Our weather would wither the Riesling, Merlot, Burgundy, Zinfandel, Gewurtz and other grape varieties you read about on wine labels. But there are 90 different grape varieties growing in Bert Dunn's garden in the northeast corner of Caledon - and quite a few of them will make very good wines.

Of course, according to the experts, much of Bert Dunn's garden - over and above the grapes - cannot exist. The experts tell us that persimmon (Diospyros Virginianan) and pawpaw (Asimina triloba) aren't suited to this part of Canada. Well, not only do these plants and others grow in Bert Dunn's garden, they thrive.

Bert once asked an on-line grower from the southern U.S. about suckers on the persimmon. She told him not to worry because the plant doesn't grow in his neck of the woods. Bert replied "That's odd because I'm eating the fruit from a tree in my yard right now."

Bert enjoys pushing the envelope with the plants he grows. "I once grew some banana trees," he says, "but it got to be too much work digging them up and hauling them indoors for the winter." And while the plants survived, they didn't produce fruit. Most of his plants spend the winter out of doors now. The potted figs that line his front walk are the main exception. "We have 13 varieties of figs," he says.

Bert also spends most of the day outside. In fact, when you arrange to meet with him, he will tell you he doesn't answer the phone. "Come in the driveway and lean on the horn. I'll hear you."

His property isn't huge - just 10 acres and the house is set well back from the road. When Bert and his wife Helga bought the land nearly 30 years ago it had only two trees on it. Now it's a jungle.

Drive up his long paved driveway and you see mulberry trees lining the south side, with a mixed forest growing up behind them. The hill to the north grows jack pines and other native plants, but on the flatter ground below the hill, a few short rows of young grape vines are getting started in the protected area next to the driveway.

At the end of the mulberries, there's a small greenhouse with black walnut, oak, chestnut and fruit trees behind it. Then you see a fenced-in garden. It's wildly overgrown, but the glint of berries shows through the green, and asparagus fronds jut above the other plants here and there.

Honk the horn and Bert appears immediately. He's dressed in various shades of brown: long-sleeved shirt, long pants and a broad-brimmed mesh hat shaped like a pith helmet. He's trim, vigorous, 70 years old, and obviously someone who is passionate about his garden.

It's still early summer when I make my visit. "The mulberries are finished," he says, pointing down the driveway, "but the apricots will be ready soon. I've also got an alpricot over there. It's an apricot and almond hybrid. Not as juicy as an apricot, but you can open the pit and eat the nut."

The black Crandall currants in the garden will also be ready for picking any day, as will the raspberries and the Josta (a comination of black currant and goosebery). Soon enough he'll be picking pears and apples. The quince trees are new, so he doesn't expect fruit from them for another year or so.

At times the harvest proves embarrassing. "We have to beg people to take another basket sometimes," he says. But that surfeit gives Bert an opportunity to engage in something else he enjoys. "The apricots make a very good sweet wine."

Bert has made wine since he used his mother's ringer washer to mash the fruit for pear wine when he was 14 years old. He has hundreds of bottles of his own wine in the cellar. Over the years, he has made wine from chokecherries, strawberries, rhubarb, and other fruit. Today, behind the garden to the south and east, Bert grows his grapes.

Most of the grapes used for commercial wines are far too tender to survive winters here. Some northern growers will lay down the vines in the fall and cover them with a thick blanket of mulch. Bert goes another direction entirely. Rather than try to nurse delicate grape vines through the winter, he seeks out the ones that can make it on their own.

"I brought a few cuttings of de Chaunac grapes from our house in Toronto when we moved up here," says Bert. He and Helga built the house in 1974. They had been growing grape vines in the Rathburn and Kipling area of Toronto for ten years before that.

When he shut down his insurance business after 47 years, Bert began to expand his grape crop. His cuttings came from nurseries and other like-minded growers in Canada and the northern U.S. Many of the grape's names carry a hint of snow and ice. There's Beaufort, Canadice, King of the North, L'acadie Blanc, Lacrosse and, Bert's favourite eating grape, Agawam. The hardiest of all are Valiant and Veeblanc - the latter wine grape is also the heaviest producer. Where the hill to the north of Bert's property offers some protection from the north wind, Valiant grows brazenly on an open hillside facing east.

Some of the grapes are not named. They have code numbers. A few of them Bert has christened himself, not that he developed them here, he just hasn't been able to identify them yet.

Bert's small vineyard, only about three-quarters of an acre in all, is located to the south of his house. "All wine grapes are good for eating," he says. "But not all grapes make good wine." Some are better suited for juice, jelly, or by the handful. But all Bert's grapes are hardy.

"After the first year I don't even water them, unless it's really dry," Bert says. "I just let them go." Some growers spray regularly to keep pests and various fungus diseases at bay, but Bert likens that to giving children antibiotics before they have infections. "I had to spot spray for rose chafers on some vines this year. That's all." Not much in 27 years.

In some places more than the grapes have been let go. Many rows look well tended, but in the others, quack grass and other weeds threaten to take over and the new vines are lost in the underbrush. Bert is in the middle of tidying up the mess. He picks up the vines and attaches them to the horizontal wires strung between large fence posts at the end of each row. They're dug into the ground angling away from the row at more than 45 degrees to support the weight of vines and fruit.

"It'll take me about an hour to do each row," he insists. "Each vine will get about 25 minutes attention each year." Rather than dig up the weeds, Bert lays paper between the vine trunks and covers it with six to eight inches of wood shavings and horse manure. The mulch comes direct from the stalls at a nearby horse farm. Bert brings the mulch over in his pick-up truck.

By the third week of August, the vines are heavy with grapes, giving Bert the raw materials for another vintage. The early varieties are beinning to ripen, though some varieties won't be ready for picking until October.

For Bert, though, the primary harvest won't happen until the dead of winter. For the past few years, the crop he has been selling is not the grapes but the cuttings.

I've got a hundred customers," he says, "from every province but PEI." Which means grapes from the Caledon area are growing in the BC mountains, Edmonton, Regina, Quebec City, and many other places where well known varieties would freeze solid and just not come back in the spring. "I've had one customer order 400 cuttings, but most them want about 20."

Bert heads out in the dead of the Caledon winter and cuts the vines into pieces about eight to twelve inches long with at least three buds. Each cutting should grow a new vine. This year, he's going to start more rooted cuttings. He'll bring his lengths into the basement and set them in a large rooting tray. It's cool and dark down there, but by heating the soil, he will encourage the roots to grow while holding back the tops.

The ordinary cuttings sell for about $1.25, with quantity discounts. Rooted cuttings fetch $3 apiece and he sells potted plants for $5. Some varieties come with an additional royalty that goes to the original hybridizer.

For the most part, Bert's customers find him on line. He has his own Web site, www.hardygrapes.tottenham.on.ca, and several pages dedicated to him and other growers on a Web site called littlefatwino.com.

Sitting under a couple of maple trees that shade the stone patio behind his house, Bert talks about his presentation to the annual Central Ontario Grape Growers Association... about growing grapes in the Canadian cold... about expanding the sale of rooted cuttings... about the 15 new varieties he planted this year... different wines... and how to grow cuttings. It seems he has his work cut out for him, but when it's something you're passionate about, it's never work.

Winegrowing www.littlefatwino.com