Full Comment - We shouldn’t be making things this hard for Canadian winemakers

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00:01:41.300 While it used to be considered much more of a European beverage or part of European culture,

00:01:47.480 wine is definitely part of North American culture now.

00:01:50.500 It shows up in our movies, on our dinner tables, in our TV shows, in general discussion.

00:01:55.120 It's also a major industry, especially in Ontario and in British Columbia,

00:02:00.100 where the wine industries are growing.

00:02:02.600 They're thriving, but they could be doing even better.

00:02:06.160 Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:02:08.100 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:02:10.000 And today I wanted to look more at the business of wine

00:02:13.200 and what we could do to make Canada a powerhouse in wine

00:02:17.680 the way New Zealand has been able to do, or Australia.

00:02:20.440 It wasn't that long ago that you just simply didn't grow grapes for making drinkable wine

00:02:27.100 in Canada.

00:02:28.380 It was something that people would do as a hobby, but it wasn't something we were known for.

00:02:35.260 One man, and the man we're going to speak to today, helped change that.

00:02:38.500 Donald Zeraldo went from being a hobbyist to putting Canada on the map,

00:02:44.000 especially when it came to ice wine.

00:02:45.620 He's one of the founders of Inniskillen, and even though he sold that company years ago,

00:02:51.020 remained somewhat involved, and now has his own wine label, Zeraldo Estate Winery,

00:02:56.560 he is someone deeply involved in the making of wine, the promotion of wine, the sale of wine

00:03:02.140 in Canada, and seemed like a good guest to discuss how we take Canadian wine to the next level

00:03:09.000 and how we got from, well, where we were to where we are now.

00:03:14.140 Donald Zeraldo joins me from his home in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

00:03:18.540 Donald, thanks for the time today.

00:03:21.180 It's my pleasure.

00:03:22.440 I wonder if you could take us back to the beginning.

00:03:24.640 I know you're at a new beginning now with your Zeraldo Estate Winery,

00:03:28.960 but take us back to the beginning of when you really helped boost the Ontario wine business

00:03:35.980 and built a company that is known around the world now out of nothing.

00:03:41.200 How did an Italian guy and a German guy start a winery with an Irish-sounding name

00:03:47.500 in southern Ontario?

00:03:48.900 How the heck does that happen?

00:03:51.640 First, he was Austrian, so just to...

00:03:53.640 Oh, my apologies.

00:03:55.880 That's right.

00:03:56.380 Kaiser was from Austria.

00:03:57.280 Kaiser, I mean, I grew up on a farm.

00:04:00.340 After I finished University of Guelph, I went back to the family farm in St. Catharines,

00:04:05.140 and Carl Kaiser had dropped in to buy some plants that didn't taste Canadian.

00:04:11.740 Vida Sla Brusca, right?

00:04:13.000 It's like my dad.

00:04:13.860 They just can't handle Fragolino, as it's called back home,

00:04:17.780 which I just came back from Italy,

00:04:19.500 and they're always thinking it's a real treat for me to have a Fragolino.

00:04:22.700 It's called Clinton, the variety.

00:04:23.960 And I'm like, please, guys, this has been my nemesis all my life.

00:04:27.800 Just give me some picolethe or some Pinot Grigio or something.

00:04:31.540 Sauvignon Blanc from Friuli.

00:04:33.260 So Carl literally came to buy some plants.

00:04:36.140 He wanted to plant some vines and grow some grapes to make wine.

00:04:40.940 Yeah, just for himself, he'd married a Canadian, Sylvia,

00:04:45.020 and he was working at a machine shop somewhere in St. Catharines,

00:04:49.240 and he was enrolled at Brock.

00:04:50.740 Fortunately, he took biochemistry, so he learned the scientific aspects of it.

00:04:56.440 But he learned the art of winemaking at the monastery where he grew up in

00:05:00.360 St. Veith in Germany.

00:05:01.740 So that's really how Innocent Italy started.

00:05:04.920 He came, I gave him some Deshaunac grape vines.

00:05:07.160 He went and he bought some, I think, from Mr. Moyer, the farmer, up in the bench.

00:05:11.360 Brought me back a bottle of wine.

00:05:12.380 I was so impressed.

00:05:13.120 I said, well, who made this?

00:05:14.100 He said, I did.

00:05:15.320 And I guess he's somewhat jokingly said, well, why don't I make it and you sell it?

00:05:19.440 And I said, well, Carl, this is Canada.

00:05:21.200 That's not how it works here.

00:05:23.260 It's called a monopoly, LCBO.

00:05:25.280 So I literally went to Toronto and very innocently just walked in,

00:05:30.620 asked the vice president, Mr. Harris, and he kind of chuckled.

00:05:34.020 This is the vice president of the LCBO.

00:05:36.860 The LCBO, that's right.

00:05:38.300 So you walk into one of the biggest liquor operations,

00:05:43.300 sales operations in the world, and say, hey, can you sell my wine?

00:05:48.460 Well, I didn't have wine to sell.

00:05:49.920 I just wanted a permit to make it.

00:05:51.960 And that's what I was told I had to get.

00:05:53.780 So he said they didn't really have any application forms,

00:05:56.980 and they hadn't given one out since 1929.

00:05:59.440 So I kind of sheepishly left, came back, told Carl to forget it.

00:06:03.760 And then General George Kitching, who was the chairman of the LCBO,

00:06:10.440 retired general, he wrote a letter, and he asked if he could see me.

00:06:15.100 And I drove back up to Toronto.

00:06:16.520 I think I packed a suitcase back in those days.

00:06:18.380 So we're talking in 73, would it be, 73?

00:06:24.640 And he said, listen, I drank a lot of great wine during the war.

00:06:29.200 I don't know where they got it from in Germany and France,

00:06:31.440 but I can just imagine they probably helped themselves some of the best.

00:06:36.960 And he said, I really, like, would appreciate if you could do something,

00:06:40.660 you know, some great wine,

00:06:42.260 because I understand you want to do European-style wines, blah, blah, blah.

00:06:45.160 So it was honestly that innocent, and he became our mentor.

