classic Chardonnay flavor profiles, led by apple, pear, and citrus. Most Ontario Chardonnay is made using some oak during maturation and fermentation, but few examples could be described as oaky.

Riesling: First commercially cultivated by the Mosel’s Weis family, Riesling established the Niagara Peninsula as a vinifera-growing region and drew attention to Ontario table wines. Ontario Rieslings, which are mostly dry or off-dry in style, feature bracing acidity with often luscious flavors of tropical fruit and soft stone fruit. Riesling is also used for Icewine and late-harvest wines.

Cabernet Franc: Although it is Ontario’s most planted red variety, Cabernet Franc has only recently attracted attention. As elsewhere, it was usually blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but now many producers are making varietal wines, sometimes in several tiers or from single vineyards. Ontario Cabernet Franc is medium bodied and features red fruit, some spiciness, and soft tannins. It consistently ripens well, resulting in wines without green pepper or leafy notes.

Merlot: Most Ontario Merlot is definitively cool climate in style. Instead of showing the textural plushness characteristic of warmer-climate Merlot, these wines tend to be taut in texture, with well-defined red fruit flavors and very fresh natural acidity. Many varietal Merlot wines are produced, and the grape is also used as an important component in blends. Plantings of Merlot have been increasing more quickly than those of other varieties in Ontario.

Pinot Noir: Pinot Noir is Ontario’s most prestigious red variety, and many producers use it for their top-tier wines and bottle by vineyard or, in a few cases, by vineyard parcel. Ontario Pinot Noir tends to be midrange in color and flavor intensity—not as dark and concentrated as warmer-climate Pinot Noir but with more weight and flavor concentration than examples from Quebec. Overall, these wines are characterized by layered cherry flavors, with some spiciness, and have low or moderate tannins in their youth.

Baco Noir: Although Baco Noir ranks ninth among the top 10 varieties grown in Ontario, it is important as a hybrid variety with which several producers have had great success. It is also a popular grape: more varietal, VQA-certified Baco Noir was produced in 2023 than varietal Cabernet Franc or Merlot. Baco Noir shows red and dark fruit, and smoky and gamy notes, and has moderate tannins.

Sauvignon Blanc: Varietal Sauvignon Blanc is the fourth most produced VQA-certified wine in Ontario (after Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Riesling), and examples from the Niagara Peninsula are particularly notable. It tends to have good textural weight, understated but defined green and citrus flavors, and bright acidity. But Sauvignon Blanc is susceptible to cold, and, in the past decade, many vineyards have been replanted in higher locations (to avoid frost damage) or replaced after vines were damaged or killed by episodes of very cold weather.

Grapes used in Ontario Icewine: Most Ontario Icewine is made from Vidal Blanc or Riesling, both of which have the natural acidity needed to balance the intense sweetness of Icewine, although Riesling delivers markedly higher levels of acidity than Vidal Blanc. In 2023, Vidal Blanc accounted for 69% of all Ontario Icewine, Riesling for 22%, and Cabernet Franc for 7%. The remaining 2% was mainly Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Grapes of Quebec

Quebec’s vineyards are predominantly planted to hybrid varieties, but no single variety has overwhelming representation. The most planted varieties, Vidal Blanc and Frontenac Noir, each account for 10% of vineyard surface. The tendency among Quebec producers is to blend hybrid varieties, rather than to produce varietal wines. More vinifera varieties, especially Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, are being planted and bottled as varietal wines, but it will be a long time before they account for a meaningful percentage of Quebec’s vines, if they ever do.

Although wines made from hybrid varieties were long considered inferior to wines made from vinifera varieties, there is increasing consumer acceptance of wines made from hybrids in Canada as elsewhere. This alone might encourage Quebec producers to continue working with hybrid varieties, but planting hybrids is also reasonable in the context of climate change. Quebec, like other Canadian wine-producing provinces, has had short periods of intensely cold temperatures that kill vinifera vines, and hybrid vines are generally more tolerant of cold than vinifera.

Vidal: Vidal’s winterhardiness makes it well suited to Quebec’s climate, and it can result in good-quality wines, though they lack the structure to be excellent. It is an aromatic variety that has high natural acidity, and the wines show complex flavors of apple, pear, and honey, sometimes with a little sweetness.

Frontenac Noir: Frontenac Noir is a Minnesota hybrid that does well during Quebec’s cold winters. It is a high-sugar, high-acid variety that produces wine with intense flavors of dark fruit and berries. It is produced as a varietal wine, and it is used in red blends and for rosé wines as well.

The Grapes of Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia’s vineyards, like Quebec’s, are overwhelmingly planted to hybrid varieties. By far the most important is L’Acadie Blanc, a hybrid of Cascade and Seyve-Villard 14-287 that was created in 1953, at the Vineland Research Station, on the Niagara Peninsula. It was sent to Nova Scotia for testing and was named for Acadie, the name of the French colony established in the early 1600s.

L’Acadie Blanc: By far the most important variety in Nova Scotia, L’Acadie Blanc, is also the most important grape in Tidal Bay wines, and it is widely used in the province’s increasingly notable sparkling wines. Often referred to as Nova Scotia’s Chardonnay, it delivers more palate weight than other white hybrids, a concentrated flavor profile, and high acidity, which suits the mandated style of Tidal Bay wines and the province’s sparkling wines. It is cold-hardy to minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit).

British Columbia

British Columbia includes a wide range of growing conditions for wine grapes, including maritime, continental, and desert environments. Most are influenced by water, whether the Pacific Ocean, rivers, or lakes.

British Columbia has 10 geographical indicators and 12 sub-geographical indicators, designated by the British Columbia Wine Authority. The GIs are Fraser Valley, Gulf Islands, Kootenays, Lillooet, Okanagan Valley, Shuswap, Similkameen Valley, Thompson Valley, and Vancouver Island. Of these GIs, only two have sub-GIs: the Okanagan Valley has 11 and Vancouver Island has 1. When wines are certified as satisfying the requirements of the British Columbia Vintners Quality Alliance (BC VQA), the GI is shown on the label as, for example, BC VQA Vancouver Island.

The most important region by far is Okanagan Valley GI, which has almost 11,000 acres of vines that represent about 86% of British Columbia’s vineyard area. The next most important appellation, the Similkameen Valley, has only 6%; Vancouver Island has 4%; and the remaining six GIs collectively account for 4%.

