Local Wine
"Peterborough looks nothing like Niagara, to say nothing of Bordeaux or Tuscany. But there are a few optimistic people around here who think the Kawarthas might find a niche as a winemaking area.
There have already been some successes and local grape growers are experimenting with vines and techniques to coax the temperamental grape to endure minus 30 in winter and often not quite enough "degree days" in summer.
John Rufa opened his winery, Kawartha Country Wine, on County Road 36 near Buckhorn last year. He sells fruit wine, including peach, pear, plum, strawberry, rhubarb and apple, and other wine. "We are doing very well," he says. "We are selling lots of wine. People keep coming back and there is a level of excitement that there is a winery here. We thought the Kawarthas was prime tourist area and that winery would do well there." He grows apples, pears, raspberries, currents and rhubarb on his 22-acre property, and hardy white grapes developed in Quebec - Geisenheim and Seyval.
Larry Paterson, aka, Little Fat Wino (www.littlefatwinocom) is a retired wine specialist from the LCBO with an abiding devotion to Canadian wine. He has been growing, of all things, Vidal, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Blanc vines on a modest scale at his north-end Peterborough home.
"None of these have any business being alive here," but they have survived, and earned Larry medals from the Amateur Winemakers of Ontario.
Most people start off with Chardonnay and Merlot, which are good in France, but have to be buried here in winter and dug out in the spring. It involves some skill." In any event, it takes five years for vines to produce, and although they might survive a winter or two, not many last long enough to bear grapes.
More successful are grapes developed in Minnesota, like Frontenac, Prairie Star and St. Croix, which Larry and Eleanor Humphreys are experimenting with.
They are working on a five-year plan to grow grapes for wine on Eleanor's property near Trent Univeristy. She explains:
"Basically it is an experimental vineyard with a lot of hybrids from Minnesota and Quebec for cold climate to see if we can have a wine industry in this area, despite the fact that we are quite a few climate zones colder than Niagara. We are hoping it will show people that there is a commercial viability for a wine industry in this area."
This is the third of the five-year experiment and they have about 150 vines. Larry is constantly replanting and removing some, Eleanor says, because "either we didn't like how they produced or the taste of the grapes. We likely will end up with a blended wine, rather than a varietal," Eleanor says. "We hope to get it down to six or eight varieties that meet all the criteria for survival and taste."
Carl Kimmett is president of Central Ontario Viniculture Association (Cova). "I've always said that growing grapes of any kind is a guy thing - a male ego trip. We try to produce something that we know is pushing the envelope and everybody tells us it won't happen in the area, which is Zone 5, on the fringe of the growing area. To grow grapes is a challenge; wine grapes even more, because we need a lot of degree-days. This year we are going to have them. Grapevines need 1,250 -degree days to grow Minnesota hybrid strains. Three years ago we had about 1,300 days, so there is the potential."
COVA's goal, with about 30 members, is to encourage the hobby winemaker to grow grapes. "There is a lot of basement wine made in Ontario and this area. If we can grow our own grapes and bring in juice from Niagara we will feel we have made wine from our own product."
Carl owns a small nursery, Kimdale Lane Nursery near Lindsay, where he grows vines. "We can't meet the demand in Ontario for grape vines. The number of nurseries supplying vines is low and a lot of men are trying to grow grapes in their backyard. I could ship all across Canada if I had the vines....snip..."
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