00:06:50.580 And it really was a question of whatever I need.

00:06:52.100 I think I'd phone him up, and I'd say General.

00:06:54.620 And everybody called him General.

00:06:55.800 Nobody called him Mr. Kitching, or nobody called him George, for sure. 0.97

00:07:01.060 Ramrod, straight, sick.

00:07:02.120 And he really was instrumental over the next two years.

00:07:05.420 And he phoned up one day, and he said,

00:07:06.720 Donald, I got some great news for you, but I got some bad news.

00:07:09.860 The bad news is you can't tell anybody.

00:07:11.320 The good news is you just got the first license since Prohibition to make wine

00:07:15.500 from the Ontario government.

00:07:18.640 And he and Bob Welsh, who was the deputy premier and the rep around the area here.

00:07:23.360 So that really is how innocently it started.

00:07:25.740 And because I was growing grapevines, I'd always had an interest.

00:07:29.540 My dad sent grapes, peaches, cherries, had everything.

00:07:32.280 It was a mixed fruit farm.

00:07:33.120 And so I came up here in Niagara Lake, and we basically agreed that we'd make a couple

00:07:40.140 barrels of wine in my dad's basement on Ontario Street, where we got the manufacturing permit

00:07:45.920 for.

00:07:46.860 And then in the packing shed in Niagara on the lake, fruit packing shed, we put in a few

00:07:51.760 barrels that we got from the cabort through Kitching and started in Eskillon in 1975.

00:07:57.360 And the real big break came with the ice wine.

00:08:02.960 And I was going to fast forward, because there was trials and tribulations of starting any

00:08:07.740 business.

00:08:08.340 It was a startup, and we did it on the back of the farm.

00:08:12.140 And Carl was still teaching.

00:08:13.400 I was running the farm.

00:08:15.060 And basically, that's really how innocently it started, two guys in a garage, which they

00:08:19.780 now call garagists.

00:08:21.300 That's fantastic.

00:08:22.300 I mean, I don't think people realize how stifled anything to do with alcohol was for

00:08:30.880 so many years.

00:08:31.520 Yeah, we left prohibition back in the 30s, but the mentality didn't necessarily change.

00:08:37.940 I remember going with my dad as a kid to the LCBO, and he would have to fill out a form

00:08:43.920 and hand it to them, and he would have to tell them his address and his route home, and you

00:08:48.940 were supposed to go directly home.

00:08:50.420 You couldn't go anywhere else with a bottle of booze.

00:08:53.440 It was very, very provincial in how we looked at these things.

00:08:58.180 And that's not just Ontario.

00:08:59.920 It was across the country.

00:09:02.580 They put it in a brown...

00:09:04.180 I mean, people would probably laugh.

00:09:05.400 They should have a video to show it, because they were behind a counter.

00:09:09.080 You filled out that paper.

00:09:10.160 You went up, put it, you gave it to them.

00:09:12.300 They went in the back somewhere, put it in a brown paper bag, and handed it to you.

00:09:15.940 And that's, you know, at those times, very few women would be in shopping. 1.00

00:09:20.860 So, yeah, it was a different time.

00:09:22.540 Sundays you couldn't drink, because it was, you know, Hyde Park, you couldn't drink, period.

00:09:28.560 That was one of the writings.

00:09:30.400 So, yeah, it was different times.

00:09:31.560 But if you look, there's a video called CBC.

00:09:35.120 It's a documentary.

00:09:36.920 It's called Geraldo's Zap.

00:09:38.140 It's in the CBC archives.

00:09:40.140 You really got to watch it to get a sense of how crazy it all seemed at the time.

00:09:43.920 But, you know, as I listened to it, it's pretty simple.

00:09:48.580 You know, we just started, and we went from there.

00:09:50.960 We just decided we were going to use European grapes.

00:09:53.000 And then here's another sort of one of these issues that seems like crazy now.

00:09:58.420 But I had grafted 30,000 grafted grapevines, because all the viniferas technically have

00:10:05.480 to be grafted onto rootstocks that are resistant to phylloxera, which the native grapes are resistant

00:10:11.220 to, so they're not an issue.

00:10:12.980 So when I grafted these 30,000 vines, the official word was that it was too cold to grow vinifera

00:10:18.160 in Canada.

00:10:19.500 There was some experimenting going on at Bright's Winery here in Niagara, and also Chateau Gay,

00:10:26.100 which is owned by Labatt's.

00:10:28.620 But nobody was commercializing it, so I couldn't sell these 30,000 vines, so I bought the Jefferies

00:10:34.680 Farm, which is now the Seeger Vineyard, and planted all 30,000, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Gamay.

00:10:46.360 And at that time, in 1977, we had a disastrous harvest, which you'll see in the video if you

00:10:51.980 watch that CBC documentary.

00:10:53.340 So there, yeah, there was trials and tribulations, you know, some good, some bad, a lot of fun.

00:10:59.340 We were naive and young enough to not worry about it, worked 24-7.

00:11:03.440 Carl had come here after his work at the university.

00:11:06.560 And like I said, the big break came in 1971 when we took the ice wine.

00:11:15.680 81 with the ice wine.

00:11:18.300 No, we made the ice wine in 83.

00:11:22.080 Well, we didn't make it in 83, sorry, because the birds ate it all.

00:11:25.640 84 after we learned to cover them with netting.

00:11:28.100 So 84, but the 91 was the year we won the Grand Prix de Neur in France, which just exploded

00:11:35.660 us into the world.

00:11:36.660 And I want to get to that in a minute, but I want you to explain for people that aren't

00:11:43.600 real winos, when you talk about grafting the grapes, you had to take, you wanted to grow

00:11:50.880 European-style grape varieties in Canada, but you couldn't plant those directly.

00:11:56.660 So you had to graft a vine from Europe onto a native vine from here in North America?

00:12:05.780 Well, it gets a little complicated.

00:12:08.220 I'll try and simplify it.

00:12:10.020 Vitis riparia, which you'll see growing on fence hedges, up in trees, you know, if you're

00:12:16.540 anywhere around southern Ontario or eastern seaboard of the United States, you see these

00:12:21.300 grape vines growing all over the bush.