Okanagan Valley GI

Okanagan Valley GI is named for Okanagan Lake, one of the main influences on the area’s climate. About 135 kilometers (84 miles) long and 4 to 5 kilometers (2.5 to 3 miles) wide, the lake is a deep body of water created by repeated glaciations. Its maximum depth is about 230 meters (750 feet), but, even close to land, the water is often more than 100 meters (300 feet) deep. Okanagan Lake remains relatively warm even in winter, and it has a moderating influence on nearby vineyards.

Although Okanagan Lake is the principal geographic feature of Okanagan Valley GI, the boundaries of the GI extend well beyond the lake itself. The GI runs on a north-south axis for about 250 kilometers (150 miles), from the US border at Washington State to about 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of the northern end of Okanagan Lake, along the Okanagan River, which provides most of the inflow to the lake. Okanagan Lake itself drains, via a continuation of the Okanagan River, into three smaller lakes to the south: the Skaha, Vaseux, and Osoyoos Lakes.

Okanagan Valley GI encompasses a range of soil and climatic conditions, making it difficult to generalize about the region. Overall, however, it lies in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains and the Cascade Mountains. Within this pattern of low precipitation, there are higher rates in the north, where relatively cooler temperatures provide conditions suitable for grape varieties such as Riesling and Chardonnay. In the south, there is less rainfall as well as Canada’s only desert, the Osoyoos Arid Biotic Zone. Annual rainfall here is less than 250 millimeters (10 inches), and the southern part of the GI is planted mainly with red varieties, such as Merlot, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

In recent years, weather conditions attributed to climate change have severely affected grape harvests. In December 2022 and January 2024, extremely cold temperatures from the polar region struck Okanagan Valley GI and the nearby Similkameen Valley GI. In December 2022, 45% of vines suffered long-term damage, and 29% needed to be replaced. Wine production fell between 50% and 60% in 2023. The return of these frigid temperatures in January 2024 compounded the effects of the previous winter, and it is expected that in 2024 there will be virtually no wine production in Okanagan Valley GI. If these weather events continue, even irregularly, producers will need to consider measures that are more radical than simply replanting with the same varieties.

Forest wildfires have also become more common and more extensive in the past decade. Although only a small number of wineries have been directly affected, the risk of smoke in vineyards and smoke taint in finished wines is high each summer.

Okanagan Valley GI has 11 sub-GIs, designated by the British Columbia Wine Authority to acknowledge districts with distinctive climatic conditions, soil types, and resulting wine styles.

The first of the Okanagan Valley’s sub-GIs, Golden Mile Bench, was established in 2015. It is located on the west side of the valley, south of the town of Oliver, in the warm, southerly part of the Okanagan Valley. The Golden Mile Bench receives sunshine in the morning rather than in the afternoon, making it cooler than the east side of the valley—a benefit in a region where summer temperatures can exceed 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). Because it is well off the valley floor, it is nearly free of frost year-round.

The soils are mainly well-draining loam with stones, gravel, and sand, with four alluvial fans divided by creeks. The six wineries in the Golden Mile Bench farm a total of 325 hectares (800 acres) of vineyards. They are planted with many varieties, but Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay are especially important.

Just below and continuing south of the Golden Mile Bench sub-GI, the Golden Mile Slopes sub-GI includes the vineyards around Deadman Lake. It is located on the west side of the valley, so it receives plentiful morning sun but is shaded in the late afternoon. The GI shares the warm climate of the southern Okanagan Valley, with cooling breezes at night running down the mountain to the west, but it can be vulnerable to extremes of heat in the summer and cold in the winter.

Sand and gravel soils are most common here, along with alluvial fan deposits. Vineyards are mainly situated on coarse, stony soils. About 165 hectares (400 acres) are planted, with roughly 60% devoted to red varieties. Merlot and Cabernet Franc account for nearly half the acreage. The other important grapes are Syrah and Pinot Gris.

The Naramata Bench sub-GI is located at the southern end of Okanagan Lake, on the east bank, running from the city of Penticton to the community of Naramata. It presents as a series of benches that protrude into the lake, ending with bluffs that descend to the water. These benches offer a gently rolling surface with varying orientations, and most are completely planted with vines to within a few meters of the bluff. From this shoreline, the land rises gently and then more steeply for about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles).

The Naramata Bench area receives hot sun in the afternoon, although the vineyards on the benches and lower slopes near the lake benefit from lake breezes. Frosts are rarely a problem in this region. The soils are mainly silty loam, with gravel prominent at higher elevations.

There are more than 40 wineries in the Naramata Bench sub-GI, and they cultivate about 250 hectares (620 acres) of vines. The main varieties are Merlot, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

Named for the town of Okanagan Falls, this sub-GI lies along the eastern side of the Okanagan River, between Skaha Lake and Vaseux Lake. It has a diversity of soils and mesoclimates, but generally the days are warm and the nights are cool during the growing season. There are about 10 wineries in this sub-GI, and they farm a total of 160 hectares (400 acres). The main varieties are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris.

The Skaha Bench sub-GI extends about 10 kilometers (4 miles) south of the city of Penticton along the eastern side of Skaha Lake. With slopes facing west, vineyards benefit from the long afternoon sunlight during the growing season. Skaha Lake moderates temperatures, and the area is cut by valleys that drain the cold air, resulting in long frost-free periods.

The light surface soil sits on a glacial lake bed of silt and fine sand. There are about 10 wineries in this sub-GI, with a total of 75 hectares (185 acres) of vines. The most planted varieties are Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir.

The East Kelowna Slopes sub-GI is southeast of the city of Kelowna, toward the northern end of Okanagan Lake. It is an area of northwest-facing slopes and terraces, and, even though this is a northern wine region, the slopes provide good air drainage that contributes to a long growing season. Some vineyards close to Okanagan Lake benefit from its moderating effects.

The soils on the slopes and terraces where most vines are planted are primarily coarse gravel and sand. About 80 hectares (200 acres) are planted with vines, and the most important varieties are Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, and Chardonnay.

Lake Country is the Okanagan Valley’s northernmost sub-GI. Running north-south on the east side of Okanagan Lake, it has cool-climate conditions, but the vineyards are exposed to the afternoon sun in the growing season. Along with the moderating effect of the lake, the west-facing slopes provide good air drainage.

The soils are predominantly lake-bottom, with gravel and sand at upper elevations. There are 100 hectares (250 acres) planted. Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay are the key varieties.

The South Kelowna Slopes area is southeast of the city of Kelowna, on the eastern side of Okanagan Lake. Vineyards generally face northwest. This is a cool-climate area, but vineyards close to the lake benefit from its moderating influence, which lengthens the growing season. The soils are generally glacial sediment with upper layers of gravel and sand.

