Canadian wine embraces its new cool factor
WATERS ON WINE
Winemaker Norman Hardie and Canadian wine got a boost when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went for a jog in Vancouver and ended up photobombing a group of students on Stanley Park Seawall.
Photos of the perspiring PM and formally dressed prom revellers show Trudeau sporting black shorts and a logoed t-shirt from Norman Hardie winery in Prince Edward County. Usually Trudeau is shirtless when he wanders into impromptu photo ops, so the Ontario vintner’s good fortune was even more surprising.
A few weeks later, glasses of Hardie’s world-beating Chardonnays were enjoyed by the PM and former U.S. President Barack Obama during an informal dinner at a Montreal bistro.
Seeing a prime minister actively supportingthegrapeandwineindustry is worth noting. It’s a far cry from the days leading up to the signing of the NAFTA agreement when Brian Mulroney proclaimed Americans would drink Canadian beer and we’d drink Californian wine.
The formation of the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA for short) in Ontario, which encouraged quality winemaking practices starting with dumping inferior labrusca grape varieties, was done to make the domestic industry more competitive against import wines. A quality over quantity mindset and continued research and development including adopting best practices from around the world and adapting them to cool climate winemaking helped propel the industry rapidly forward.
Reports of Trudeau’s run-in brought to life a comment made by winemaker Thomas Bachelder during the Vancouver International Wine Festival a few months earlier. Canada was the theme country for this year’s festival, with vintners from coast to coast on hand to mark the drive towards quality happening in vineyards around the country.
“Canada is cool,” said Bachelder, who produces wines in Ontario, Burgundy and Oregon, told those assembled for the Poised for Pinot seminar. “We have a cool prime minister… The world sees us as being truly cool ... “When I am promoting wine in other parts of the world, they’re not asking to sample my Oregon wines, they want to taste what’s from Ontario ...”
Interest is definitely increasing at home and abroad. Favourable reports in the international press have helped turn Canadian wine into something more than a mere footnote outside of this country.