00:12:23.560 That's Vitis riparia.

00:12:24.740 Very resistant to the cold, very resistant to phylloxera, which is a root louse.

00:12:30.800 The European varieties, which is Vitis vinifera, to distinguish it from Vitis riparia, or Vitis

00:12:39.360 labrusca, which is Concord, Niagara.

00:12:42.600 Those Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Grigio, all those European varieties

00:12:49.440 have to be grafted onto resistant root stocks here in all over the world.

00:12:54.740 For that matter, with the exception of possibly parts of Chile and parts of New Zealand.

00:13:00.640 Maybe even, yeah, I think that's about it.

00:13:03.180 But it's a safety precaution to stay away from this louse, because eventually it'll invade.

00:13:07.100 So when Jack Cartier, whoever took the wild vines from eastern seaboard, along with tobacco

00:13:13.700 from Virginia, pineapple from South America, tomatoes, took them back to Europe, they also

00:13:18.560 brought this root louse along, and it just about wiped out the industry in the middle 1800s.

00:13:23.180 So wiping out the wine industry in the middle 1800s was pretty fundamental, because that was

00:13:27.860 a staple.

00:13:28.680 You know, wine is part of the food culture in Europe, and, you know, the Roman soldiers used

00:13:33.300 it as their Gatorade, because they gave them energy, and the water was too polluted.

00:13:38.040 So that whole basis is now the basis of our premium wines, all grafted on these grape vines.

00:13:46.960 And the irony is that the origin of these wild vines came from North America, and all of the

00:13:52.840 grape vines in Europe were grafted as well on North American root stocks.

00:13:57.480 When you started out, I'm going to use some of the brand names of your competitors down

00:14:02.520 the street, Baby Duck, I think that was, Peller had Baby Duck.

00:14:08.360 Yeah, that was Andrew Peller and his son John, who left being a doctor in Hamilton to, I guess

00:14:16.400 he created Baby Duck, it became a real phenomenon, as you know.

00:14:18.800 Yeah, so, you know, when I've talked to the Pellers, you know, they said, we had to make

00:14:23.800 wine that people would drink, and they didn't know wine very well in Canada back then.

00:14:28.460 It wasn't a thing.

00:14:30.120 I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood in Hamilton, so most of my neighbors made their

00:14:34.780 own wine, and you get introduced to it that way.

00:14:38.040 But they're trying to sell it, and they had to find something sweet, something palatable.

00:14:43.080 Did you have to do much of that in the early days of saying, okay, what will Betty Sue buy 0.99

00:14:49.740 at the liquor store?

00:14:50.760 What can I make that they'll actually buy?

00:14:52.920 No, I didn't do any market research, because, you know, it's like, if I look back now, I

00:14:58.900 can look at Steve Jobs, nobody did market research and said, we need a iPhone with a screen on

00:15:04.700 it.

00:15:05.440 He just did it.

00:15:06.460 And, you know, we just took what the Europeans were doing, what Carl knew how to do, because 0.98

00:15:10.780 he came from Europe.

00:15:12.120 And I drank wine at home with my dad.

00:15:14.080 He'd never made wine from La Brusca.

00:15:16.220 And the other thing that caught my attention was when I did travel to Europe, even going back

00:15:20.780 to Friuli, where my family's from, they grow peaches, cherries, lemons, but mostly grapes

00:15:27.360 up that far north.

00:15:28.760 And if you go up to Germany and Switzerland, they don't grow peaches and cherries there.

00:15:32.720 So I thought, it seems odd that they can do that, and we cannot.

00:15:36.700 So being in the nursery business, I, you know, tried it, and I found it very intriguing to

00:15:41.260 do the grafting.

00:15:41.880 There's a community near my family's hometown in Italy called Rauscedo.

00:15:47.500 And as you know, in Europe, they do a lot of cluster industries.

00:15:50.660 And they do, you know, Spielenbergo does mosaics.

00:15:54.820 Sandanile does prosciutto.

00:15:57.040 Fiat in Turin does automobiles.

00:15:59.520 And in Rauscedo, they do 100 million grafted vines, ship them all over the world.

00:16:03.940 We couldn't bring them in as rooted vines because the virus is so.

00:16:06.760 So I would bring the rootstocks that they grew, and they were actually cultivated from

00:16:11.380 the original species here.

00:16:13.220 And then I would graft them because we then go along and pick the clones.

00:16:16.860 So over time, where the industry is really evolving is that we are picking clones, which

00:16:23.000 are a selection from a block of vineyard.

00:16:26.120 Take those buds and graft them so that we adapt to our climatic conditions more and more.

00:16:32.680 Just as they did when the Romans planted all of Europe. 0.99

00:16:34.940 They planted everything all over.

00:16:37.280 And then slowly, you know, Burgundy became famous for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Riesling

00:16:43.580 in Germany, et cetera, et cetera.

00:16:46.280 So in here, it evolved from the Brusca's, the Concord Niagara's, through the hybrid period,

00:16:52.040 which is sort of a stepping stone.

00:16:53.840 But then we quickly learned that if you had the right management.

00:16:57.700 And the people that were very helpful in the management were the German and Italian immigrants,

00:17:01.780 like the Seegers, the Schulas, people in Collio, De Luca, they thought, you know, we can grow 1.00

00:17:09.160 Riesling in Germany.

00:17:10.060 Why shouldn't we be able to grow it here where there's peach orchards right beside us?

00:17:13.440 And they were very instrumental in pushing the needle forward because they had no resistance

00:17:17.740 to the old way of doing it.

00:17:20.560 How much effort did it take to convince Canadian consumers to try this?

00:17:29.780 I'm still working on it.

00:17:31.040 What do you mean?

00:17:32.980 Well, I spent most of my time outside of Canada for two reasons.

00:17:37.480 One is, you know, it's very hard to convince Canadians.

00:17:40.520 If you're making a Canadian film or if you're a Canadian actor or a singer, you pretty much

00:17:45.680 got to go to the United States to become famous.