About 120 hectares (300 acres) are planted with vines. The main grapes are Pinot Noir, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris.

Located on the western side of Okanagan Lake, the Summerland Bench sub-GI contains an extinct volcano, Giant’s Head Mountain. The soils are generally coarse, with a mixture of sand, silt, and gravel providing good drainage. Vineyards cover 60 hectares (150 acres). The main varieties are Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay.

The Summerland Lakefront sub-GI lies along about 12 kilometers (5 miles) of the western shore at the southern end of Okanagan Lake, opposite the Naramata Bench. The vineyards face east and southeast and benefit from the cooler morning sun and the moderating effects of the lake.

A total of 65 hectares (160 acres) are planted, and Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris are the most important grapes.

With the highest elevations in the Okanagan Valley, between 500 and 700 meters (1,650 and 2,300 feet) above sea level, the Summerland Valleys sub-GI is a distinctly cool area. The soils are a diverse mix, including gravels and fine sand. There are about 60 hectares (150 acres) planted, especially to Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Kerner.

Similkameen Valley GI

The Similkameen Valley is over the Coast Mountains from the Okanagan Valley, just west of the town of Osoyoos, but instead of running north-south, it runs northwest to southeast. This provides opportunities for some south-facing vineyards, including a long stretch near Cawston that has south-facing to west-facing slopes. Other vineyards are located on lower slopes near the Similkameen River. The soils are varied and often formed by fluvial fans, and they include stony, gravelly, and silty loams. Many vineyards have stones on the surface.

Like the southern Okanagan Valley, this is a warm GI that is hot and dry during the growing season. The tall surrounding mountains and the reflectivity of the rock faces help maintain warmth even after the sun sets. Winds along the valley help moderate temperatures, but the valley is dry and warm enough that organic agriculture and viticulture are very successful. There are several distinct mesoclimates here.

There are 22 wineries in Similkameen Valley GI, farming a total of 310 hectares (770 acres). The main varieties planted are Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay.

Vancouver Island GI

Vancouver Island lies off the west coast of the British Columbia mainland, in the Pacific Ocean. At its closest point, it is 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the coast, but the ferry from Vancouver, on the mainland, to Victoria, the largest city on Vancouver Island and British Columbia’s capital city, travels 117 kilometers (73 miles) and takes about three hours. The island is largely uninhabited and covered with forest, and half its population lives in Victoria.

There are about 30 wineries on Vancouver Island, about half of them in the Cowichan Valley sub-GI, which is an hour’s drive north of Victoria. There are other pockets of wineries farther north, near Nanaimo and Saanich, and a few near Victoria.

The climate of Vancouver Island is generally mild, but there are many mesoclimates. Levels of precipitation vary, with western areas having lower levels because a high mountain range on the west coast creates a rain shadow. Summers can be warm, with maximum daily temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit), but evenings can be cool, resulting in variable diurnal swings.

Cowichan Valley sub-GI

The Cowichan Valley sub-GI was created in 2020, when it became the first sub-GI outside the Okanagan Valley. There are about a dozen wineries, with a total of 30 hectares (75 acres) planted with vines. The most common varieties are Ortega, Bacchus, and Gewürztraminer. This region is warmer than most of Vancouver Island; Cowichan means “the warm land” in the Hul'qumi'num language of the First Nations of the area.

Gulf Islands GI

Gulf Islands GI comprises several islands in the Strait of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and in some of the deep inlets of the coast. The first winery was established on Saturna Island, in 1995, and there are now 12 vineyards across six of the islands: Salt Spring, Pender, Saturna, Quadra, Gabriola, and Bowen. In total, about 45 hectares (110 acres) are planted with vines.

The climate in the Strait of Georgia is mild, but there can be water shortages during the summer. The main varieties here are Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, and Ortega.

Fraser Valley GI

The Fraser River flows east to west as it reaches the coast and empties into the Pacific Ocean south of Vancouver. The main climatic influence in this area is the ocean itself, which moderates temperatures in the valley and has made it the most important agricultural region in British Columbia. Because of the proximity of the ocean, there is a relatively narrow diurnal temperature range during the growing season, and a lower risk of frosts during spring and autumn and of damage to vines during winter. The humidity of ocean breezes, however, increases the susceptibility of vines to diseases.

There are high ridges along the banks of the Fraser River, and the soils are dominated by sandy loam and clay that help drain the region’s relatively high precipitation. But the Fraser Valley has many mesoclimates, some with more limited rainfall. It is the same with growing degree-days: the overall average is 900, but some districts reach considerably higher numbers. Langley Central, for example, has 1,017 growing degree-days.

There are 42 wineries in Fraser Valley GI, more than 10% of British Columbia’s total. One draw is the proximity to Vancouver, about an hour’s drive away (the Okanagan Valley is a four-hour drive from Vancouver), which increases wine tourism. There are 80 hectares (200 acres) planted, and wineries farm very small areas, only 2 hectares (5 acres) on average. The main varieties planted are Siegerrebe, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Bacchus.

Thompson Valley GI

The inland Thompson Valley GI is centered on the city of Kamloops. The vineyards are all located along the Thompson and the North Thompson Rivers, east and north of Kamloops, respectively. There are several mesoclimates, but, in general, growing conditions are cool and the location is semiarid, because the Coast Mountains provide a rain shadow effect.

The GI was created in 2018 and has only four wineries. There are about 40 hectares (100 acres) of vines. Key grapes include Pinot Noir, Riesling, Chardonnay, Marquette, and Maréchal Foch.

Kootenays GI

Kootenays GI is located east of Okanagan Valley GI. Vineyards sit along the Kootenay River, the Arrow Lakes, and Kootenay Lake¬¬¬. The GI has five wineries, and they farm vineyards totaling roughly 50 hectares (125 acres). The main varieties planted are Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Gewürztraminer.

Lillooet GI

Centered on the town of Lillooet, this small GI follows river valleys, especially the Fraser River, which flows through the town. The climate is similar to that in parts of the Okanagan Valley, with long, hot, dry summers, but the nights here tend to be cooler.

There are only two wineries, with about 20 hectares (50 acres) of vines. The main varieties are Riesling, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris.

Shuswap GI

At 50.7 degrees north, Shuswap GI includes some of the northernmost vineyards in North America. It is located just north of Okanagan Valley GI and is based on the city of Salmon Arm. The main geographical feature is Shuswap Lake, where vineyards are planted on the shores. This is a region of high precipitation and generally cool growing conditions that favor hybrid varieties.

