Some may think of Canada as the land of permafrost and northern lights bordering the Arctic with decent beer, maple syrup, and bacon in a can, with an endless supply of good comedians and hockey players who eventually emigrate south.

If any wine style fits CanadaÂ’s image, surely it is Icewine, the sweet but tart dessert wine made from solidly frozen grapes. The grapes from which Icewine is made hang from leafless vines, draped with netting to protect the fruit from hungry birds long after the normal harvest has ended. Unlike the Germans, and more in keeping with New World habits, the Canadians make Icewine out of many different grapes - Cabernet Franc and the French hybrid, Vidal, are popular grapes for Icewine on the Niagara Peninsula. Inniskillin, one of the best-known wineries in Canada even makes a sparkling Icewine from Vidal. Traditions go only a short way in the New World, although the best Canadian Icewines, from my experience, are made from Riesling.

Riesling grapes awaiting Icewine harvest in December

For many New World wine consumers, the idea of Icewine is as Canadian as the Toronto Maple Leafs. That Icewine has a German provenance is even surprising to some because we, in North America, hear often that Canada is the world’s largest producer of Icewine. The Canadians even have their own spelling “Icewine” in the rest of the English speaking world it’s “ice wine.”

Icewine can be a high-risk business. In some years the weather doesn’t cooperate. Mild winters can doom a season’s Icewine production. In Canada, temperatures must reach -8°C to harvest and press the grapes to produce the sweet, heavily concentrated must. This year, for instance, most grapes for Icewine were not harvested until mid January, a cause of concern early on for some growers. The amount of frozen grapes used to produce Icewine yields only fifteen percent of what would normally be produced if table wine were the final product from unfrozen grapes.

To generalize Canadian wine production as a curious niche filled with Icewine would be mistaken. In spite of the fact that Canadian Wine Annual reports that 900.170 liters of Icewine were produced in Ontario in 2004, some Canadian wine producers are getting tired of being pigeonholed as exclusively Icewine producers, as total production of Canadian wine is over 99 percent table wine. However, others see Canadian Icewine as a unique identity that draws consumer attention and interest.

The Niagara Peninsula

In spite of the talk of cold weather and Icewine, Canadian wine production is not centered in the Yukon or Newfoundland. Canada has two prominent wine producing regions: in the west, the Okanangan Valley of British Columbia (near the U.S. border with the state of Washington) and in the east, the Niagara Peninsula in the province of Ontario.

Niagara Falls

All major wine regions lay claim to some exceptional form of geographic, geologic, and/or climatic distinction, but the Niagara Peninsula of Canada may indeed have a bit more of that kind of distinction than other places. Its first distinction is Lake Ontario, which is one of the deepest of the Great Lakes, second only in depth to Lake Superior to the northwest. Its great depth retains summer heat and makes the lake a force of moderation against the cold influences of polar air masses that move in from the north. The second distinction is the Niagara Escarpment, an uplifted dolomitic ridge with a steep face, which moves southeast across Ontario and into New York State. This interesting geologic feature has long been famous for another reason; it forms the cliff over which the Niagara River plunges, creating Niagara Falls.

Face of the Niagara Escarpment with exposed bedrock

The prime wine grape production area defined by the escarpment is relatively small, approximately 50 km. long, varying in width from 10 km. near the Niagara River to 1km. at its western extreme. Yet now, even within this small area, there are 13 separate wine grape growing sub appellations.

The presence of the escarpment works with the warming influence of Lake Ontario to moderate the climate in the gently sloped region between the escarpment and the lake. The escarpment, which is often as high as 25 meters, acts like a wall entrapping the circulating warm, moist air rising from Lake Ontario and producing a mesoclimate much milder than the areas outside of this defined region. This moderate climate is the main reason the Niagara Peninsula has found its way to being a productive wine-grape growing region. Len Pennachetti of Cave Spring Cellars calls it a “climatic fluke”. He uses a combination of contradictory ideas to playfully describe the moderate conditions of the Niagara Peninsula as a “maritime-continental climate”.

The Niagara Escarpment rising behind vineyards in the sub appellation called the Beamsville Bench

In fact, the Niagara Peninsula, the most prominent eastern Canadian wine-producing region, is located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, about 150 kilometers south of Toronto on approximately the same latitude as Florence, Italy. Still, it is classified as a cool climate wine region. The cold polar air masses cause unpredictable weather in the spring and the fall, with colder winter temperatures than are found in most European cool climate wine regions.

