Glorious Ontario Wines and the Stubborn, Pathological Optimists Who Make Them with Matthew Gaughan

Natalie MacLean
Aug7th

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Introduction

Why do Ontario winemakers need to be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn, and pathological optimists? Which Ontario wines should you try next, other than Icewine? Why should Ontario be at the top of your list of wine regions to visit?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m being interviewed by Matthew Gaughan on Matthew’s World of Wine and Drink.

You can find the wines we discussed here.

 

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Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.

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Highlights

  • Where is Ontario located, and what are the major wine regions within the province?
  • What is the Ontario wine growing season like?
  • When were Ontario’s first wineries established, and how has the industry developed since?
  • What is the history of Icewine in Canada, and how is it made?
  • Which notable Ontario white wine varieties should you try?
  • How do Ontario Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc compare to other regions?
  • Which unforgettable red wine varieties produced in Ontario should you try?
  • What should you know about the sparkling wine scene in Ontario?
  • How much of Canadian wine is exported, and what are some of the challenges faced by the industry?
  • How is wine sold and consumed in Canada?
  • What are some of the must-try experiences when visiting Ontario wine regions?
  • How do Canadian wine producers promote their wines abroad?

 

Key Takeaways

  • Why do Ontario winemakers need to be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn, and pathological optimists? The playwright George Bernard Shaw captured it best: “The reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Ontario winemakers must be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn, and pathological optimists to brave our climate because there are humid summers that can cause rot and mildew, rain right before the grapes are harvested, which, of course, can dilute the flavour, and then winters that can kill the vines. As one winemaker once told me, you can lose the whole field in an afternoon; a whole year’s of work. It’s a marginal climate.
  • Which Ontario wines should you try next, other than Icewine?
    Riesling is the number one white grape variety in Ontario, and it’s really undervalued. Everybody knows Chardonnay as a brand name and feels safer with It, but once they try Riesling, they realize how much flavour they’ve been missing.
  • Why should Ontario be at the top of your list of wine regions to visit?
    First, it has stunning scenery and landscapes. Many wineries have restaurants so they offer delicious pairing menus. There are lots of other activities to do as well. One winery has an underground ice cave where you can drink Icewine at minus eight degrees. There are spas, ballooning, bike riding, activities for kids, arts and culture, and wine festivals.

 

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Winemakers in Ontario must be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn, and almost pathological optimists to brave our climate. - Natalie MacLean Natalie MacLean Click to tweet

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Icewine is as Canadian as maple syrup, beavers, and hockey. - Natalie MacLean Natalie MacLean Click to tweet

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Riesling is the number one white grape variety grown in Ontario. - Natalie MacLean Natalie MacLean Click to tweet

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Now, Gamay Noir is coming into its own. - Natalie MacLean Natalie MacLean Click to tweet

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In Canada, wine has been relatively new as a culture in the last 20 years or so. - Natalie MacLean Natalie MacLean Click to tweet

 

About Matthew Gaughan & Matthew’s World of Wine and Drink

As a WSET-certified educator, Matthew Gaughan regularly teaches students to prepare them for exams. His podcast, Matthew’s World of Wine and Drink, features episodes focusing on specific topics—grape varieties, regions—to help in that preparation and provide historical and cultural context.

 

Resources

 

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Thirsty for more?

  • Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
  • You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
  • The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.

 

Transcript

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 Why do Ontario winemakers need to be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn and pathological optimists? Which Ontario wines should you try next other than ice wine? And why should Ontario be at the top of your list of wine regions to visit? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions. In my chat with Matthew Gaughan. Matthew is actually interviewing me on his terrific podcast, Matthew’s World of Wine and Drink. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover how the Ontario wine industry has developed over time and which factors have influenced that growth most. Why Ice wine is as Canadian as maple syrup, beavers, and hockey. Why Riesling is the number one white grape in Ontario. How Gamay Noir is coming into its own in this region. And why wine culture is still relatively new in the country. Okay, let’s dive in.

Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations. Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 297. Now, in personal news, I want to share with you the first review for the new audio nook of Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation and Drinking Too Much. It’s by Jane Staples from Ottawa. She posted it on Audible.com. “Natalie McLean narrates this riveting tale. She shares her vulnerabilities as life throws her one challenge after another, and she emerges through it all, showing her inner true strength. Her narration is pitched just right, making you feel that you are sitting together on a couch sharing her revelations in person. I highly recommend that you curl up in your favorite armchair and listen to this inspiring story. It’s this summer’s ideal way to beat the heat. Five stars”. Thank you so much, Jane. That means so much to me.