The GI has nine wineries, and they cultivate just over 40 hectares (about 100 acres) of vines. The main varieties planted include Maréchal Foch, Ortega, Siegerrebe, and Pinot Noir.

Ontario

As Canada’s most populous province, with 15 million of the 40 million national population, Ontario is by far the most important wine market in Canada. The drive from the center of Toronto to many vineyards in Canada’s principal wine region, Niagara Peninsula, takes only an hour.

Along with Ontario itself, which is a provincial viticultural area, there are three viticultural areas: Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore, and Prince Edward County. All are near the US border and influenced by one of the Great Lakes: Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County by Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie North Shore by Lake Erie. The southern end of Niagara Peninsula GI is the Niagara River, which marks the border with the US, while Prince Edward County GI, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, faces New York State, and Lake Erie North Shore GI faces Ohio across Lake Erie.

Niagara Peninsula GI

Niagara Peninsula GI lies at the western end of Lake Ontario. Although it is referred to in the GI and elsewhere as a peninsula, the narrow piece of land that separates Lake Ontario from Lake Erie is, strictly speaking, an isthmus. What can suggest that it is a peninsula is the Niagara River, which is the outflow of the Niagara Falls to Lake Ontario. The river runs through a deep ravine and is quite broad, but it is not, in geographical terms, a big enough waterway to divide the isthmus sufficiently to create a peninsula. Niagara Peninsula GI runs west-east along the north shore of the Niagara isthmus, roughly between the town of Grimsby and the Niagara River.

The Niagara Peninsula has about 5,500 hectares (13,600 acres) of vines. Key to its viticultural success is the interaction of Lake Ontario with the Niagara Escarpment, a ridge that rises about 100 meters (300 feet) above the lakeshore plain and sits between 2 and 12 kilometers (1 and 7 miles) back from the lake. Lake Ontario is broad and deep, and it does not completely freeze over during the winter. In the summer, lake temperatures are cooler than land temperatures, while in winter, the lake is warmer than the land.

Westerly onshore breezes—cooler than temperatures over land in summer and warmer in winter—blow from the lake over the low-lying and gently sloping plain between the lakeshore and the Niagara Escarpment, and they moderate land temperatures in both seasons. This effect is amplified when the breezes hit the face of the escarpment, are forced upward, and then roll back down over the plain in a convection pattern. This not only moderates land temperatures in summer and winter but also extends the growing season by providing earlier warming in spring and slower cooling in autumn. At the same time, the breezes lower the risk of vine- and fruit-damaging frosts.

These impacts vary in intensity throughout Niagara Peninsula GI and were important in determining the boundaries of its 10 sub-GIs. Generally, the influence is greatest in areas closer to the lake. Overall, the GI is still a cool-climate grapegrowing region, as indicated by the varieties that do best there, including Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Gamay, and Pinot Noir. Summer temperatures, however, can climb above 30 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit) in July and August.

The Niagara Peninsula sub-GIs have a range of growing degree-days, from 1,523 to 1,637, and the overall average is 1,590, which places the GI in the same broad category as Bordeaux and Alsace. But the Niagara Peninsula has colder winters than these regions. Despite the year-round moderating effect of lake breezes, vines are often damaged by frost, and many producers have installed wind machines to use when temperatures drop.

The polar vortices—sudden, short-lived, and dramatic drops in temperature, as very cold temperatures from the polar regions are forced southward—have also challenged the region. Recent examples were in January 2022 and February 2023. Both damaged and killed vines, with some producers losing three-quarters of their vines, especially Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Syrah. These polar events have promptedp research into the temperatures at which buds of various varieties are damaged and decisions to replant with varieties that are more cold-hardy.

In 2005, Niagara Peninsula GI was divided into 10 independent sub-GIs. The decision was preceded by years of discussions. Proponents argued that sub-GIs would enable producers to highlight the local conditions that their wines embodied, while opponents argued that sub-appellations in Europe were established after centuries of experience with vineyard sites and varieties, not after a few decades. There were also practical considerations. Some wineries had adopted names referring to the topography of the peninsula, and it was thought that it was important to develop a formal system of GIs named for geographical features before winery use became widespread.

The key work in defining the appellations was undertaken by Anthony Shaw, a researcher at the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute at Brock University. Shaw divided the GI into 10 sub-GIs and 2 regional GIs, which are groupings of 3 or 4 sub-GIs. All the independent sub-GIs were named for physical features, such as the generally flat land on the shore of Lake Ontario and the area’s benches, or elevated terraces that project from the face of the Niagara Escarpment. The sub-GIs are Beamsville Bench, Twenty Mile Bench, Short Hills Bench, Lincoln Lakeshore, Creek Shores, Vinemount Ridge, Niagara Lakeshore, Four Mile Creek, St. David’s Bench, and Niagara River. The regional GIs are Niagara Escarpment, which comprises the first three of these sub-GIs, Niagara-on-the-Lake, which comprises the last four, and was named for the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. in 2024, a third regional GIs, West Niagara, was added. This contains the final 3 GIs of the region along with all those in the Niagara Escarpment. 

Niagara Escarpment Regional GI

The Beamsville Bench is the smallest of the Niagara Peninsula’s sub-GIs in area, and it occupies one of the benches that extends from the north-oriented face of the Niagara Escarpment. The bench slopes down gently toward Lake Ontario before the land drops to the level of the lakeshore plain, creating a small bluff between 40 and 60 meters (130 and 200 feet) high. The bench is divided by several streams, used seasonally for irrigation, and ravines that result in steep north- and east-facing slopes. The deep soils are a mix of rocks, silt, gravel, and clay, with shale, limestone, and sandstone. The upper layers retain water effectively, which is useful in the dry summer months, and the subsoils drain well.

The Beamsville Bench benefits from a continuous flow of air thanks to the convection pattern of lake winds blowing against the face of the escarpment. The relatively high elevation of the bench above the plain, along with these breezes, moderates humidity as well as daytime and nighttime temperatures. Temperatures begin to rise in May, peak in July and August, and can begin to fall significantly in late October.

There are 16 wineries in this sub-GI, and the main grape varieties are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Riesling.

The name of the Twenty Mile Bench sub-GI refers to the distance between it and the Niagara River. In this case, the immediate point of reference is the Twenty Mile Creek, which empties into Lake Ontario 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the estuary of the Niagara River. The topography of the Twenty Mile Bench differs from that of the other grapegrowing benches in that it is a double bench formation and a series of short slopes that extend high up the Niagara Escarpment.

