Bring Something A Little Different To the Party

Canadian fruit wines continue to turn heads and win over consumers looking for something a little different. The bounty of tree and berry fruit in our vast land has been put to good use by over 100 different wineries scattered across Canada. That's the whole country, not just a handful of regions as is the case with grape production.

Fruit wines have a history going back to Canada's early settlers. Back then the cheapest and possibly the only viable thing to do was make wine from the local fruit and berries on the land. During the 1920s commercial fruit wines were produced for the first time in British Columbia from loganberries.

The modern age of Canadian fruit wine emerged nearly twenty years ago on the heels of the improvement in the Canadian grape wine industry. The two sectors came together when Ontario vintner Jim Warren of Stoney Ridge fame released his iced apple, the province's first commercial fruit wine. Warren also helped establish the Fruit Wines of Ontario Association in 1998 to help develop the industry at a time when they were clamoring for government assistance and some interest on the part of the consumer.

Presently a large number of top quality fruit wines are produced from British Columbia to Newfoundland in dry, off-dry and sweet styles. They are also blended with mead, rhubarb or grape wines and are even aged in oak to add complexity and body.

Talk to any fruit wine producer and they will name some of their favourite food matches with their products. Maybe it's a dry gooseberry wine with a tuna steak, a ripe and smoky elderberry with ribs slathered in sauce or perhaps a sweet strawberry or raspberry bottle with dessert.

Slowly but surely fruit wines are making inroads with the consumer despite the fact that, for the most part, people need to go straight to the producers to get a hold of a bottle. John Downey, owner of Downey's Estates near Brampton, Ontario notes that, "each year we are seeing a slight increase in sales but we would obviously like to be doing better. This past year our cranberry wine was quite popular at Thanksgiving and Christmas and our black currant and framboise continue to have a strong following. My personal favourite is the gooseberry wine but most consumers, when offered a choice of a sauvignon blanc or a gooseberry fruit wine, will be more comfortable with the former. We need to reach enough people in the coming years so that choice becomes more difficult to make."

Jeff Davis is a contributing writer and editor at wineaccess.ca and former editor of Wine Access’ First-in-Line eReport. The former archivist at the Hockey Hall of Fame, he has authored or co-authored several sports books. He holds a diploma from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, and has several years experience writing and editing in a number of fields.
This article originally appeared in Wine Access' 2007 Canadian Wine Annual.