Written by Tony Aspler | 02 March 2010

It took the French some 200 years of trial and error to discover which grape varieties did best in which regional soils and macroclimates. This painstaking exercise in pragmatism was given regulatory status as the appellation system, AOC. In 2005, a mere 17 years after the amendment of Ontario’s Wine Content Act prohibiting labrusca varieties from table wine, the VQA announced that the Niagara Peninsula had been divided into two major regional appellations: Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Escarpment. These were further divided into 10 sub-appellations to reflect the local climate and soil structures.

At a time when the consumer is still confused as to the meaning of VQA — given the amount of Cellared in Canada off-shore blends that proliferate on LCBO shelves — it may seem premature. But I believe it’s the right thing to do to start the research. According to J. L. Groulx, the winemaker at Stratus (who hails from the Loire Valley), the task of defining terroirs is a lengthy business. "I don't think we'll be finished in 200 years anyway," he says. Since the active life of the average winemaker is 35 vintages, it’s going to take six generations of vintners before we really know what’s going on in the vineyards of Niagara. If you don’t plan on living that long, you can get a foretaste of what these sub-apps mean by comparing the Rieslings of Short Hills Bench on the Escarpment with those of Four Mile Creek on the Niagara plain. Riesling is the best variety to use as a control grape since its flavours, as a single unblended variety, are dependent on what happens in the vineyard rather than how it is treated in the cellar. Usually, Riesling is made in stainless steel so there is no wood influence.

Written by Rosemary Mantini | 24 February 2010

Forget yoga class — driving through Niagara is the kind of Zen experience that both relaxes and energizes. A recent visit found my husband and I exploring the many restaurants, shops and wineries we happened to pass. It was at the Upper Canada Cheese Company that we heard of something very neat happening in Niagara. Two wineries had actually started producing and selling their own grape seed oil. Not nearly as well known or extensively used in North America as its viscous brethren produced from olives, peanuts and canola, oil pressed from the seeds of grapes has been popular in Europe for at least 500 years.

The story of Ontario grape seed oil actually begins 11 years ago when Joseph Pohorly (owner and winemaker at Joseph’s Estate Wines) decided that there was perhaps a better way to deal with all of the pomace left over from the winemaking process than carting it off to the dump. He got the ball rolling by devising a way to turn that waste into a delicious product. The years that followed saw him exploring the best method of extracting the tiny bit of oil stored in each seed. He purchased the necessary equipment, and by 2002, was producing and selling grape seed oil on site. Stratus Winery recently followed suit with its own version. Southbrook Winery, too, toyed with the idea. Owner Bill Redelmeier collaborated with Vinifera for Life co-founder Mark Walpole last year to create a very small test-batch of unfiltered oil. “It was incredibly flavourful, really pungent,” says Redelmeier. “It tasted like a cross between olive oil and sesame seed oil.”