The glacial soils here are deep clay and till, with a significant proportion of limestone and shale. They are reasonably well draining, and their density and their ability to retain water are helpful during the drier phase of the growing season.

The vineyards in the sub-GI are generally planted on north-facing slopes and benefit from long periods of sun exposure during summer and autumn, as well as the influence of the circulating breezes from the lake that moderate temperatures year-round. These conditions ensure gradual warming in the spring and cooling in the autumn, and they limit the diurnal temperature range. The slopes on the western side are generally shorter and steeper, and they provide excellent air drainage, so the vineyards there are less susceptible to frosts. A long growing season with moderate and stable temperatures offers good conditions for many grapes to ripen fully. Common varieties grown by the nine wineries in the Twenty Mile Bench are Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Chardonnay.

The Short Hills Bench is farther from Lake Ontario than the Beamsville Bench and the Twenty Mile Bench, and it benefits less from the breezes blowing off the lake. It is characterized by the softly undulating, flat-topped hills for which the sub-GI is named. The valleys between the hills were formed by streams that still flow seasonally from the Niagara Escarpment. The hills themselves present long, gentle slopes with varying orientations, but the Short Hills Bench sub-GI is notable for having 90% of the Niagara Peninsula’s rare south- and southeast-facing vineyards, where vines are planted north-south for maximum sun exposure.

The soils of the Short Hills Bench are complex and vary widely among sites. The 45-centimeter (18-inch) top layer is mostly clay and lies on top of 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) of clay and silt. The clay provides good water retention, and the valley provides effective drainage during periods of high precipitation. In some districts, there is a subsoil of sand and gravel that drains well and protects the deep roots of older vines from excess water.

The Short Hills Bench sub-GI warms early in the spring and maintains fairly high daytime temperatures throughout the growing season. This is one of the warmest areas on the Niagara Peninsula. Temperatures cool at night, with a diurnal range of 13 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and more. Toward the end of the growing season, temperatures fall sooner here than in other sub-GIs, but there are more hours of sunshine. Icewine harvests often occur earlier here than elsewhere.

There are only two wineries in the Short Hills Bench sub-GI, and the main varieties planted are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Gamay.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Regional GI

The St. David’s Bench sub-GI is the easternmost of the four bench-based sub-GIs of Niagara Peninsula GI. Located 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the shore of Lake Ontario, it is farther inland than the others. Most vineyards are planted on long, north-facing slopes in the upper portion of the bench and along its southern boundary against the Niagara Escarpment. The St. David’s Bench tends to warm earlier in the spring, thanks to being sheltered by the Niagara Escarpment and the effective drainage of cold air down the slopes of the bench.

Temperatures in the vineyards toward the end of the growing season tend to be cooler than elsewhere on the peninsula. Frequent high-pressure systems and generally clear and sunny weather, aided by steady air circulation, maintain moderate temperatures until September.

Several streams flowing from the base of the escarpment cut through the bench. They swell in early spring with snowmelt and spring rains but become dry beds during the summer. The upper layers of soils in this sub-GI are deep silty clay and clay loam, with a bedrock of red sandstone. The clay soils drain slowly and hold the spring moisture well.

The St. David’s Bench has seven wineries, and the most planted varieties are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Syrah.

Niagara Lakeshore is a shallow sub-GI whose southern boundary is only three kilometers (two miles) from Lake Ontario, its northern boundary. Its western limit is the Welland Canal, and, in the east, it ends at the town of Niagara-on-the Lake, where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario. The sub-GI benefits from the interaction of the lake and the escarpment, with circulating breezes that reduce the daytime heat in summer and raise the cooler land temperatures at night. In winter, warmer breezes from the water reduce the risk of frosts.

Temperatures in Niagara Lakeshore remain cool as late as April, begin to rise slowly in May, and begin to fall in October. A band of clouds along the shoreline in early autumn acts as insulation, keeping the days slightly cooler and the nights somewhat warmer. The long growing season allows for late-ripening varieties, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, to succeed.

The topography of Niagara Lakeshore is relatively flat, with slopes running south to north to the lake, but with a virtually imperceptible gradient. This ensures uninterrupted exposure to sunlight throughout the growing season. The soils are mainly clay and silt over bedrock of red shale, but there are areas of sandy soils near the lake that allow deep root penetration and have low water-retention capacity. There are also patches of clay loam in the middle of the sub-GI that hold water well and retain heat into the early autumn.

There are 10 wineries in the Niagara Lakeshore sub-GI, and the main varieties are Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Four Mile Creek is the largest sub-GI of the Niagara Peninsula, and it is known for its red wines. It is a virtually flat plain between the Niagara Lakeshore sub-GI and the St. David’s Bench sub-GI, with its northern boundary nearly three kilometers (two miles) from the lakeshore and the bluff created by the St. David’s Bench to the south. Because of this north-south depth, Lake Ontario has a variable influence over the vineyards. Days are cool and nights are warm, and the flatness of the topography ensures full exposure to sunlight during the growing season.

The plain is composed of very gentle slopes—there are only 6 meters (20 feet) of difference between the lowest and highest elevations—oriented in many directions. The only notable physical features in this essentially flat landscape are the valley of the Four Mile Creek and a few seasonal streams that drain water from some of the vineyards. The soils are dominated by red shale with high silt and clay content that retains water for the vines during the dry months of July and August.

There are 15 wineries in the Four Mile Creek, where conditions allow the cultivation of many varieties, especially Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir.

The Niagara River sub-GI is a narrow strip of land (about 1 kilometer, or 0.6 miles) running north-south, with the gorge of the Niagara River as its eastern boundary. It starts at the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake in the north and ends in the south at the town of Queenston, at the border of the St. David’s Bench sub-GI. It is characterized by long, gentle slopes that generally face east, toward the river, providing early morning sun exposure during the growing season. Most vineyards are planted on these slopes.

The main climatic influence is the broad, fast-flowing Niagara River, which runs through a steep-sided gorge from the Niagara Falls to Lake Ontario. The river creates convection currents that draw cooler air into the gorge from the vineyards, especially those closest to the bank of the gorge. This moderates vineyard temperatures, reduces the risk of late-spring and early-autumn frosts, and generally extends the growing season. The effects of Lake Ontario are stronger at the northern end of the sub-GI, where lake breezes moderate temperatures throughout the year.

