New Brunswick Wine is Happening

A few weeks ago, I gathered with a group of New Brunswick grape growers and winemakers to meet with Quebec grape legend Alain Breault, an expert on Minnesota and Baltic grape varieties.

We met at Boudreau Vineyards in Memramcook, where Paul Boudreau, current President of the New Brunswick Grape Grower's Association (NBGGA) farms a variety of grapes. We walked through the vineyards with Alain Breault, who commented on the status of the various vines and answered questions about all things vinous.

Paul Boudreau grows a variety of cool climate grapes, including Foch, Frontenac and Marquette. For whites, he has Frontenac Gris, Frontenac White, L'Acadie, Seyval Blanc and an unnamed Minnesota variety that he blends with L'Acadie and Seyval into his Bonsoleil white blend. Boudreau is always experimenting with other grapes, mainly the Minnesota varieties that they buy from Breault's Quebec nursery.

Winter hardiness has been a problem in the past with many other cool climate varieties, including those common in Nova Scotia (L'Acadie, New York Muscat, Foch, Baco Noir, Leon Millot, Lucie Kuhlmann, Seyval and Cayuga.) Not so with these Minnesota grapes! Frontenac is good to –33 degrees Celsius and Prairie Star to -40 degrees Celsius, for example.

After touring Boudreau Vineyards, we met a large group of growers and winemakers at Belliveau Orchards, just down the road. I had the chance to taste many of the New Brunswick wines currently being produced, snack on incredible goat cheese from local farmer and grape grower Mike Vallée, chat with the wine folks and tour the current and potential vineyard lands with Robert Belliveau. I was also fortunate to meet Hyun Suk Lee ("Leeko,”) a Brock CCOVI graduate and the new winemaker at Gillis of Belleisle Winery.

The New Brunswick industry has come a fair ways since the first wine made from Marechal Foch grapes grown at Vignoble St-Edouard was produced in 2000 by Winegarden Estates in Baie Verte. There are now 11 wineries in the province and over 72 acres (29 hectares) of grape vines, with plans for 140 acres (57 hectares) by 2011. Earlier this year, the New Brunswick wineries collaborated to produce a new winery map, available at visitor information centres around the province.

However, the most exciting news has been the arrival of new players on the scene. These include Magnetic Hill, who have had great success with their fruit winery and have begun planting grapes; Belliveau Orchards, a successful fruit winery that recently planted Frontenac Blanc and Marquette; Mott's Landing, who have the best quality 100% New Brunswick grape wines ever made; and the new Richibucto River Wine Estate, which just opened this summer.

New Zealand-trained winemaker Sonia Carpenter and vineyard manager David Craw of Motts Landing Vineyard in Lower Cambridge Narrows have tried many grape varieties since 2002, but have settled on Frontenac, Sabrevois, Foch and Prairie Star, among others.

Motts Landing has quite a few brands, including Chantilly Blush (an off-dry rosé), Summer Solstice (a white blend,) Wild Rosé (fermented with the yeast on the grape skins,) a limited edition oak aged Frontenac and this fall, they have released their Foch and House Montage (made from Sabrevois, another Elmer Swenson variety, named after a Quebec village.)

Alan Hudson owns the province’s newest winery, Richibucto River Wine Estate, in Mundleville. It's a big vineyard by New Brunswick standards, at 20 acres (8 hectares.) He started with Foch, Leon Millot and L'Acadie, but is moving towards Minnesota varieties, including Marquette, 2-3-17, 5-17, 8-2-43, Frontenac, Prairie Star, Sabrevois and Valiant. For now, he is selling wines that are either single varietals or made from various blends of the French-American and Minnesota varieties.

Magnetic Hill winery's Zach Everett, son of owners Janet and Jeff Everett, has gone off to work in wineries and vineyards around the world (as he did last year,) but not before he helped plant their first grapes, a quarter of an acre of Marquette. They have also tile drained 10 acres for future plantings of Pinot Noir-like Petit Pearl, Frontenac Blanc and Gris, as well as an unidentified vine that they have on their property.

Pump House Brewery owners Shaun and Lilia Fraser, not far from Magnetic Hill in Moncton, have started another exciting project, they’ve planted Marquette, Frontenac Gris and Blanc. One of my Sommelier graduates, Joel Williams, helped with the Pump House planting. He's now in Ontario working the harvest and crush, but someday he may be back to start a vineyard and winery of his own.

That's the kind of optimism I have for our industry.