Ron was hired by Paul Speck in 1990 to finish off the 1989 vintage and in the subsequent two decades he has never looked back in terms of developing and leading the Niagara wine industry in quality and consistency. A native of Vineland, he considers the friends and associations within the winemaking community of Niagara and from wine regions elsewhere as a key to both continued learning and gaining perspective that can be brought to bear in the philosophical and practical aspects of Ron’s further work. The mirrored passion that he finds in friends, colleagues and workmates is a well that he draws from and reciprocates.

Thanks to his enormous contribution, Niagara wines enjoy global recognition and appreciation and it’s only fitting that Cuvée have chosen to honor Ron in this fashion.

Published May 3, 2012
Via City Style and Living – Blog
ORIGINAL SOURCE: City Style and Living

Named after their loyalist American fore bearer, Henry of Pelham is a family estate on the Niagara escarpment, currently run by the brothers Speck. Paul Speck, the eldest, conducted a tasting at Willow Park Wines and Spirits of some of his family’s wines.

1. Sibling Rivalry (greeted guests at the tasting) – “I love rose. In the South of France when its hot they drink rose. Strawberry on the nose finished dry with fruit.”

2. Cuvée Catherine Brut – “Sparkling wine is perfect in Niagara. This is picked by hand and made from only the middle pressing of the grape. Fresh nose, dry crisp.”

3. Reserve Riesling – “Riesling is one of my favourite grapes.Smells of lemon lime – typical of Riesling grown in our area. There is a steeliness a minerality bit of oiliness with a touch of sweetness.”

4. Chardonnay – “This is a staple in Niagara. I still love chardonnay I don’t care what they say. It is a winemaker’s grape.”

5. Baco Noir – “People love it. It has a similar history to Syrah and Zinfandel. All Baco is not created equally. It gets its colour from its flesh. Licorice coffee, toast fro wood. It is the backwoods beast or as my brother says it’s like spraying perfume on John Wayne.”

6. Cabernet Merlot – “This has more structure to its. These varieties are best together.”

7. Icewine Riesling – “This is a nice way to end. It has an elegance, a finesse. If icewine doesn’t have balance its like candy or overripe fruit. This will age for decades. Peach and citrus orange peel nose. Lots of fruit but searing acidity.”

Fly to Toronto: 10 Great Reasons (besides low fares)

Published April 10, 2012
By George Hobica
SOURCE

“Try the wine. If you haven’t heard about Ontario’s booming wine industry, that’s not because the wine’s not often really great and occasionally nothing short of superb, it’s because Ontario’s oenophiles are too busy getting high on their own supply to figure out how to export the stuff. Much of the best vintages come from the vineyards that line the scenic back roads of the Niagara Peninsula, less than an hour from town, where wineries like Malivoire, Henry of Pelham and Inniskillin are musts. Where there’s wine, there’s food, and some of the best meals you’ll eat on your trip are going to be out here, guaranteed. For a strict farm-to-table ethic and outstanding cooking, hit Treadwell in Port Dalhousie; for the full, picture-postcard experience, visit elegant Peller Estates in ridiculously cute Niagara-on-the-Lake for a leisurely fine-dining lunch among the vineyards. Click here for more.”

Unique and First to Our Area this Segway Experience is like No Other Winery or Vineyard Tour

Tour includes: At the specified time, we meet at Henry of Pelham.
• Experience begins with a 20 minute introduction, safety, and training session on the Segway.
• Our tour starts in the vineyards with the beautiful vistas of the Niagara Escarpment.
• Experience our wetland project where our ponds have been equipped with natural bio-filters.
• A visit to the weather station passing some of our wind fans.
• Tour ends at our historic family cemetery where our Loyalist backround is revealed.
• We spend 40 minutes riding Segways throughout our gently rolling vineyards.
• A tour and tasting in our underground cellar is the final stop. Lunch and snacks are available through the Coach House Café, Thursday to Monday 11am – 5pm. (Food and wine additional cost)

Click here for additional information and to view our cancellation policy.

By reservation only.
48 hours minimum notice required.
Ph: (905) 684-8423
$99.95/person (2 person minimum) plus tax.
Times depending on availability.

Additional Information

Our tours go rain or shine, but in the event of truly terrible weather, please call 905-684-8423 for an update. If a tour is canceled due to inclement weather, Niagara Segway will offer an alternative tour date or a full refund, whichever the customer prefers.

Stage set for Illuminaqua 2012
Welland Recreational Canal Corporation Announces Festival Lineup

It should be an illuminating sixth season.