The soils of the Niagara River sub-GI are generally dominated by red shale with varying sand, silt, and clay content, but their drainage qualities differ. In the north, soils tend to hold water well, which is an advantage in the dry summer months. In the south, where there are more fine sands, drainage is more effective, which encourages the vines to root deeply.

The Niagara River sub-GI has six wineries, and the main varieties are Riesling, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

West Niagara Regional GI

The northern boundary of Lincoln Lakeshore is the shore of Lake Ontario, while its southern limit is the foot of the bluffs formed by the Beamsville Bench and part of the Twenty Mile Bench. It is effectively a plain that slopes gently down toward the lake and is cut by seasonal streams, notably the Thirty Mile, Forty Mile, and Fifty Mile Creeks. They provide water to the vines, especially as snow melts in the spring, and drainage during the growing season.

The main climatic influence is the lake, which sends cooling breezes over the vineyards in the summer and warmer breezes to moderate temperatures in the colder months. The result is a long growing season, with moderate and stable temperatures that begin to rise in May and to fall in October. During the summer months, the lakeshore location is the meeting point of the cool breezes from the lake and the warmer air rising from the land, and localized air circulation patterns tend to produce small diurnal temperature variations.

During the summer months, the vineyards are fully exposed to the sun. In autumn, as in Niagara Lakeshore, it is common to see a line of clouds along the shoreline, which keeps days cooler and nights warmer. Winters in this sub-GI are also moderate, making the area suitable for some varieties that are less cold-hardy. For the same reason, tender fruits, especially peaches, plums, and cherries, thrive here.

The soils vary widely in content and depth and sit on a base of red shale. Half the sub-GI consists of light sandy soils that drain from well to moderately well and warm early in the spring. Other parts of the sub-GI have concentrations of red clay loam, which retains water effectively.

There are 13 wineries in the Lincoln Lakeshore sub-GI, and the main varieties are Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Merlot.

The Creek Shores sub-GI is surrounded by water on three sides: Lake Ontario to the north, the Twelve Mile Creek to the east, and the Twenty Mile Creek and Jordan Harbor to the west. No part of the sub-GI is more than five kilometers (three miles) from Lake Ontario, which moderates temperatures in the vineyards throughout the year. Lake breezes and cool north winds warm the land slowly in April and May, and warmer summer temperatures begin in June and peak by the end of July. The growing season extends well into the first half of October. The topography ensures sun exposure from early morning to evening.

Creek Shores extends toward the shore of Lake Ontario, dropping about 20 meters (65 feet) in five kilometers (three miles). It comprises a series of gentle slopes, some short and some long, that have many orientations and are divided by seasonal streams that provide drainage of the spring runoff into Lake Ontario. Most vineyards are planted on the rich fertile plain where the riverbeds of former creeks broaden, and where they receive maximum exposure to sunlight. The numerous streams produce a highly dissected landscape, with well-drained lighter soils distributed in several long, narrow bands that are oriented north-south. Interspersed are patches of loamy soils that are thick and porous and allow deep root penetration by vines.

The Creek Shores sub-GI has 10 wineries, and the most planted varieties are Gamay, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and Riesling.

Unlike the other Niagara Peninsula sub-GIs, Vinemount Ridge sits on top of the Niagara Escarpment, rather than being located on one of its benches or on the plain between the escarpment and the shore of Lake Ontario. It lies mainly on the Vinemount Moraine, a long, narrow, east-west ridge composed of rocks and sediment deposited by glaciers 13,000 years ago. It is less than a kilometer (about a half mile) wide, sits at a height of more than 200 meters (650 feet) at the top of the escarpment, and gradually falls along slopes to the south. The slopes are bisected by seasonal streams that help drain surface water and groundwater.

Vineyards here generally face south, with some facing east, unlike most on the Niagara Peninsula, which are largely oriented toward the north. The southerly exposure provides early warming in the spring and high daytime temperatures throughout the growing season. There is little to no lake effect here, because breezes from Lake Ontario rise after hitting the face of the escarpment, rather than blowing over the ridge at its top. The result is a relatively short growing season. Vineyards are cooled at night by prevailing southwesterly winds, but there is still greater diurnal temperature variation in Vinemount Ridge than in the vineyards below the escarpment that benefit from the lake effect. There are various mesoclimates, however, thanks to different elevations and exposure to winds.

The soils are dominated by silty, clay-loam till. They have high water-retaining properties, which is beneficial during the summer, but the underlying moraine drains well.

There are seven wineries in Vinemount Ridge, and the main varieties are Riesling, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay.

This regional appellation also contains Short Hills Bench, Beamsville Bench, and Twenty Mile Bench

Prince Edward County GI

Prince Edward County, which lies south of the city of Belleville and about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Toronto, became a GI in 2007. Most of the area included in the GI is a peninsula on the north shore of Lake Ontario, but it also includes Amherst Island and a strip of land off the peninsula, on the mainland. There were several vineyards in Prince Edward County in the late 1800s, but, during most of the 20^th century, the land was planted with fruits and vegetables, and there were dozens of canneries.

Today, the economy of the County (as it is known locally) is based on wine and tourism. The second generation of wineries is quite recent. Vineyards began to be planted in the 1990s, and the first commercial wineries opened in 2001. Three years later, there were only 4 producing wineries, but by 2023 there were more than 50. The increase in the number of wineries in the early 2000s, along with the attention they were getting, persuaded Ontario’s wine authorities to waive the preconditions regarding minimum production volumes to qualify for GI status. Most producers are small, and only about 400 hectares (1,000 acres) are planted with vines.

Many tourists come to Prince Edward County to visit Sandbanks Provincial Park, which includes a long, sandy beach, the world’s largest baymouth barrier sand dune formation, areas for watching bird migration, and hiking trails. Wine tourism is important to producers, and, in the past decade, infrastructure in the form of accommodations and restaurants has developed. Many of the tourists travel from Toronto, a two-hour drive away.

Sitting at a latitude of 44 degrees north, Prince Edward County is Ontario’s northernmost GI, so it is generally cooler than the other two. Like the others, it is heavily influenced by water, in this case Lake Ontario, which surrounds the peninsula on three sides, and the meandering Bay of Quinte, which looks more like a river and separates the peninsula from the mainland. With inlets and coves, Prince Edward County has 800 kilometers (500 miles) of shoreline, and no vineyard is more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from water. There are also a few small lakes on the peninsula.