You can download Wine Witch on Fire and start listening to it immediately on Audible.com, Kobo, Audiobooks.com, Spotify, Google Play, Libro.FM, and wherever else you get audiobooks. If you’ve started listening to the audiobook, please let me know. I am on tenterhooks about how my voice translates to narration in this book, and we’d love to hear from you at natalie@natalie maclean.com. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide for the audiobook, e-book and paperback versions at nataliemaclean.com/297. Okay, on with the show.

Matthew Gaughan 00:03:22 With Natalie MacLean from Ontario in Canada. And she’s going to walk us through the wines and Ontario and give an introduction to those wines and tell us all about them. But first of all, Nathalie, can you introduce yourself and let the listeners know exactly who you are?

Natalie MacLean 00:03:37 Sure, Matthew, it’s great to be here with you. Thank you.

Natalie MacLean 00:03:40 So I’m based in Ontario. Ottawa, Ontario. The nation’s capital. But we’ll get to the wine region soon. They’re not exactly right here. I’ve been writing about wine for more than 20 years. I’ve been fortunate to have my writing recognized by various awards in the industry. I’ve just published my third book on wine. First one was Red, White and Drunk All Over. The second one was Unquenchable and the third was Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. So it’s a trilogy. There’s a bit of an arc going through those three books.

I also have a podcast Unreserved Wine Talk, so I was excited to connect with you this way, because I just that’s how I consume all of my content. Whether it’s books or podcasts or radio, it’s all auditory and I just love the medium. So glad to be here. The only other thing I’d mention is that I teach online food and wine pairing courses at nataliemaclean.com.

Matthew Gaughan 00:04:33 I’m getting a definite enthusiasm for wine and everything that’s connected with wine.

Matthew Gaughan 00:04:38 Let’s talk about Ontario. First of all, where is Ontario?

Natalie MacLean 00:04:42 Ontario is the southernmost province in Canada. It’s located right in the centre of the country, and the wine regions in Ontario sit between the 41st and 44th parallels or latitude. That’s on the same parallel as, say, Willamette Valley in Oregon, Tuscany in Italy, and Rioja in Spain, just to situate it. Of course, there are lots of soil and climate differences which we can get into. But I think, Matthew, a lot of people think of Ontario wine regions as being far up north. I don’t know vineyards among igloos or something, but in reality they hug the southernmost tip of the border of the province that borders the United States. If you like, I can get deeper into the three subregions of Ontario.

Matthew Gaughan 00:05:25 Yes, please do.

Natalie MacLean 00:05:26 All right, so the three major ones are the Niagara Peninsula, which by far is the largest. It has more than 100 wineries. Prince Edward County has 30, Lake Erie North Shore has about 20. And then there are some smaller emerging regions dotted around the province that account for about another 45 wineries. So if we look at the Niagara Peninsula, the biggest region, it’s a triangular arm of land where Lake Ontario and Lake Erie meet. And that’s really important because especially Lake Ontario is up to 800 feet in depth in some places. So it acts like this giant water bottle. It slowly releases warmth in the Fall that it accumulated over the summer to help those grapes ripen during the harvest. And then in Winter, it protects the vines from freezing, so that moderating lake effect is limited, though, to the Niagara Peninsula because of the Niagara Escarpment, which is this massive ridge of limestone, dolomite and shale that jutted up many years ago and it created slopes and nooks and crannies that trap that moderating airflow. So that’s why you don’t see vineyards in Toronto or Hamilton.

Matthew Gaughan 00:06:41 Well, at the end of May, right now, what’s the weather like in the Ontario wine regions? And can you describe the growing season and how it develops?

Natalie MacLean 00:06:50 Unlike B.C., which suffered a severe frost in January, that’s going to result in sadly 97% crop loss. Ontario did not experience that, fortunately. Now we are both provinces –  but we’ll focus on Ontario – our cool climates as is the rest of the country. So what that means is actually, I love I have a quote here from the playwright George Bernard Shaw. There’s a famous Shaw Festival in the heart of Niagara. So there’s more than one reason to visit Niagara. But he captured the essence, I think, of what vintners face climate wise in Ontario. And he observed “the reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man”. I think winemakers here must be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn, almost pathological optimists I would say to brave our climate because there are humid summers that can cause rot and mildew rain right before the grapes are harvested, which of course can dilute their flavour, and then winters that can kill the vines. One winemaker once told me, you can lose the whole field in an afternoon, a whole year of work.