The Welland Recreational Canal Corporation (WRCC) announced the lineup for the 2012 season of Illuminaqua last Thursday. The announcement took place at the Seaway Mall with preview performances from Colleen Brown and Michael Ciufo, both of whom will perform during the annual festival that sees performers serenading crowds at the Merritt Park Amphitheater as pods of fire flicker on the surface of the recreational canal.

“It gets better every year,” said Mayor Barry Sharpe of the annual festival.

“We always like to have somebody who has made their mark,” said WRCC executive director Stephen Fischer, who explained that with a $50,000 performance budget the organization tries to find top-notch Canadian performers from a variety of genres.

Jim Cuddy, of Blue Rodeo fame, will kick off this year’s festival on May 18 with his country stylings. Folk artist Jill Barber will bring her contralto vocals to the floating stage on June 15.

July 6 will see blues-funk artist Ray Bonneville entertaining attendees amongst the flames and on August 13 tenor Michael Ciufo will add a touch of opera to the festival lineup.

Rounding out the season on Aug. 31 will be Tara Oram, winner of the Canadian Country Music Awards Risisng Star Award.

“It’s one of the most fun gigs I’ve played,” said Brown, who will open for Bonneville. The July 6 opening marks a return to the Illuminaqua stage for the pop-folk artist after she opened for Don McLean in 2010.

“As far as stages go it’s pretty unique,” she said, noting that the festival brings with it a certain feeling of community she finds alluring.

“It’s exciting,” said Fischer, noting that this year the festival is able to offer strong season packages due to partnerships with Henry of Pelham, Molson Canada, the Seaway Mall and Boston Pizza.

This year the 500 available $119.95 series passes will include access to all performances; two bottles of wine from henry of Pelham; a wine tasting at the winery; a $25 gift certificate to the mall; a pitcher of Molson draught and complimentary appetizer at Boston Pizza.

“The value of the series package is amazing,” said Fischer, noting the full value would fall somewhere in the $240 range.

“People have always like the value,” he added.

Individual performance tickets range from $26 to $29. Tickets and packages are on sale now and can be purchased online at www.illuminaqua.com or at the Seaway Mall customer service desk.

All performances begin at 8 p.m. and doors open at 7 p.m. Performances take place at the amphitheater, 115 King St. Welland.

For More Information

Click here to download the IlluminAqua flyer.

The best evidence of how much Canada’s wines have improved over the last two decades is the number of Niagara wineries that have stopped making icewine or no longer view it as their most important product. (Niagara Peninsula is an appellation, or what in Canada is identified as a Designated Viticultural Area, or DVA, of the Province of Ontario.) Whereas previously the only Canadian, never mind Niagara, wine any American had heard of was icewine, nowadays that is no longer true. Canadian wineries are now focusing on premium dry wines, and have become remarkably adept at producing them. Indeed, some of their rieslings and pinot noirs rank with the best from other New World countries.

Although Canada now makes wine successfully in more than one province, including Québec and the Atlantic Provinces such as Nova Scotia, the majority of production and high-quality wines are from British Columbia (BC) and Ontario. Very generally speaking, while BC is much warmer, with parts of the province almost hot, and characterized by little rainfall, Ontario is a perfect example of a cool-climate viticultural area not unlike those of New Zealand, northern France, northern Italy, and Oregon.

Arguably, Ontario is where Canada’s best rieslings, chardonnays and pinot noirs are made (though there are excellent ones made in cooler parts of BC as well). Gone are the days when people thought Ontario could only produce wines from winter-hardy hybrids. In fact, only one hybrid, vidal, is still being used to any great extent (mainly to make icewine), while the majority of the others have been replaced by Vitis vinifera varieties such as chardonnay and riesling. Last but not least, wine lovers should know that there is hardly a more beautiful wine country destination in the whole world. Ontario’s wine production zones are pristine and postcard-pretty, with many excellent country restaurants and gifted cooks only adding to the pleasure of hunting down world-class caliber wines.

Of course, production volumes for Ontario’s best wines can be small. Canadians realize what they have and tend to drink these wines up, so bottles are hard to find outside Canada. And not all the wines are as good as they should be. The problem is mostly young vines, as the majority of new Ontario wineries go back no farther than the 1990s, if that. Many vineyards are less than ten years old, and the wines they yield can be a little dilute and hollow in the mid-palate, and cannot compete among the world’s best for complexity. Furthermore, owing to low volumes and high local demand, prices can be relatively high for these wines. Still, once wine lovers the world over realize that Ontario and parts of BC are some of the few viticultural areas in the world with the potential for truly memorable pinot noir, and that Canada is already one of the three or four best countries in the world for riesling, with more than adequate chardonnay, pinot gris and more, Canadian wines will become increasingly sought after.