Proximity to water is especially important in the frequently hot summers, when the southwesterly breezes from Lake Ontario prevent the temperature on land from rising much above 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit). Overall, this is a cool-climate region, with 1,366 growing degree-days, making it much cooler (by more than 200 growing degree-days) than the Niagara Peninsula region.

Winters in Prince Edward County are much colder than those in Ontario’s other GIs, and vines must be buried or protected by geotextiles. Even so, the climate has caused devastation in Prince Edward County vineyards. In February 2014, very cold temperatures damaged many vines, as they did in other Ontario regions, and in May 2015 a severe frost caused widespread losses. Some producers lost all their vines, while others lost 50%.

Because of the uncertainty of the climate, many Prince Edward County wineries regularly buy some of their grapes from sources in the Niagara Peninsula region, where winters are generally more clement, and truck them to their wineries. Ontario wine law enables producers to label wines by the GI or sub-GI where the grapes were grown, and it is not uncommon to see wines labeled with the name of a Prince Edward County producer and a Niagara GI or sub-GI.

Prince Edward County GI presents an irregular landscape cut by shallow valleys and ridges that provide various orientations for planting vineyards. The bedrock is a broken layer of limestone, and the overlying soils are sandy and clay loams embedded with rock and shale fragments. This composition provides good drainage to the limestone. Producers have noted that the very variable growing conditions point to distinct districts in Prince Edward County, and, though it is a very small GI, there could be pressure to create one or more sub-GIs within it.

The most planted varieties in Prince Edward County GI are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Gris.

Lake Erie North Shore GI

As its name suggests, Lake Erie North Shore GI sits on the north shore of Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes. The north shore of the lake runs southwest to northeast, and the GI covers the shoreline between the towns of Amherstburg and St. Thomas, a distance of about 200 kilometers (125 miles). Lake Erie North Shore GI includes one sub-GI, South Islands, a group of nine islands in Lake Erie. The largest, Pelee Island, is densely planted with grapevines, while the others are small, uninhabited, and not planted with vines.

Lake Erie North Shore was a wine-producing region in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but, for most of the 20^th century, the major crop cultivated was tobacco. Wine production resumed in the 1980s. Most of the vineyards are planted close to the arc-shaped shoreline at about 42 degrees north—the same latitude as the border between California and Oregon—making this the southernmost Canadian wine region.

At the western end of this GI, the land is influenced by three bodies of water: Lake Erie to the south, the Detroit River to the west, and Lake Saint Clair to the north. The GI is divided by seasonal streams that are little more than a trickle in summer. The terrain is composed of several gentle south- and southeast-facing slopes with varying elevations. There are no physical features to obstruct the southwest breezes from Lake Erie, and the whole GI benefits from their moderating influence.

This is Ontario’s warmest wine region, with a long growing season, but winter conditions can still be dangerous. A cold snap in January 2014 resulted in the loss of over 80% of the vintage. In February 2019, temperatures falling to minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit) damaged many vines, especially Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Syrah.

Lake Erie North Shore GI has 16 wineries, and the main varieties include Cabernet Franc, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot.

South Islands comprises nine islands in Lake Erie, but only one, Pelee Island, is planted with vines. This island was the location of one of Canada’s first wineries, founded in 1866. It was originally three islands with marshes between them, before the marshes were drained in the 1880s to create a single landmass. But the center of the island is lower than the outside coastline, giving the topography the appearance of a reef, and three-quarters of the land is below the level of Lake Erie. A system of pumps that still operates was installed in the 1800s to prevent the depression from filling with rainwater.

Grapevines have been important here since the 1980s, and the island became a GI in 2005, when Ontario’s GIs were created. But in 2015, because all the vineyards were owned by one winery that bore the name of the island, it was decided that the island (and the nearby uninhabited and uncultivated islands) should instead be a sub-GI of Lake Erie North Shore, renamed South Islands. Pelee Island is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the north shore and is reachable by ferry, except between January and April. It is Canada’s southernmost inhabited territory.

Pelee Island has a distinct climate because of its location. Lake Erie is a shallow lake that warms quickly in the spring and stays warm until the autumn. This results in a growing season that is about 30 days longer than it is on the mainland, which benefits late-ripening varieties. Harvests here usually begin two or three weeks before they do in other Ontario wine regions, often in August. Vineyards receive uninterrupted sunshine. Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon are important grapes among Pelee Island’s 200 hectares (500 acres) of vines.

Emerging Regions in Ontario

There are dozens of wineries located outside Ontario’s GIs. The counties of Norfolk and Haldimand, on the shore of Lake Erie to the northwest of Lake Erie North Shore GI, have vineyards planted on sandy soils and gentle slopes that benefit from a relatively long growing season. North of Toronto, some wineries have opened near the south shore of Georgian Bay, the northeastern arm of Lake Huron. Here, several mesoclimates suitable for viticulture have been identified. A third region is known as Huron Shores, specifically referring to the eastern shores of the lake. Warm summers favor agriculture in general, and relatively heavy, regular snowfall protects vines from the winter temperatures. In eastern Ontario, there are a dozen wineries within about 100 kilometers (60 miles) of Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Most rely on hybrid varieties, but there has also been success with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Some of these regions could eventually reach the scale of production needed to create a GI under Ontario wine law. In the meantime, wines made from grapes grown in these regions that satisfy all VQA requirements can be labeled VQA Ontario.

Quebec

Quebec is an extensive province that has one-fifth of Canada’s population and a per-capita rate of wine consumption that is higher than that of any other province: about 24 liters annually, compared with 18 liters in British Columbia and 14 liters in Ontario. But in terms of wine production, it ranks a distant third behind Ontario and British Columbia. The Quebec wine industry includes about 150 wineries, mostly small producers. In all, they cultivate about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of vines.

Although some wine was made commercially in the 1800s, the modern Quebec wine industry dates to the 1980s, when there was renewed interest in viticulture. By 1990, there were about 75 wineries, many with vineyards planted on land originally intended for other purposes, and often without great viticultural or winemaking expertise. Since 2000, there have been substantial changes, including more deliberate matching of varieties and sites, a certification of quality in 2009, the adoption of an IGP wine law in 2018, and a new level of professionalism.

The main challenge that Quebec wineries face is the typically very cold winters, when temperatures occasionally fall below minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit) at night during January and February. This is cold enough to kill vinifera vines and many hybrid varieties, so growers need to bury their vines with soil or cover them with geotextiles. It is expected that over the longer term, by the middle of the 21^st century, climate change will make some parts of Quebec more suitable for viticulture. A 2017 report suggested that within about 20 years, vineyards in the Montérégie region south of Montreal, in the west near Gatineau, and near the banks of the St. Lawrence River would be the main beneficiaries of climate change and would have longer growing seasons and more frost-free days. The report predicted that, because of these changes, vinifera varieties would become more common, especially early ripening varieties, such as Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Gamay.