I know that can be said of other regions, but I think especially here. We live and grow, grow wine, grow vines in a marginal climate. So that said, I think what a marginal climate does do is it produces wines with this sort of nervy, edgy, vitality that sort of teeter. Characterize them as teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, which is exactly how I love my wine and my people. I find them far more interesting that way than, like, dependable, stable Cabernet Sauvignon. No offense to those wines or those type personalities but we get a lot of vibrant wines here if you like.

I can even – I don’t know how technical or hardcore you want me to be but – I can talk about comparison of Niagara’s growing degree days compared to other wine regions in the country. It starts to get a little technical, though, for wine nerds like me out there. The growing degree days measured in Celsius degrees. They are defined as the sum of the monthly mean average temperatures over the growing season, which is marked for us as April 1st to October 31st.

So if you compare Niagara – we’ll get to Niagara’s numbers in a minute – to Épernay Champagne France has 1050 growing days in terms of the season for the grapes to ripen from bloom to harvest. New Zealand 1200. British Columbia 1200. Beaune France 1315. Washington, the Yakima Valley 1426. Napa 1450. And then Niagara Peninsula 1485. Lake Erie North Shore, the most southern wine region [in Ontario] though it’s smaller than Niagara, 1528 days. So we have a long growing season, but it’s cool. Of course, I know that translates, Matthew, into wines that have great phenolic ripeness and complexity, but not a lot of sugar, and therefore they do tend to be low in alcohol. Again, nervy, edgy, vibrant.

Matthew Gaughan 00:10:06 Can we talk about the history of the wine industry in Ontario? When did it start and how has it developed?

Natalie MacLean 00:10:11 We go back to 1811. Johann Schiller transplanted Lambrusco and hybrid grapes on 20 acres or planted them on 20 acres in Ontario. Then in 1866, Kentucky grape growers planted Catawba and Delaware vines on Pelee Island and established Ontario’s first known winery there. It’s called Vine Villa Winery. Today it’s called Pelee Island Winery. And for years, Matthew, Ontario wines were made from the winter hardy Lambrusco grapes, and they produced nasty little wines that were fortified with brandy to be even drinkable. Their alcoholic strength made them the nickname block and tackle because after drinking them, you could tackle anyone or anything.

Then in the 1960s and 70s Canadian wine went through a very grim, cheap and sweet period, featuring a menagerie of wine names like Baby Duck, Gimli Goose, Cuddle Duck, Pussycat and others. There was even one founded by pioneer Thomas Bright that was uncharitable dubbed Bright’s Disease. So these were not it was not an august start to the industry. But then in 1975, Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser of Inniskillin were the first to get a commercial winery license, almost 50 years after prohibition. So that was a step in the right direction. And then really, things started to kick into gear in 1988. That’s the year they banned Lambrusco, nasty Lambrusco, grapes from being in table wine. But also they started the Vintners Quality Alliance. – VQA – which is our appellation system for Ontario wines. It’s similar to France’s AOC, Italy’s DOC, and they’re just guidelines for what type of grapes you can grow, yields and all that sort of thing.

Of course, another spur was our American friends south of the border, the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. And then the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 really opened the borders, ended protectionism for the most extent. Tariffs and duties on wines. And we had a freer open border. So that really ratcheted up competition. And with that goes quality.

Matthew Gaughan 00:12:18 What has happened since? How is the Ontario industry developed?

Natalie MacLean 00:12:21 It’s developing very quickly. It’s small still. We heard the numbers for the wineries at the beginning. So this isn’t a large region. In total, we produce somewhere around 35 million cases or $400 million Canadian. That’s important because you got to knock off 30% if you’re talking US dollars total material. But Ontario produces 90% of wine in Canada. Eight wineries individually in California produce more than all of Canada. So we are small, small region. Small but mighty.