[IWC readers who have gotten to know me over the years through my articles on the wines of Italy and Bordeaux may wonder what I am doing writing about Canada's wines. Besides holding the firm belief that Canadian riesling, pinot noir and chardonnay are potentially world-class wines (not just the icewines), I spent my adolescent years in Canada and watched the Canadian wine industry (especially Ontario's) grow from a grassroots movement to the major industry it is today. In 1991 I was the first to hold a tasting of New World merlots in Rome in which a Canadian wine was present (a 1988 Stoney Ridge bottling from the legendary Lenko vineyard). Even earlier, in 1983, I was the first in Rome to hold a tasting of rieslings from around the world that also showcased Ontario's efforts. More than a decade later, in 2002, I was the first in Italy to write an in-depth article for a major Italian wine magazine about Canadian icewines and the first to hold an exclusive tasting of Canada's icewines for the Rome Slow Food branch.]

The Ontario growing region. Niagara is probably Canada’s most important wine producing area, hugging the southwestern shore of Lake Ontario, only about an hour southwest of the sprawling metropolis of Toronto. This is cool-climate wine country, and in fact the most successful wines made here are from riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir, with cabernet franc having been extremely successful of late. Terroir lovers should note that after Burgundy, Alsace, Germany and Piedmont, Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula is one of the most interesting terroir-obsessed winemaking areas of the world.

Ontario’s winemaking area has been divided into four major DVAs: the Lake Erie North Shore, Pelee Island, Niagara Peninsula, and Prince Edward County. The Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island are the two southernmost viticultural areas of Ontario (and Canada as well); they enjoy the same growing degree days (GDD) as northern California. The much cooler Prince Edward County, a peninsula jutting out into Lake Ontario on its northeastern side, is where some of the country’s finest limestone soils are found. Though this is an area with immense potential for making high-quality chardonnays and pinot noirs, it is plagued by extreme winters. The lake often freezes here, and the vines are afforded little shelter from brutally cold winds. Still, the soil parallels to Burgundy have motivated many growers to brave extreme weather conditions in an attempt to make great wines, and initial results have been quite promising. And global warming may end up giving a hand to this Ontario production zone.

The most important DVA of Ontario is Niagara, where Lake Ontario’s thermo-reflective and thermo-conservation properties help to create microclimates that are ideally suited for cool-weather varieties. While Niagara can be bone-chillingly cold in some of its worst winters, it’s easy to forget that it does sit at the same latitude as Tuscany, that it has GDD more or less equivalent to those of Chianti, as well as average summer temperatures of about 75°F. The fall season is usually dry, long and relatively cool, and there is enough rainfall (and snow) that irrigation is not required. The long growing season allows for development of flavor complexity that is simply not possible in many warm-weather regions of the New World. The wines are characterized by good acidity, low alcohol and food-friendliness.

Niagara’s main viticultural areas are around the towns of Jordan and Niagara-on-the-Lake, but the viticultural geography is more complicated than it appears at first glance. As I mentioned above, one of the most exciting aspects of Niagara is the painstaking care that has gone into detailing the different micro-appellations within the larger appellation. So even though we still speak of wines of Niagara, much as we speak of those of Napa Valley or Oregon, one should also think of Niagara’s wines in more specific terms–for example, in terms of the differences between a riesling made from grapes grown in different sub-appellations such as the Beamsville Bench or the Lincoln Lakeshore. As a general rule, the area around Jordan is cooler, while the area of Niagara-on-the-Lake, closer to Lake Ontario, benefits from warm lake breezes and has more heat units. Not surprisingly, the whites of the former area are generally more lively, mineral-driven and dynamic, while the latter are more obviously fruity, softer and less steely; Niagara-on-the-Lake is also where cabernet sauvignon and other Bordeaux red varieties fare better. There is a real difference between wines made from around Niagara-on-the-Lake and those around Jordan.

Besides ideal geological and climatic conditions for cool-climate viticulture, a number of enlightened decisions have also greatly helped Ontario wines advance to the major-league level. One was the creation of an entity that would allow for the training of a local wine-specific workforce: the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute at Brock University. This learning facility, located in St. Catharines, has been training winemakers since 1997. Another very important step was the creation of the Ontario-wide Vintner’s Quality Alliance (VQA), an effort to classify wines along the lines of France’s AOC or Italy’s DOC systems. The VQA seal is a guarantee of quality for Ontario wines. The potential for fine wine in Ontario has not gone unnoticed, and foreign investors have begun to arrive.

