I recently took a trip to the French region of Canada, staying in Quebec for nearly a week. It is a beautiful area that also has some very good and interesting wines. That's not surprising since the French colonized the area in 1608, well before the British landed in New England. The French Canadians, though, had a hard time putting their European expertise in winemaking to work in the Canadian climate. The styles of wines they knew in France were produced in the moderate temperatures that were a long way from the very cold climate of Canada. French grapes could simply not survive. Winemakers also tried to make a product with the native Canadian grapes, but they did not have much luck there either. By the 1960s, winemakers concentrated almost exclusively on sweet wine.
In more recent times, though, the Canadians have finally done well making wines in areas that can produce complex flavors, delicate yet persistent aromas, and tightly focused structure. The Canadians do particularly well with a sweet dessert product called ice wine. They are also producing some good sparkling wines.
Let's start with the best: the ice wines. This type of wine has long been made in Germany, where it is called eiswein. The Canadians mastered the German style and are now taking the market away from them. The Germans can only produce in extremely cold years, but the Canadians can make it every year. In both areas, though, ice wine production is risky. Vintners have to pick the whole crop within a few hours, at a moment’s notice, on the first morning that is cold enough. This results in relatively small amounts of ice wine being produced worldwide, making them generally quite expensive.
The Niagara Peninsula, which undergoes freezing in winter every year, has become the world’s largest ice wine producer. Vintners there have been making the dessert wine since 1978. Ice wine is now produced in all wine growing provinces of Canada, notably in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Inniskillen in Niagara is the most famous of Canadian sweet wineries, but many wineries have followed it in the last forty years. Most of them, though, are very small. You can buy just about any brand of ice wine with confidence. It comes in half bottles, and remember that a dessert wine is served in small amounts.
The Canadian rosé dry wines were another delightful discovery for me. My favorite was Domaine Bergeville, which was located only a short distance from where we were staying in Quebec. On the label, the winemaker says that his product is made to accompany the great moments with the family or friends.
In the past few years a whole host of excellent wines have been growing up in other areas of Canada. British Columbia has enjoyed the best success. Their American counterparts to the south in Washington and Oregon have done very well with whites, and the Canadians followed their lead. Two wineries in British Columbia that you might want to try out are Blue Grouse Estate or Arrow Leaf Cellars, and there are many others.
George M. Taber is the author of Judgment of Paris-California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine and other wine books.