Things have gone well in terms of quality. There’s growth, there’s new wineries, there’s experimentation, there’s better knowledge of our soil, our grapes, our climate. As winemakers drill down and perfect what we have here, and of course, all the trade that goes on with various winemakers doing stages around the world and expertise coming to our region. It’s all benefited Ontario.

Matthew Gaughan 00:13:16 Let’s talk about the wines and let’s start with Ice wine, because that’s what Ontario is probably most famous for internationally, and particularly the Niagara Peninsula. How did ice wine develop in Ontario and how the wines made?

Natalie MacLean 00:13:28 Yeah, I’d have to agree with you there. Ice wine is as Canadian as maple syrup, beavers, Hockey Night in Canada, and those igloos. Inniskillin kind of put Canada on the world map when in 1991 it won the Vin de Grand Prix honour at one of the largest and most prestigious wine competitions in France for its 1989 ice wine. But let’s back up.

Of course, Germany has been producing ice wine for longer than Canada has, but we’re blessed with the most consistently cold climate on the planet. We produce Ice wine every year. Germany produces it 3 to 4 years out of ten, among other sweeter styles. So Inniskillin was fundamental in kickstarting that the ice wine industry has expanded. It is Canada’s largest export at $45 million Canadian. One of the largest regions is Asia. We get a lot of Asian tourists visiting and touring our wineries signages at a number of wineries in both languages, and so it’s a growth industry. But what’ your strongest stat can also be your weakness. Because I think what happened to Canada is that we became known only for ice wine, whereas I think a lot of the excitement here is in dry tables, wines both still and sparkling. But I got to say, ice wine is delicious. It’s a tide of incoming pleasure. It’s like apricot richness and peach preserve and it’s only 10% alcohol. It’s not a fortified wine, so it’s beautiful anywhere you think of. Sauternes from Bordeaux, switch in your ice wine. Whether it’s at the beginning of the meal with Grove, it’s still kosher to eat that or any anything else, or at the end with your cheeses or dessert or whatever.

Matthew Gaughan 00:15:14 Yeah, if you’re in France, foie gras is not an issue. It is. Whereas here in California it keeps getting banned, even though there’s a lot of really bad food that is definitely illegal.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:24 Another podcast, but yes. Oh, I should add that just some interesting, Matthew, some interesting stats before we leave Ice wine. Now half it’s usually sold in a half bottle because a little goes a long way when it comes to sweetness. And those sell for $50 to $80 Canadian, but it’s because it’s such a risky, expensive wine to make. So they harvest usually either in late December or early January and they can lose up to 60% of their crop because of weather and pests. You know, the starlings, deer, rabbits, everybody loves those sweet grapes that are very desiccated. They’ve lost all their moisture. And that’s what you want before you press these little grapes, then they need to be picked at -eight degrees Celsius or colder, usually at midnight or overnight, so that they remain frozen and they don’t lose their juice or become diluted.

And there are several presses at Inniskillin that broke. Two ton winery presses. At Inniskillin, these little glass pellets of grapes broke two presses there. Anyway, it’s phenomenal. It’s extreme winemaking on the edge and it deserves its reputation. But there are many other wines that also deserve even more recognition I think here.

Matthew Gaughan 00:16:41 Just to conclude on Ice wine. I know in Germany they’ve pressed the grapes at the vineyard to make sure that they remain frozen. Does that happen in Canada as well?

Natalie MacLean 00:16:50 Yes, because you don’t want to transport them anywhere and have them start to melt. And there’s been, I don’t know, lawsuits and things going on about icebox wine. You cannot artificially freeze these, so you can’t be even transporting them in a frozen container. They need to go from the vineyards to the presses on site. So it needs to be quick.

Matthew Gaughan 00:17:11 And are there legal rules about ice wine that producers have to follow?

Natalie MacLean 00:17:16 Yes. So you have to wait till it gets to -eight degrees Celsius to pick. You can’t pick them warmer than that. There are only certain grapes that must be used. Typically, the two biggies are Riesling and Vidal. Vidal is a hybrid, but it makes a luscious sort of apricot rich kind of ice wine, whereas Riesling tends to have this silver stream of acidity balancing the sweetness. It’s my favourite style. And now these days, they make them they experiment with Cabernet Franc and Gewürztraminer and all kinds of different grapes. But the two biggies are Vidal and Riesling.