00:17:47.460 So I thought, you know, maybe we need to go somewhere to become famous so that Canadians

00:17:51.160 will appreciate us.

00:17:52.840 And we got lucky in 91 when we won the Grand Prix de Neur and then shortly after the Grand

00:18:00.080 Premier in Italy, the wine world told the world that we made the best dessert wine in

00:18:06.160 the world when we won the Grand Prix de Neur.

00:18:08.400 And that did it.

00:18:09.500 And then it just exploded from there.

00:18:11.340 And particularly the Japanese who were visiting Niagara Falls a lot, they discovered it.

00:18:17.340 Because they thought, well, these Canadians who we, I mean, who the hell ever heard of

00:18:21.600 Canadian wine outside of Canada?

00:18:25.320 And the fact was that the Japanese were here.

00:18:28.920 They visited.

00:18:29.520 They loved it.

00:18:30.420 Nice packaging.

00:18:31.600 They loved the whole idea of gifting, which they do a lot in the Asian community.

00:18:36.280 So we locked into that and we'd get five, six bus tours from JTV Tours.

00:18:43.120 They'd come in 23 minutes.

00:18:45.500 You could almost set your watch to their schedule.

00:18:48.740 They'd come in, they'd get armfuls of ice wine, go back.

00:18:52.200 We even set up a shop transportation, you know, courier service.

00:18:57.260 And then I hopped on a plane, went to Japan and we did duty free, did the airlines and

00:19:01.380 we kind of just spread around.

00:19:03.360 And I was doing that 24, seven, 200 days a year, flying around selling ice wine because

00:19:09.580 people got it psychologically, Canada and ice wine.

00:19:12.740 It just made a lot of sense.

00:19:14.800 And well, and if you've tried it and I have both at the Uniskillen shop and at home on,

00:19:20.200 let's say, ice cream or in a glass, it's good.

00:19:24.620 But the best way I, people say to me, how do you sell it?

00:19:29.200 I just ask people to taste it and then I don't have to say it because usually the reaction

00:19:32.240 is wow, especially at the beginning when they hadn't tried it.

00:19:35.760 So many years were great, you know, very instrumental.

00:19:38.120 They had discovered it.

00:19:39.480 They started putting it into their global competitions and it just started to spread like wildfire.

00:19:45.840 All I had to do is just try to keep up.

00:19:48.060 The amazing thing that I remember, I did a special tour of Uniskillen several times.

00:19:54.620 years ago and they described how you'd worked with Rydell glassware to come up with specific

00:20:01.880 glasses and they had us try the ice wine several different ways and then tried it in the glass

00:20:06.460 designed for ice wine to hit at the right spot on your tongue.

00:20:10.620 And you're sitting there thinking, uh-huh.

00:20:12.780 Yeah, this is a way to sell me a really expensive glass.

00:20:16.720 And then you try it and you go, oh my God, that tastes so much better.

00:20:21.080 Yeah, it was a work in progress because George Rydell's Austrian, as Carl is. 0.72

00:20:28.300 So Carl, who was the genius behind ice wine, I mean, the guy just like, he just knew how

00:20:33.160 to do it.

00:20:33.600 I guess he was gifted having learned it, you know, in his homeland.

00:20:38.460 And what we did with Rydell initially was we sat 16 experts down, had four different ice

00:20:46.640 wines in front of us, Carl and George Rydell were conducting the tasting at the Hyatt in

00:20:51.820 Toronto.

00:20:52.780 And we had, I think, 13 different glasses.

00:20:56.040 Six hours later, if you know wine people, like all of us, love to argue about which one's

00:21:00.780 the best, which is glass is best, which best corkscrew, blah, blah, blah.

00:21:04.980 And so we couldn't settle after six hours.

00:21:07.340 So George said, look, fine, I get the three finalists.

00:21:10.200 There's the port glass, a Sauternes, and a Sauternes port, and a Sauvignon Blanc glass.

00:21:18.300 So he said, let me take this back.

00:21:19.400 And he came up with a prototype.

00:21:20.640 We shipped that around.

00:21:21.700 And that became the glass.

00:21:23.240 And the best thing I can say about it is when Carl was presented with the glass and, you

00:21:29.460 know, he spent 20 minutes, half an hour swishing it and tasting, he said to George Rydell, this

00:21:35.180 is exactly how I wanted my ice wine to taste.

00:21:37.980 Yeah, and it's the delivery.

00:21:39.200 It's all about the way, the design.

00:21:42.260 And let me give your listeners an opportunity to get to deep dive into not only the ice wine,

00:21:48.820 but into the Rydell hand-blown crystal we made.

00:21:53.240 If you go to my website, xeraldo.ca, and you go under Menu, scroll down to Book, and then

00:22:02.620 under Book, you'll see Electronic Version.

00:22:05.600 It's a $20 payment.

00:22:07.660 But if you put in the discount box, which is a gift from me to you and your listeners,

00:22:13.260 put Vidal, which is the hybrid, the famous hybrid that we make ice wine from, put that

00:22:17.900 in the discount box, and you'll get a copy of my book, Ice Wine, which Carl and I wrote

00:22:23.020 and you will have everything imaginable you'd ever want to know about ice wine and its

00:22:29.140 creation and a lot of its evolution, and also the terroir in our region, you know, what

00:22:35.120 makes the Niagara region below the escarpment and Lake Ontario so unique in its ability to

00:22:42.640 make wine, ice wine.

00:22:44.520 Well, it is amazing, and I've enjoyed, you know, examining different wine regions across

00:22:52.680 the country.

00:22:53.120 The only place I haven't been yet is Okanagan.

00:22:55.060 I've got to fix that.

00:22:56.340 But let's talk about this across the country.

00:22:58.680 You said to get Canadians to appreciate something, you had to go to the States.

00:23:03.960 Speaking with a friend a little while ago, he said, you know what?

00:23:06.660 We treat the wine industry as an afterthought.

00:23:10.060 This could be a huge industry, much bigger than it is, but it doesn't get the support.

