LCBO Food & Drink Autumn 2022

Ontario wine…. We love it, we drink it, we take pride in its successes. Sometimes, perhaps, we also take it for granted. How did this province develop a wine industry of its own? It’s time to look back on the journey. In 1970, Percy Rowe, travel editor of The Toronto Telegram , wrote a book about “a little-known aspect of Canadian life” in The Wines of Canada . He described an industry that was already more than 100 years old— but still had a long way to go. Just seven companies were making wine in Ontario at the time, none of them growing vinifera grapes, and if you wanted to buy a bottle, there were only 51 stores allowed to sell wine in the entire province. A lot happened over the next 50 years. Determined individuals reinvented the idea of Ontario wine, and things that were deemed impossible turned out to be nothing of the kind. Today, there are more than 200 wineries in the province, and the wines they produce— especially our top-level Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir and icewine—are respected and enjoyed all over the world. Many of the iconic wines that helped establish that reputation are still stars, proving their worth with every new vintage. And the province’s four principal wine-growing regions have become tourist destinations, creating new economies for their communities. Best of all, our wines—dry or sweet, sparkling or still— just go on getting better! 1 O

TRIED AND TRUE

Inniskillin Vidal Icewine VQA

(VINTAGES ESSENTIALS 388306, 375 mL, $49.95) Honeyed sweetness, vibrant acidity and intense tropical and stone fruit flavours vie for supremacy, but the balance is so skillful that none can prevail. Icewine is versatile—try it with a coarse pâté, a ripe blue cheese, even

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE & AREA

tandoori chicken, not to mention dessert.

T here are a number of red-letter days in the history of Ontario wine. One of the most important is July 31, 1975, whenDonald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser of Inniskillin were granted the f irst winery licence in the province since 1929. Inniskillin was a new archetype—small, personal, welcoming— and soon began making high-quality wine from estate-grown vinifera grapes such as Riesling, Chardonnay and Gamay. It also made international history when, in 1991, its 1989 Vidal icewine won the Grand Prix d’Honneur at Vinexpo in Bordeaux, the first time most people in the world had ever heard of our icewine—or of a Canadian wine industry, come to that. By then, other wineries were up and running around Niagara-on-the-Lake—Château des Charmes (founded in 1978, and the place where owner Paul Bosc discovered and propagated Canada’s first unique vinifera variety, Gamay Noir ‘Droit’), Hillebrand (1979) and Reif (1982) were the earliest. Today, there are 39 wineries in the area, growing vines on a variety of different soils;

Château des Charmes Gamay Noir VQA (LCBO 57349, $15.95) Looking for a light red to go with your charcuterie plate or pepperoni pizza? This one tastes like peppery sour cherries and has just the tangy acidity to dazzle in such company. A perennial crowd-pleaser since the Bosc family started producing it in the 1970s.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LINDSAY LAUCKNER-GUNDLOCK

110 FOOD & DRINK AUTUMN 2022