Matthew Gaughan 00:17:50 I’ve tried Inniskillin’s Cabernet Franc, and it is extremely delicious. So you mentioned in the skill and quite a lot that that’s the one producer that people are most likely to find for ice wine outside of Canada. Let’s go on to the dry wines that aren’t ice wine, which I really wish were more widely available, but quite hard to get hold of. But when I have tried wine from Ontario it’s been really good, particularly Chardonnay. Well, let’s start with Chardonnay.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:18 So it’s a cool climate grape and style, the way we make it here. Of course, Chardonnay is the Winemaker’s grape. It can be anything you want it to be, but here in Ontario the style is more in the stylistic nature of say Chablis. I think the best examples are often unoaked, but if there’s oak it’s not heavy handed.  It’s zippy, it’s light, it’s refreshing, but it’s still complex, with lots of minerality and zip and green apple bite to it.

There’s an international. I don’t know if you’ve been to this festival, Matthew, but I4C.  I think it’s what the cool kids call it, but the international celebration of Chardonnay. So I always get the acronym mixed up. But it’s a big Chardonnay festival July 25th every year in Niagara, and they invite cool climate producers of Chardonnay from around the world to gather in Niagara. And there’s a big tasting, along with Niagara Chards and events and fun and that sort of thing. But with the Chardonnay. Chardonnay is 14% of white wine production in Ontario. Riesling comes in at number one at 18%.

Matthew Gaughan 00:19:20 And can you recommend any Chardonnay producers that you particularly like?

Natalie MacLean 00:19:23 Oh, so many. I just go down the roster. And these producers I’d also recommend for their other dry, Sparkling and Ice wine productions. So Maria Nissen, one of the older family wineries, Westcott Vineyards, more of a new winery. Henry of Pelham –  they also have the Sparkling offshoot called Catharine Cuvée – Redstone and Tawse. Cave Spring is probably the Riesling master but their Chardonnays. Their cool climate Chardonnay is beautiful.

Matthew Gaughan 00:19:53 What about Riesling then? You’ve just mentioned it. So obviously we’ve talked about the Ice wine, but what about the other styles of wine?

Natalie MacLean 00:19:59 So Riesling, the number one white grape variety here in Ontario, is really undervalued. It is, I think like everybody knows Chardonnay is a brand name as a badge, as a grape and [people] feel safer with Chardonnay. But once they try Riesling, they just oh my gosh, there’s so much flavour there.

And the styles here other than the Ice wine. And we do make a late harvest wine, which is not as sweet as Ice wine you can imagine. It hits right in between a dry style and the Ice wine. They do tend to be dry Rieslings. There can be a bit of residual sugar, but often you get a nice bone dry Riesling and it’s just so food friendly or just paired just about with anything. It’s low in alcohol. And again, Riesling loves Ontario’s climate. It loves the cool climate. It thrives here.

Matthew Gaughan 00:20:50 How would you compare it to Finger Lakes Riesling?

Natalie MacLean 00:20:53 I’d say they’re cousins, but probably on the father’s side. Not the mother side, I don’t know. I love Riesling in its many forms and colours, like whether it’s Finger Lakes or Germany or Washington State or Niagara. They each have their individual signatures. I think what Finger Lakes and  Niagara share, other than being proximate to each other, is a transatlantic signature. They’ve got this sort of old world heritage, but with the new world vibe. I don’t know if that’s a mash up that says nothing, but to me it’s like it isn’t the austerity or something that’s going on with German Riesling, which I still love. And it’s not like a really sun ripened Riesling. It’s this middle language that I think both of them speak very well. I don’t know if that’s helpful or just really downright confusing.

Matthew Gaughan 00:21:45 I haven’t tried Riesling from Ontario, but I imagine it has that little bit of sugar, as you say, that you don’t really notice because of the really high acidity.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:53 The acidity covers over. You’d never think they were sweet, and yet they are. And that’s why people really love them. They really wake your palate up.

Matthew Gaughan 00:22:00 What about other white grape varieties?

Natalie MacLean 00:22:02 The other ones that we grow here are, I mentioned Vidal Blanc, which is a hybrid grape, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Sauvignon Blanc I would say are four others. But there is much much less of them produced.

Matthew Gaughan 00:22:17 And what does Sauvignon blanc taste like? I can imagine it being very herbaceous and such a cool climate.