Wineries are scattered throughout the province, but they are mainly in southwestern Quebec, between the St. Lawrence River and the border with the United States. There are vineyards as far west as the city of Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa, and as far east as Quebec City. Nine largely informal regions have been identified based on geographic and climatic features and existing concentrations of wineries. The Conseil des Vins du Québec (Quebec Wine Council) expects more regions to emerge.

Vallée des Outaouais: This region, located in the west, has soils of sand, gravel, and pebbles, the residue of postglacial seas. The climate is continental, with cold winters, hot summers, and abundant rainfall.

Deux-Montagnes: In this area, west of Montreal, the landscape is mainly flat with a few gentle hills, and mainly marine sediment soils. It is near four bodies of water (Deux-Montagnes Lake, Lake Saint-Louis, the Ottawa River, and the St. Lawrence River) that moderate temperatures. The snowfall is often heavier here than it is in regions to the south, providing extra protection to the vines in winter.

Vallée-du-Richelieu: This valley, which extends east of Montreal to the US border, is rich in clay with deposits of stones and gravel. The region has the most frost-free days of any wine region in Quebec—between 205 and 212 annually.

Piémont Appalachien Sud: In this area near Lake Champlain, on the US border, most of the soils are glacial sediments. Climatic conditions vary within the region. Vineyards near Lake Champlain benefit from its influence, while the conditions at higher-altitude vineyards are markedly cooler.

Piémont Appalachien Nord: The soils in this long strip of land running north-south around Drummondville are glacial deposits, often calcareous in the west and gravelly in the east. In the southern portion, the snow cover is deeper and the growing season shorter.

Versants Montérégiens: This patchwork of districts east and south of Montreal encompasses 10 hills surrounded by deposits of sand and gravel, where most vineyards are planted. Summers are hot and winters are cold.

Plateaux des Appalaches: This region is composed of a series of plateaus around Sherbrooke, ranging from 150 to 450 meters (500 to 1,500 feet) in height, with soils that tend to be rocky and stony. Overall temperatures are cooler here than in lower-lying regions, and the region has relatively high rainfall and snowfall.

Lac Saint-Pierre: This long region stretches along both banks of the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Trois-Rivières, especially Lake Saint-Pierre, which is essentially a body of water created where the St. Lawrence River widens. Most vineyards in this area are planted near the lake, which moderates temperatures. The soils are mostly marine sediment with sand and clay.

Québec et les Berges du Saint-Laurent: This region extends along both sides of the St. Lawrence River upstream and downstream of Quebec City and includes the Île d’Orléans. There are limestone sand and shale deposits where vineyards are planted, while the Île d’Orléans is mostly loam with clay, sand, and gravel content. The river moderates temperatures throughout the year.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is the most populous of Canada’s Atlantic provinces and by far the most important for wine. This region, with a cold to cool climate, is essentially a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water: the Atlantic Ocean, the Bay of Fundy, and the Northumberland Strait, which separates it from Prince Edward Island. These bodies of water have a moderating effect on nearby vineyards, and most vineyards have been planted near water. Even so, winters can be very cold, snowfall can be heavy, and coastal Nova Scotia occasionally has severe hurricanes that sweep in from the south. Summers can be warm, but the growing season is relatively short. Across the areas where grapes are grown, there is an average of 1,000 growing degree-days.

In all, 63 grape varieties are cultivated in Nova Scotia, but 5 account for 56% of the total harvest tonnage: L’Acadie Blanc (30% of the total), New York Muscat (8%), Chardonnay (7%), Riesling (6%), and Vidal Blanc (5%). There are 58 grape growers and 20 wineries, down from a peak of 22 in 2015. There are also six fruit (nongrape) wineries. In all, 485 hectares (1,200 acres) are planted with vines, with about 170 hectares (420 acres) of them at wineries. The wineries are scattered among seven defined districts. The two most important are the Annapolis Valley and the Gaspereau Valley, which together comprise half of Nova Scotia’s wineries.

The Annapolis Valley runs east-west along the south shore of the Bay of Fundy and is open to the Minas Basin, an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, at its eastern end. Carved out by a glacier, the valley floor is 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide and lies between two ridges. Sheltered from offshore winds, and with winter temperatures moderated by breezes from the Minas Basin, the Annapolis Valley is the warmest wine area in Nova Scotia. The south side, farther inland, is especially warm, and that is where most of the wineries are located.

The neighboring Gaspereau Valley is exposed to the Minas Basin, benefiting from its moderating influence on valley temperatures. The fast-flowing tides of the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tidal range in the world, mean that it never freezes, and it sends year-round breezes and humidity along the 12-kilometer (7-mile) length of the valley. During the growing season, the south-facing vineyards receive long hours of afternoon sunlight.

The five other districts are the Avon River Valley and the LaHave River Valley, on the Minas Basin; Bear River, near the Bay of Fundy; Marble Mountain, on Cape Breton Island; and the Malagash Peninsula, on the Northumberland Strait. Each of these regions has from one to three wineries.

Nova Scotia has gained attention for its white and sparkling wines. The best-known white is Tidal Bay, generally a blend of hybrid varieties (some vinifera varieties are also permitted) that has a style profile regulated by law. (See the section on wine law, above.) Fourteen of Nova Scotia’s wineries make a Tidal Bay wine. The sparkling wines are generally made in the traditional method, and, though some are blends of vinifera varieties (usually Pinot Noir and Chardonnay), others are wholly or partly made from hybrid varieties, especially L’Acadie Blanc.

Bibliography

Dube, Gaëlle, and Karine Pedneault. “Le Québec en mode viticole: Cépages hybrides et viticulture nordique à l’aube du XXIe siècle.” Fruits Oubliés 6 (2014): 9-18.

Phillips, Rod. The Wines of Canada. Oxford: Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, 2017.

Roy, Philippe, Patrick Grenier, Evelyne Barriault, Travis Logan, Anne Blondlot, Gaétan Bourgeois, and Diane Chaumont. “Probabilistic Climate Change Scenarios for Viticultural Potential in Quebec.” Climate Change 143 (2017): 43-58.

Compiled by Rod Phillips (June 2024)

Edited by Stacy Ladenburger