Because of the cool climate realities of the Niagara Peninsula, choice of grape variety is important. The grape varieties planted can be sorted into two or three categories. One might be called a German model, where Riesling is dominant. Another is a Burgundian model centered on Chardonnay with some Pinot Noir. A third model runs all of these (and more) together as only the New World can do. While on a recent trip to the Niagara Peninsula, I tasted (in addition to the above wines) Gamay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, and Vidal. Vidal amounts to 20% of total plantings due to its use in Icewine and its resistance to cold.

Free Trade, the VQA, and Agri-Tourism

In speaking with many Canadian wine producers, all seemed to agree that the 1988 Free Trade Agreement was the nudge that moved Canadian wines onto the world stage. Prior to 1988 the Canadian government protected grape growers from foreign competition. Local wines made from French hybrids and Vitis labrusca (grapes like Concord) were subsidized, making inferior quality wines produced from these grapes significantly cheaper for consumers on the domestic market than foreign imports. This had the effect of discouraging the planting of the riskier but higher quality European wine grapes known as Vitis vinifera, which include all of the best known grapes on the world market today from Cabernet Sauvignon to Chardonnay. With the tariffs gone, Canadian wines were forced to compete with wines from the rest of the world in their domestic market, and wine quality rose to meet the competition.

Also in 1988, the Canadian government amended the Wine Content Act, banning Vitis labrusca in the production of table wines. That same year the Canadian winemakers interested in improving the image of Canadian wines formed the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA), a de facto appellation system establishing viticultural regions and quality standards. The VQA seal on a bottle of Canadian wine guarantees high quality wine produced from grapes grown in the designated viticultural area.

Quietly, the wine industry on the Niagara Peninsula is maturing. It may seem odd to say this as it only began in a serious way (with Vitis vinifera) in the late 1970s. Some of the pioneers are now retiring – Karl Kaiser and Donald Ziraldo, founders of Inniskillin thirty-two years ago, recently announced their retirement.

A second generation of winery owners, some sporting bulging wallets made fat from lucrative careers in other fields, has recently arrived on the scene. Wineries as architectural statements seem to be more common. I see this as a sign of stability. In some ways, IÂ’m reminded of the Napa Valley. Unlike the Napa Valley, I found the prices of Canadian wines to be reasonable.

The U.S. magazine Wines and Vines reports an increase of 108 wineries in Canada in the last year, a doubling of the total wineries in a single year. Thirty-eight of the new wineries are in Ontario alone, bringing the total there to 133 (as of 2006).

Martin Malivoire, purchased vineyard land for his winery, Malivoire Wine Company, in 1997. He told me at the recent “Canada in New York” tasting in New York City that vineyard land on the Niagara Peninsula is now six times more expensive than it was in 1997.

A common complaint I heard from wine producers was that there wasnÂ’t enough wine to sell because of low crop yields from two of the previous three years, and because domestic demand for Canadian wine is high.

Niagara on the Lake

Large tracts of neat, professionally kept, cane-pruned vineyards dominate the landscape framed by the escarpment and the lake. Agri-tourism provides increased income for winery owners who seek to offset the risk of cool climate agriculture by attracting a loyal following of food and wine lovers from the large metropolitan Toronto region. I found the quality of the wines produced to be quite impressive. Canadian wine consumers seem to feel the same way. I was surprised how, on a cold Saturday in mid December, the tasting rooms were jammed, selling not only wine, but an array of things from clothing to wine accessories. This growing regional tourism has had the effect of converting a rural agricultural region once known for tree fruit production into an attractive destination for winery visits.

Charming hotels and restaurants are available to visiting wine lovers. Attached to Cave Spring Cellars in Jordan, Ontario is the lovely Inn on the Twenty with its restaurant, On the Twenty. The “Twenty” refers to the name of the adjacent creek that runs over the escarpment to Lake Ontario. If you were to visit the region, Inn on the Twenty is a perfect place to stay, a pleasant, friendly, small hotel ideally situated for making winery visits.

On the Twenty, restaurant attached to Cave Spring Cellars, Jordan, Ontario

Coming in Part ll: Wineries, Winemakers, and Wines of the Niagara Peninsula