Natalie MacLean 00:22:22 Yeah it does have that sort of herbaceousness, but I wouldn’t say, again, really grossly generalizing, not as grassy as some New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and not as citrusy as I don’t know if what you think of the Loire. I don’t know, that’s lemony sunshine too, but I would say it’s herbaceous, but got some lime zest, some lemon notes, but not really grassy.

Matthew Gaughan 00:22:48 Let’s go into the black grape varieties. Maybe something that we wouldn’t associate with the cool climate of Ontario, but what is that?

Natalie MacLean 00:22:56 Yeah, yeah. So there are of course grapes, red grapes that do or black and red grapes that excel in cool climates. Our number one red grape is Cabernet Franc. 14% of production. People often guess it’s Pinot Noir, which is like the twin cousin of either Chardonnay or Riesling. It’s number two. And then Gamay Noir, the grape famous for Beaujolais. But Cabernet Franc, I think we make so so well  and it’s as different from it’s a sort of clonal cousin of Cabernet Sauvignon. They’re not cousins, but one is an offspring of the other. Sauvignon blanc, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon.

It’s got that edgy bite but not bitter. But there’s just more tingly aliveness I find with Cabernet Franc. It’s got the dark berries and that sort of note, but a pleasantly herbal bite not unpleasant bell pepper. But I think it’s just so savoury. Dried herbs. And it pairs so well with so many heartier dishes, meaty dishes.

Another winemaker told me you need to have Gamay as a backup crop for all the money you’re going to waste on Pinot Noir, because Pinot Noir is the heartbreak grape. Because it’s so difficult to make and to successfully market it. It’s so expensive, you can lose so much of it. So Gamay Noir is the not plodding horse workhorse, but it’s less socially up there with the cachet with the cool kids. But now it’s coming into its own. There’s a whole go Gamay go, and a lot of people are finding Gamay to be sessionable and crunchy and casual, and bistro fare goes great with it. So I think of Gamay sharing a lot of similarities with Pinot, like the bright cherry and the smooth, medium bodied, juicy acidity. Not too much, but a bit more rustic country fruit if you will.

Matthew Gaughan 00:24:53 Tantalizing. You keep mentioning sparkling wine and it feels that the climate of Ontario would be ideal for sparkling wine. So can you tell me about the Sparkling wine scene in Ontario?

Natalie MacLean 00:25:04 It’s marvelous. I think it’s probably the best thing we produce. That’s not Ice wine. I put it right up there on top, actually. And I think emerging regions like England, although those who live in England probably don’t think Sparkling wine is emerging. Had it all along. It’s growing and developing, but doesn’t have the recognition yet worldwide here in Ontario. And of course the base grapes are often the same as in Champagne, your Pinot Noir, your Pinot Meunier and your Chardonnay. But they’ll produce and they’ll use the Champagne traditional method. Second fermentation in the bottle. The bottles will come in at the third of the price of entry level Champagne. So, you know, $25, $30, $35 Canadian. And they’re just magnificent. We’ve got the cool climate. We’ve got the limestone soils that are similar to Champagne. All the conditions are right for that: the grapes that go into it; everything; and the winemakers, of course, their improvements in technology, technique and all the rest of it.

Matthew Gaughan 00:26:00 Let’s talk about the market for Ontario wine. So I imagine domestically it’s very strong. But what about outside of Canada as well?

Natalie MacLean 00:26:09 While wine is our biggest import, as I mentioned, and then when it comes to the table wine – still and sparkling – very little is exported. The UK is one of the larger markets, but the US would be the largest. UK and Asia but it’s a small amount and usually what you’ll find is that they’re on high end restaurant lists or like a real boutique agency or liquor store will have it. We just don’t produce enough to fill liquor chains anywhere, including in Canada. Some of the larger producers can get into the Ontario Liquor Board stores, but I’d say probably 80% or 90% of wine produced in Ontario aren’t in the liquor stores. You have to buy them directly from the wineries. So there’s a lot of direct to consumer sales on mailing lists and that sort of thing or visiting the winery sales. So very little of it gets outside the borders of Ontario, let alone Canada.

Matthew Gaughan 00:27:10 So is wine tourism a big thing in Ontario?