00:23:17.020 Between the fact that we've got trade barriers and how governments view it, what's your take

00:23:26.800 on that idea that wine could be a major industry, but it's not reached its potential? 0.53

00:23:33.140 No, and I'll tell you, I can sit and bitch and complain, which, you know, often happens 1.00

00:23:38.340 too much, but I think the reason that Carl and I were successful, we just put our heads

00:23:42.480 down and just made quality wine, and he made great wine, and I was tasked with the idea

00:23:48.940 of leaving the vineyard and going and selling it to the world, and it worked because we just

00:23:54.080 didn't take a second seat.

00:23:55.700 Carl made an amazing quality.

00:23:57.580 It was blessed by the French and by the Italians, and what was great, I'll give you a couple

00:24:01.900 examples, one example, Marques of Piero Antinori or Sandro Boscaini from Mazzi, both in two

00:24:09.340 different instances at a gala dinner, asked me to speak on behalf of dessert wine, ice wine,

00:24:15.860 because they were serving their wine, Ricciotto in the case of Mazzi from Verona, and Piero Antinori

00:24:22.200 from Tuscany with, you know, his great Sesecayas, and he was serving Vinsanto, and they both said,

00:24:28.060 look, you know, these are nice wines, you know, but they're not our main, they're just

00:24:31.120 something we do because we all make a dessert wine.

00:24:34.000 You want to take a great dessert wine?

00:24:36.900 Taste ice wine from Canada, and that, you know, that's, you can't buy that kind of publicity,

00:24:42.580 so that was really fundamentally what we did, like actors going on stage, was to get the

00:24:48.720 Europeans to sanction us, and you know, many of the wineries, as I said the other day,

00:24:53.920 I read that Decanter did a great spread on the Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays from, specifically

00:24:59.280 from, I think it was just Ontario, not BC, and they got great accolades, so I think it's

00:25:04.500 taking time.

00:25:05.560 I'm jealous of New Zealand, for example, who started out, you know, the same time as we

00:25:10.700 did in the 70s, and we were both doing 40,000 tons.

00:25:15.260 They now do 500,000 tons plus, we still, we do 80,000, so I think we have great room for

00:25:21.400 potential, we make great wines, there's a lot of young people now, I'm always speaking

00:25:26.440 highly of people like Kevin at 20, 27, you know, Marco Piccoli now has got on his own

00:25:35.240 at the Crush, where he's doing Crush for different wineries, so you can actually go there and do

00:25:40.560 a virtual reality winery, so we've come a long way, there's no question, now we've got to

00:25:44.900 get out and market this, tell the world, like everybody else does, because you know, the

00:25:49.120 French and the Italians, and they're spending all of their time traveling around, talking

00:25:54.660 about their wines, and we get a lot of respect, I just came back from a tasting, as I said

00:25:59.240 to you, in Paris, after I left, I was in Italy, doing my Prosecco vineyard, back to my roots,

00:26:07.380 and Jean-Luc wrote to me, and I should read the email, but it's pretty exciting, so I'm sitting

00:26:12.460 in Italy making some wine, and Jean-Luc writes this, and he was asked, or one of his staff

00:26:18.000 was asked to attend a tasting at Chateau de Kim, so Brian, Chateau de Kim is undoubtedly

00:26:25.880 the best-deserved wine in the world, bar none, so basically what he said was, one of his folks

00:26:31.720 went to a tasting at Chateau de Kim in France, the Great Sauternes, and he said the wine showed

00:26:37.900 very well, now that would be like going to the Academy Awards and showing very well, after

00:26:44.460 the fact, when you got Chateau de Kim and other deserved wines, so that's the kind of accolades

00:26:49.060 that really put us on the map.

00:26:50.960 All right, I need to take a quick break, when we come back, I want to talk to you more about

00:26:55.040 the fact that we've got separate wine industries and separate provinces, and we don't always

00:27:02.660 drink our own stuff, we don't drink our own hooch like we should, Donald.

00:27:06.740 More on that when we come back.

00:27:09.940 I remember years ago, when I was still living in Montreal, going on the SAQ website, that

00:27:15.500 is their government liquor store website, and even in the early 2000s, it was very advanced

00:27:21.900 in telling you exactly which product you wanted and which store it was at, and so, Donald, I

00:27:29.580 remember going to one particular SAQ location up in Cote St. Luke, because I was big into

00:27:37.720 a, I think I was drinking a lot of the Henry of Pelham back-au-Noir back then, and they

00:27:42.800 said they had some of that in stock, and not easy to get outside of Ontario.

00:27:47.420 So I went up, and I'm looking all over the store, and couldn't find it, and finally I

00:27:54.420 stopped and I asked somebody where it was, and he took me to this one small little section,

00:27:59.040 and whereas everything else was labeled under its country of origin, this wine was labeled

00:28:04.460 under a sign that said, Diverpay, other countries, and that's, you know, some people will scoff

00:28:13.220 and say, oh, well, that's Quebec, but that's really how we treat wine in this country.

00:28:19.120 You go to Western Canada, it's hard to find Ontario wine.

00:28:22.420 They only have Okanagan.

00:28:24.400 We can't get Okanagan wine easily in Ontario or east of Ontario.

00:28:30.520 We don't tend to support our own industry, I would say, with these trade barriers.

00:28:37.680 I know you said you just, you know, stuck your head down and did it, but if we're going to

00:28:41.440 go from 80,000 to 500,000 like the Kiwis, don't we have to start supporting our own industry,

00:28:50.260 getting out of the way of ourselves?

00:28:53.420 Listen, we could spend hours talking this, because I spent half my lifetime trying to

00:28:57.940 come up with some rationale.

00:29:00.380 Bottom line is, we've got to get rid of the interprovincial barriers.

00:29:03.980 I was sitting with Premier Bennett and Premier Peterson at the 86 Olympics, sorry, not the

00:29:09.960 Olympics, Expo 86, and I had to smuggle my Chardonnay into the Ontario Pavilion because

00:29:15.500 I hadn't met the timeline.

00:29:18.000 So, yeah, they're ridiculous barriers.

