CASE STUDY REPORT

Case Study: Globalisation Of Inniskilin

Case Study: Globalisation Of Inniskilin

Examine the environmental factors leading to the development and success of Inniskilin in Canada.

A new era in Canadian wine began in Ontario in 1974 when partners Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser convinced the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) to grant them a licence to produce and sell wine. The almost five decade moratorium on new wine producing licences had finally ended. From a little boutique winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake they called Inniskillin Wines, Messrs. Ziraldo and Kaiser would be the model of possibility for other like-minded small producers. In British Columbia it would be Harry McWatters, founder of Sumac Ridge Estate Winery in 1979 who would take the lead. Messrs. Ziraldo and McWatters were to become the driving forces behind Canada's modern industry, centered in Ontario's Niagara Peninsula and in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.

Public and private experimental trials began to show that the better quality European grape species (V. Vinifera) could, indeed, be grown successfully. Brights Wines in Ontario, as early as the 1950s, had produced wines made from 100 percent Vinifera (Chardonnay and Riesling) from their experimental vineyards in Niagara. Between 1977 and 1985 in British Columbia, for instance, the Becker Project, led by the prestigious Dr. Helmut Becker from the Geisenheim Institute in Germany, demonstrated that if Vinifera were cropped lower than the usual 5-10 tons per acre to which growers had been accustomed, and if proper trellising and canopy management systems were used, high quality wines could be grown.

In the late seventies, and early eighties, pioneer producers in Ontario such as Paul Bosc (Chateau des Charmes), and Len Pennachetti (Cave Spring Cellars), among others, went against the tide of prevailing opinion that scoffed at the planting of the more tender Vinifera grapes. In BC, George Heiss (Gray Monk), Robert Shaunessy (Tinhorn Creek) and Robert Combret (Domaine Combret) did the same by taking calculated risks to prove the naysayers wrong. Today these innovators have some of the oldest Vinifera vineyards in Canada.

Even in the merciless climate of Québec, experimental plantings of French hybrids encouraged growers to plant more. By 1979 they had formed a political organization, the Association des Viticulteurs du Québec, to convince the government to issue permits to allow them to produce and sell wine on a commercial scale.

In Nova Scotia, Roger Dial planted winter-hardy Russian varieties, Michurinetz and Saperavi Serverny, in the verdant Annapolis Valley. Others in the Valley and along the North Cumberland Straight soon followed, planting winter-hardy French hybrids.

The 1990s was a decade of rapid growth. The number of commercial wineries grew from about 30 in 1990 to well over 100 by the end of the decade, and consumers began to recognize the value represented by wines bearing the VQA medallion. Canadian vintners continued to demonstrate that fine grape varieties in cooler growing conditions could possess complex flavours, delicate yet persistent aromas, tightly focused structure and longer aging potential than their counterparts in warmer growing regions of the ...