Natalie MacLean 00:27:13 It’s huge. It’s huge and it’s beautiful. You’ve got the wineries there. Of course, any wine region you visits going to be pretty beautiful, especially any time during the growing season. But a lot of the wineries have restaurants associated with them attached to them. So they’re going to do pairing menus. There’s all kinds of fun things you can do, like one winery has an underground ice cave where you can drink Ice wine at minus eight degrees, where they to simulate the how it would be picking. They give you the parkas, by the way, to put on because you go down there in the middle of July, you’ll be freezing. All kinds of Instagrammable shots they’ve got. They’re really set up for this now. But there’s other things you can do. There’s spa. There’s ballooning. There’s bike riding. There’s lots of things for kids to do. There’s the Shaw Festival. So there’s arts and culture. There’s wine festivals that go on. I mentioned the Chardonnay one, but there’s another one in the fall in Niagara. There’s an Ice wine festival in the winter. Lots that you can do when you visit.

Matthew Gaughan 00:28:11 I went to an ice bar once in Helsinki. We have a shot of vodka. I like the idea of having a glass of Uce Wine in an ice cave. So you mentioned the liquor board there.Can you explain exactly how the alcohol beverage system works in Ontario and how wine is sold?

Natalie MacLean 00:28:27 Pretty much like about a few years after prohibition, in that most wine in this province is sold by the LCBO,  Liquor Control Board of Ontario, and some wineries have shops throughout the province, but not many. New legislation is coming in August 1st that will allow wines, beers and anything but hard liquor to be sold in convenience stores. That’s a real huge step for us. I think we’re most closely aligned to, I don’t know, is it Pennsylvania that still is run by the state? It’s starting to open up. I take that as a sign not only of progress, but that we’re probably heading into an election in Ontario if they’re freeing up the beer and the wine. You can get it anywhere. But that’s a great thing, because that’s going to allow smaller producers to get wider distribution outside their winery doors, where they may not be able to fill the channel or big orders from the LCBO. So the LCBO still is the major seller. They’re the second largest purchaser of wine in the world, second only to Costco. They’re really big.

Matthew Gaughan 00:29:33 So it is crazy to think of these regulations that exist in Canada, as well as in other countries where it is state controlled. How do people consume wine in Ontario?

Natalie MacLean 00:29:43 Because we’re a northern country, we didn’t have a wine culture. I think your wine culture and how you consume wine grows up with your own wine industry and matures that way. We had a beer and whiskey culture because that’s always been made just like the northern countries of Scotland and Germany and so on. Although Germany has a long wine culture. My parents, they were – and I – they’re from Nova Scotia, so it was always beer and whiskey on the table. I didn’t have a taste for either. And so wine is still relatively new as a culture in the last 20 years or so. And in terms of how people consume it, I think that we’re gradually shifting away from it’s for a fancy occasion, on only special days to it’s a thing that can enhance even casual dinners, family get togethers. It’s a nice alternative to hard liquor. I think my mission has been to say it’s the drink of conversation. There’s a reason we don’t serve it in shooter glasses. It’s meant to be enjoyed over a meal. And so that I think it just again, goes hand in hand with the development of your own wine industry, your own appreciation and the general spreading of wine culture.

Matthew Gaughan 00:30:54 So Canada, for such a big country, gets lost sometimes and identity isn’t always understood. And that’s certainly true of its wines. How does how do Canadian producers in the wine industry really promote their wines abroad and give people understanding of Canadian wine?

Natalie MacLean 00:31:11 They can start talking it on, talking about it on podcasts like yours, Matthew. That helps. Every bit helps. It’s a hard sell. It’s like books. There’s no budget for mass advertising or a big marketing campaign, so you do it grassroots. Whether it’s through podcasts, social media. The Wine Council of Ontario sponsors trips to various countries and will take winemakers along to pour for influencers like sommeliers and media and government officials and so on. So you can make inroads that way but it’s a slow and steady process. And then the other thing that’s happening is that the Wine Council is bringing influencers here. Writers like Jancis Robinson, Andrew Jefford from the UK, Karen MacNeil, Matt Kramer from the US. You should come, Matthew, for sure. I should put a bug in their ear for that.

It’ll happen by word of mouth when people talk about it, and also when consumers come here and visit the wineries and have a phenomenal experience because for me, even as a writer, I remember wines far more deeply when they’re emotionally connected to the place I visited, to the people I spoke to, the land, to the food that was with the wine. And I think that’s what we need to do for wine drinkers is get them to visit here, because it’s quite lovely and there’s so much else to do.