00:29:19.820 They shouldn't be there, and we should get rid of them.

00:29:22.420 But the industry itself has its own problem because we need to work more unified as an

00:29:27.940 industry, as most others do.

00:29:29.940 When California or France or Bordeaux or Burgundy or County come here, they come as an organization.

00:29:36.980 We need to do more of the same.

00:29:38.720 So, yeah, the industry is sort of, I think, at a very big turning point, and we just need

00:29:43.400 to get our act together.

00:29:44.200 But, you know, it's no different in the fashion industry in Canada, no different in the film

00:29:49.200 industry.

00:29:50.300 Music has broken the mold.

00:29:52.340 Because right now, if you look at the biggest singers in the world, if I'm not mistaken,

00:29:56.200 Drake was a Canadian boy.

00:29:57.820 He's number one.

00:29:59.180 And there's a whole list of them I could go through.

00:30:00.760 Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, and on and on.

00:30:05.680 The Weeknd.

00:30:07.440 Shawn's, yeah, Weeknd, you're right.

00:30:08.840 Shawn's an Irishman, isn't he?

00:30:10.340 But the Weeknd, yeah.

00:30:11.320 So, I think, you know, they've broken the mold.

00:30:13.040 We just need to follow along and just keep making great wines. 0.97

00:30:15.940 And we've got to get off our ass and get out there and sell it to the world. 0.98

00:30:18.860 Because it's also hard to find Canadian wine anywhere. 0.99

00:30:21.740 Whereas, as I said, I'm envious of New Zealand, because you can go anywhere in the world and

00:30:26.800 get New Zealand, and they're not giving it away.

00:30:29.040 They're selling premium at premium prices.

00:30:32.120 We've got a great flagship with the ice wine.

00:30:35.100 I've always said it's like an umbrella.

00:30:37.140 We've now been recognized as the world producer for ice wine, even though we give credit to

00:30:42.020 the Germans.

00:30:43.120 Let's be honest, we made it famous globally.

00:30:46.200 Canada, ice wine, it just fit.

00:30:48.380 So, if that's the umbrella, and they're expecting us to charge so much money for a

00:30:53.080 great wine, let's do the same, bring in the premium Chardonnays, premium Pinot Noirs, which

00:30:58.040 were just given credit in Decanter, and let's get out there and sell it.

00:31:01.240 It'll take time.

00:31:02.480 I'm just, I guess, a little impatient, because I didn't think it would take this long to get

00:31:07.040 the recognition globally.

00:31:08.240 But it's coming, and we've just got to work hard.

00:31:10.480 And we appreciate journalists who write about our wines, and we'd like you to write more

00:31:15.060 about them.

00:31:15.840 So, this is greatly appreciated.

00:31:17.240 It also helps me to explain a little bit about the history, but more importantly, about

00:31:21.520 the future, because I think with the young people, we've got two schools now, Niagara

00:31:26.560 College, and we've got Covey, Pool Climate Enology and Viticulture Institute.

00:31:33.480 And a lot of the graduates are young ladies, young men who have stayed here and gone back

00:31:38.360 to the farm or working at the wineries, and there's many of them, very successful.

00:31:42.380 In terms of supporting our own industry, one thing that somebody said to me a little while

00:31:50.420 ago, and I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I can see it being an impediment if there

00:31:55.280 are a lot of people thinking this.

00:31:57.240 And they said, well, Canadian wine's pretty good, but it's overpriced for what you get.

00:32:03.640 A $30 bottle should really be $20 and so on.

00:32:06.200 And what would your answer be to them?

00:32:08.340 You're the salesman all these years.

00:32:10.980 What do you say?

00:32:11.740 Well, I'll tell you, if you want to drive a Ferrari, you can't buy a Chevy.

00:32:15.900 So, you know, I thought, what am I going to tell you?

00:32:18.540 You get what you pay for.

00:32:20.420 And our cost of living is high.

00:32:22.280 It's very difficult to grow grapes in this tiny area.

00:32:25.200 Where I was just in Italy, I drove across the northern from all the way from Prosecco

00:32:30.960 country, Friuli, all the way across to Piemonte.

00:32:34.360 There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of acres of vineyard.

00:32:38.340 You plant them anywhere, hillsides, slopes, flatland.

00:32:42.020 Here, we're very restricted.

00:32:43.560 So the argument, you could keep arguing that all the time, but, you know, you're going to

00:32:47.920 pay big prices for great French and, you know, upwards of $10,000, $20,000 a bottle for the

00:32:55.620 great first growths for the Burgundies, Domaine La Romanie Conti, Chateau Margaux, Chateau

00:33:01.140 Lafitte.

00:33:02.120 But you can also buy a $10 bottle of French wine if you want to drink that stuff.

00:33:05.200 So I think there's a broad spectrum.

00:33:09.440 We as an industry need to get into premiumization.

00:33:12.780 I think I might as well drop the bomb.

00:33:14.800 We got to get rid of the Wine Content Act.

00:33:17.320 And, you know, that was put there for a purpose.

00:33:19.160 We had a short crop.

00:33:20.440 When we weren't growing enough viniferin hybrids, we needed to supplement with some other grapes.

00:33:25.480 We imported.

00:33:26.760 And now it's blended.

00:33:28.260 I think we should separate it, make it 100% imported.

00:33:30.840 We still get all the benefits of labor and so on, the whatever it is that, you know,

00:33:36.600 contributes to the profitability of that sector.

00:33:39.080 And then focus on VQA.

00:33:40.680 We've had a 7% market share for the last 10 years.

00:33:43.500 That's an unacceptable thing.

00:33:45.360 VQA is only 7%?

00:33:46.820 Yeah, the 23% to 30% that's talked about includes blended wines.

00:33:52.920 So in Ontario, I'm just now, I have this statistic.

00:33:55.380 And B.C., they're much, much better because, you know, the West Coast is always much more supportive of their native goods, you know,

00:34:03.700 whether it's California or Oregon.

00:34:06.280 I was looking at the numbers the other day at Oregon and California.

00:34:09.400 It's amazing.