Matthew Gaughan 00:32:28 And does the wine industry receive much government support or is the government a hindrance. Yes or no?

Natalie MacLean 00:32:33 We tax our wines like a foreign import, which is just nuts in my mind. They just raised the excise tax –  which is really a SIN tax on gasoline, cigarettes and wine alcohol –  another 2% recently, whereas that same tax isn’t at all in Italy, France and so on. Even the United States has far lower taxes on its own wines than we do. So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, because we still have that prohibition mindset of trying to discourage people from drinking by raising taxes. But what actually happens is that Ontario producers don’t raise their prices because they’re competing with a Chilean red that’s for a very price sensitive consumer. And so they just take it as a hit to their bottom line. So in that way the government has not been helpful with taxes. But I think things are starting to change.

Matthew Gaughan 00:33:27 Okay. That’s been fantastic. Thank you for joining me. And I’ve learned a lot about Ontario. And I definitely want to visit and definitely want to try more of the wines. I’m going to.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:36 Let them know you have to come here and visit. If your listeners are looking for more resources, I mentioned the Wine Council of Ontario. Their website is just WineCountryOntario.com. I’ve listed all of the wineries in Ontario on my website nataliemaclean.com. And of course the wines that I mentioned while we were chatting. I reviewed all those wines so your listeners can also find them on nataliemaclean.com.

Matthew Gaughan 00:34:00 Please explore Ontario wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:07 Well there you have it. I hope you enjoyed my chat with Matthew. Here are my takeaways. Why do Ontario winemakers need to be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn and pathological optimists? Well, the playwright George Bernard Shaw captured it best “The reasonable man or woman adapts themselves to the world. The unreasonable man or woman persists in trying to adapt the world to himself or herself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man and woman”. So, Ontario winemakers must be exceptionally unreasonable, stubborn and pathological optimists to brave our climate because there are humid summers that can cause rot and mildew rain right before the grapes are harvested, which of course can dilute the flavour, and then winters that can kill the vines easily. As a winemaker once told me, you can lose the whole field in an afternoon, a whole year’s work. It’s such a marginal climate. But of course, that also results in spectacular wines.

Number two, which Ontario wines should you try next other than Ice Wine? Riesling is the number one white grape variety in Ontario, and it’s really undervalued in my opinion. Everyone knows Chardonnay as a brand name and feels safe with Chardonnay, but once many people try Riesling, they realize just how much flavour they’ve been missing in their life.

And number three, why should Ontario be at the top of your list of wine regions to visit? First, it is stunningly beautiful. The scenery, the landscapes, the lake, the cliffs, everything. Also, many wineries have restaurants, so they offer delicious pairing menus. There are lots of other activities to do, you know. For instance, one winery has an underground ice cave where you can drink ice wine at minus eight degrees. There are spas, ballooning, bike riding activities for kids, arts and culture and wine festivals, and so on.

In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Matthew, links to his website and podcast, the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now  no matter where you live. You can also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me, called the five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever at nataliemaclean.com/class. That’s all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/297. Email me if you have a tip, question, or if you’ve read my book or are listening to it at [email protected]

If you missed episode 238, go back and take a listen. I chat about old vines, land stewardship, and the future of Ontario Wine with Carolyn Hurst, owner of Westcott Vineyards. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Carolyn Hurst 00:36:59 Old vines are very precious and really important to the quality of the wine. And the roots are down deeper. They’re less vigorous. We don’t produce as many clusters as younger vines. Every year the vine produces all the new plant. Material is made up from the air, the water, the soil. A generation in a vine is one year renewing itself every year.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:23 I find old vines are like people. They may be more wizened, less vigorous, but they’re more interesting because their roots are deeper.

Carolyn Hurst 00:37:30 So true.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:36 You won’t want to miss next week when I chat with Theresa Heredia, who has worked for some of California’s most prestigious wineries, including Saintsbury, Joseph Phelps and Gary Farrell, and has been nominated twice for Winemaker of the Year by the Wine Enthusiast magazine. She’ll join us from her home in Sonoma.

If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about Ontario wines. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favourite podcast app, or they can also listen to the show on my website at nataliemaclean.com/podcast. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps a vibrant Ontario Riesling or Pinot Noir?

You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com

Natalie MacLean 00:38:53 Com forward slash subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.

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