00:34:10.160 You know, they're up, I've got the number somewhere, but I was shocked at the number of acres.

00:34:15.060 It's like over 100,000 acres in both cases.

00:34:18.060 You told me a story before we started recording about being on a flight recently.

00:34:24.320 And even though you're sitting in the good seats, you're up front, you had to argue to get Canadian wine served to you.

00:34:31.960 Yeah, I've been doing that for four years.

00:34:33.360 Claude Villaday was great in the day when he was president.

00:34:36.540 And he insisted on the Chardonnay being on first class in Air Canada.

00:34:41.120 So we were very proud of that.

00:34:43.000 And I even remember putting a video that they put a video in about people coming in, like when I saw the one today coming back,

00:34:48.280 or yesterday, coming back from Venice, that it was promoting Toronto as a city, great city that it is,

00:34:54.620 and then Calgary and each city across.

00:34:56.460 In this case, it was the wine region.

00:34:59.500 And so all of that helps.

00:35:01.120 And, you know, see, I cause trouble all the time.

00:35:03.500 Because if you fly on Qantas, you're not going to be drinking Canadian wine.

00:35:07.380 I can tell you that.

00:35:08.340 Or if you fly on Air France, you're not going to be drinking German wine.

00:35:12.060 So it's just something that we should do.

00:35:13.560 And there was on the flight yesterday.

00:35:15.700 I had to cause a little stir.

00:35:16.980 But I did get a Henry of Pelham Riesling and a Trius Cabernet, I think it was a Cabernet Franc.

00:35:24.700 Both fine wines.

00:35:26.740 Both fine.

00:35:27.360 And I tasted the others, you know, the imports.

00:35:30.000 And, yeah, they were good.

00:35:31.400 They were, you know, no different than ours.

00:35:32.900 If you did it blind, I'll bet you nobody on that airplane could tell me the difference between which country they came from.

00:35:37.780 What needs to be done next, either by the industry or by government to help?

00:35:44.960 I hear a lot in Ontario, because I spend a lot of time at Queen's Park covering provincial politics, that they've got to get rid of this 6.1% excise tax.

00:35:55.160 Yeah, that's one thing the industry is working on right now, Brian.

00:35:59.340 And it's part of an overall ask of the Ontario government to give the industry a break.

00:36:06.420 And Deloitte Touche recently did a study.

00:36:08.780 I'm sure you've reviewed it.

00:36:09.800 If you haven't, you can get a copy of it.

00:36:12.320 And it's basically suggesting that the wine industry in the Niagara Peninsula, specifically, because it was done for this region.

00:36:19.500 And the industry got together, hired Deloitte.

00:36:21.600 And it basically says that we could, we as the foundation of tourism, which we've been doing for 20 years, we're kind of blessed and cursed being near Niagara Falls.

00:36:30.560 But it does deliver 13 million visitors.

00:36:33.960 And that could generate, I think it was $8 billion was the number that it could generate to enhance the economic development.

00:36:42.280 Now, be clear, when I say economic development, my intent is to shove the economic development above the escarpment.

00:36:48.360 Because one of my pet focuses right now is, and I've been spending time with the industry trying to figure out how we incorporate this request of the government to support us, federal and provincial.

00:37:01.500 And with this new initiative to drive hospitality and tourism to a greater level.

00:37:07.700 And thirdly, get the traffic off the Niagara Peninsula, build the Mid-Peninsula Corridor.

00:37:16.320 And I know people don't like the idea because it's a highway.

00:37:19.060 But if we don't stop developing in on the very restricted fruit lands below the escarpment, which is the only place with the exception of Prince Edward County and down in Lake Erie, Newark Shore, that we can grow grapes.

00:37:32.420 We're going to run out of land.

00:37:33.580 In 20 years, you've seen what's happened in the last 20 years if you drive down the QE.

00:37:37.160 We aren't going to have an industry because you can't plant grapes above the escarpment.

00:37:41.180 Not commercially viable yet, unless we get four or five degrees of global warming, which, you know, is certainly impacting the industry.

00:37:48.520 But so there's a number of things that got to be done.

00:37:50.600 And the other thing is the industry really needs to get together as a unified voice for the simple reason that government will only listen to an industry if it's unified and it's asked.

00:38:00.820 Can't be different sectors asking for different things because it's really easy for the government just to say, well, go home, get your act together and then come back.

00:38:08.100 But more importantly, focus on viticulture, growing better quality grapes and continuing to improve the wine, which you'll see is done in every country.

00:38:19.400 I just came back from Italy and they're doing as much research as they were 100 years ago to improve for a number of reasons.

00:38:25.860 One, to adapt to climatic conditions that are changing dramatically in Europe.

00:38:31.040 I mean, Italy's had a devastating season between hail the size of baseballs, floods in Bologna in the middle, and then heat in the south where Sicily probably abandoned 30, 40 percent of its crop to mildew and rain.

00:38:47.580 But it was pretty devastating in Europe.

00:38:49.700 So, you know, we have coal, but we learned to manage with it.

00:38:52.320 We have a lot of technology coming out of the research station and out of the schools.

00:38:56.360 But my suggestion to the industry, stop spending all the time lobbying government, which we haven't been very successful at, and let's get out there and sell a wine.

00:39:07.620 Let's hire a dozen sommeliers and send them in the marketplace. 0.99

00:39:11.120 You're talking about premium.

00:39:14.000 Premiization?

00:39:14.640 Is that the word you used?

00:39:16.180 That's a new one to me.

00:39:19.320 Premiumization.

00:39:19.980 It's just making premium wines and leaving the, quote, I'll exaggerate, leave the baby ducks behind us. 1.00

00:39:25.180 Let's stop talking about them and let's move on to the great Cabernet Francs we make.

00:39:29.740 In Niagara, we do a great job with Pinot Noir.

00:39:32.140 Okanagan, they do a great job with Reds because it's a semi-arid desert out there.

00:39:35.940 Okay.

00:39:36.320 So, the Ford government in Ontario is looking at changing how beer and wine is sold, and you know that.

00:39:44.860 There have been primarily two wine companies that have benefited from having their own wine shops, but they're looking at expanding sales to corner stores in different places.

00:40:01.180 Would that help the industry or not matter based on what you're talking about?

00:40:05.780 Because, you know, my experience with Quebec is that you'll get, most cities, most neighborhoods will have one store that carries the good stuff, and the rest, you're going in for a quick bottle just to get something because you're out.

00:40:19.820 Well, they're called des panneurs, and if you check, that's all bottled bulk wine that comes in and bottled.

00:40:27.740 It was owned by the SAQ, now it's independent, the bottling facility.

00:40:33.380 So, is that a solution?

00:40:35.100 If it's done right, I mean, distribution of wine could be done better.

00:40:38.760 The monopoly that we have is a monopoly.

00:40:41.080 It's just that.

00:40:41.620 So, I think there are improvements, just like the industry can.

00:40:45.220 I think there's a lot of room for improvement, especially accessibility for the small wineries, because, you know, as long as they're successful selling fruit at the door, you know, as we call a cellar door, but when we started, there were six wineries, all of which have now basically been morphed into the, quote, as you call them, big ones.

00:41:02.920 And I was part of that.

00:41:04.620 It was a survival technique when the government threw us under the bus with the free trade agreement back in the 80s, late 80s.

00:41:12.100 So, that distribution is welcome, but at the same time, we've got to do it properly, not haphazardly.

00:41:19.120 Mr. Ford has a bad habit like he did with the green belt. 1.00

00:41:21.860 It's in, it's out, it's in, it's out.

00:41:24.660 Now he's had to apologize because that was a huge movement against, you know, damaging the green belt.

00:41:30.040 So, we don't want the same thing to happen with distribution.

00:41:33.420 It should be done properly.

00:41:36.020 I had a suggestion that I've even given to the government and the LCBO.

00:41:39.740 Why don't we take the vintagest stores, which are the specialty stores, take them away from a government agency, which has to be noncommittal, generic, if you know what I mean.

00:41:49.440 Get that to whoever wants to, you know, license them or buy them, like they did with cannabis, and then let some sommeliers run them.

00:41:57.080 They're going to provide outstanding service because right now, we used to have wine consultants at the LCBO.

00:42:02.660 I don't think they exist anymore.

00:42:04.780 I don't think so.

00:42:05.300 And I think also, no, and the liquor board technically is not allowed to tell you, you know, Henry Appelum, Baconoire is better than Cape Springs, Cap Franc or whatever, because that's not, you know, they should do it, in my opinion.

00:42:18.920 We are asking for their advice.

00:42:20.620 So, yeah, I think distribution needs to be looked at.

00:42:23.220 I just hope he doesn't do it haphazardly.

00:42:25.700 He should meet with all the stakeholders.

00:42:28.300 And putting it in the grocery stores, you know, there's all kinds of controversy about what's going on in the grocery business right now.

00:42:35.160 So, do we need to get mixed up in that?

00:42:38.100 Let's just sell our wine.

00:42:39.900 I think the boutiques that the wineries have, you know, they were purchased because basically those were each individual licenses at one time owned by a winery.

00:42:49.420 So, since Prohibition, various wineries have bought them.

00:42:53.040 London wineries had a bunch.

00:42:54.880 So, when we bought London, we absorbed those 12 stores when I say Vincor.

00:42:58.740 So, I've had both feet in both sides, you know, the independent in a skill in which we built.

00:43:03.580 And then, by necessity, had to survive after the free trade agreement and got better distribution because we were able to sell in a skill in 140 stores.

00:43:12.900 But they could do a case study at a university of how long it took us to break that rule that wherever the wine was manufactured, only those retail stores owned by that manufacturing permit could sell it.

00:43:25.820 And it goes on and on.

00:43:27.000 We need to get, like, come on, let's get over this.

00:43:29.860 You know, wine to me as an Italian is a food stable where I just came from in Italy.

00:43:33.740 Like, wine's everywhere.

00:43:34.900 It's like part of the table setting.

00:43:37.280 Whereas here, we treat it as alcohol.

00:43:39.420 And I just read this ridiculous report, you know, and once I looked up who wrote it, the Alcohol, Drug, and Addiction Foundation.

00:43:49.100 Was I surprised that they said don't drink too much wine or too much alcohol?

00:43:53.300 Are these the guys that said no more than two drinks a week?

00:43:56.680 Yeah, or don't drink any at all.

00:43:59.520 Well, you know, if you're ever getting paid to sell that propaganda, I guess you're going to stick with that storyline.

00:44:04.780 I have no idea what benefit it's going to be.

00:44:07.480 If you don't want to drink, that's entirely up to you.

00:44:09.360 Don't.

00:44:10.040 But don't tell me where I, you know, consider this a culture.

00:44:14.980 I'm right now even playing with the idea of doing an interview, like a TV series for wine, because there's so much food, chefs, chef competitions, food shows, food network.

00:44:25.280 There really isn't one that focuses on wine, but not just wine like us here talking heads.

00:44:32.320 I'm talking about visiting the vineyards all over the world, expressing the winemakers, terroir, you know, all of the different regions, the vintages.

00:44:41.140 It's an exciting business.

00:44:42.540 I just spent two weeks in Italy, and I ran out of time.

00:44:45.780 I just should have stayed another two weeks just to get a sense of what's going on with this year's harvest.

00:44:50.100 Donald, it sounds like you've had a pretty good career in the wine business that started out by mistakes.

00:44:56.780 So, you know, happy mistakes turned into a great career for you.

00:45:01.760 Thanks so much for the time today.

00:45:03.280 Thanks for your insights.

00:45:05.460 Brian, it was a great pleasure, and thank you for the opportunity.

00:45:08.780 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:45:11.180 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:45:12.640 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:45:16.920 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:45:19.340 You can subscribe to Full Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

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00:45:31.280 And, of course, tell your friends all about us.

00:45:33.780 Thanks for listening.

00:45:34.680 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:45:36.400 Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - January 08, 2024

We shouldn’t be making things this hard for Canadian winemakers

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