In addition to excellent wines from riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir, Ontario is producing some good gewürztraminer, pinot gris and cabernet franc too. Although a good bit of merlot is made, many producers are beginning to phase out this variety in favor of cabernet franc, which is better able to survive the cold Ontario winters. By the way, cabernet sauvignon doesn’t ripen often enough in Ontario to consistently give wines of note–at least, up until now. One very interesting red hybrid worth a look is baco noir, which gives a peppery, light zinfandel-like wine that can be a real joy to drink. Most importantly, wine lovers should take note that Ontario represents one of the greatest riesling terroirs in the world. These wines have a distinction and character all their own; I think of them as in between those of Alsace and the Rheingau in style, but with more alcohol than the latter. Of course, Ontario’s geology and microclimates are sufficiently varied that many rieslings will also remind tasters of wines from the Saar, the Ruwer and the Mosel, especially the latter region’s dainty icewines.
Recent vintages in Ontario. The growing season of 2010 began with a relatively mild and dry winter and early spring throughout southern Ontario. Bud burst was about two weeks early in all of the wine growing regions: mid-April in the Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island, and early May in Prince Edward County. Despite the prevailing warm conditions, Prince Edward County was hit with frost in mid May, resulting in some bud damage but little widespread ill effect. May was warm and summery, with mean temperatures hovering 2° to 3°C above normal and a number of high-temperature records broken. June had normal temperatures but rain, including four tornadoes in the Lake Erie North Shore appellation at the start and end of the month. Fortunately for the grape crop, no vineyards sustained any lasting damage.

Severe thunderstorms continued into early July for Lake Erie North Shore but on balance the July weather was hot, sunny and perfect for maturing grapes. Some heavy downpours left enough moisture to cause slight disease pressure in a few locations but generally rain came in healthy amounts and there were a lot of sunshine hours to fuel growth. August was warmer and drier than normal in all regions, and included a record low precipitation total for Lake Erie North Shore. The grape harvest began approximately two weeks early, with sparkling wine grapes harvested in late August and with warm, dry conditions continuing into September. The long growing season of 2010 held promise for later-ripening varieties that are sometimes challenged by Ontario’s climate.

At the other extreme, 2009, the coolest vintage of the decade, experienced a cold and wet July and August, but warm, dry weather in September and October saved the day. Thanks to very long hang-time, the resulting wines have plenty of acidity and backbone, as well as depth of flavor. When the sun and warmth returned in late August, there were also wide day-night extremes in temperature, with the very cool nights guaranteeing white wines of wonderful aromatic complexity and freshness. And at the end of the first week of October, the weather turned cold and dry, so the grapes continued to ripen slowly on the vine, developing further complexity while maintaining acidity.

The 2008 vintage was cold but not as late as 2009, featuring a long, cool growing season with good amounts of sunlight. June, which was slightly warmer than usual, also presented 50% more rainfall than average. July and August were challenging in that temperatures dropped to unseasonably cool levels, with above-average precipitation continuing, leading to higher than usual vine disease pressures. Fortunately, the last two weeks of August and the first week of September were nearly perfect, setting the stage for a good vintage. The rest of September and October were characterized by cool, sunshine-filled days that allowed for slow, proper ripening of the grapes.

Finally, 2007 may well be the finest vintage ever for red wines in the Niagara Peninsula. Warm, dry conditions dominated for most of the growing season; in fact, some areas were plagued by thunderstorms, while others experienced near-drought conditions. In the Niagara Peninsula, precipitation levels were less than half of normal in many areas for much of the season. April through August witnessed above-average temperatures and very low rainfall. Some of the younger vines experienced heat stress and manual irrigation was needed in some areas. With a small crop harvested early 2007 is generally viewed as potentially a very great vintage for Niagara’s red wines. Prince Edward County experienced similar conditions, if not quite as dry, while Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee lsland had rain levels closer to normal in the late summer and early fall. The harvest began early: in late August in Pelee Island and Lake Erie North Shore and for sparkling wine grapes across the province. September and October were warmer and drier than normal, offering excellent conditions for harvest.

I tasted the following wines, mostly blind, in Toronto last summer and again in Rome in November. I followed up by tasting a few more new releases just before this report was finished in January.

Directed by Michael Madden
produced by Laura Moffat
of the Niagara Falls Music Theatre Society (Firehall Theatre)

One of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies, “As You Like It” is filled with sparkling characters and delightful wit. Rosalind and her cousin escape from the evil uncle the Duke, and enter the mystical Forest of Arden, where court civility is abandoned for a Bacchanalian world of hidden identities and impressionable love.

All proceeds will go to the Niagara Peninsula Children’s Centre.

For More Information

Event website

For reservations, please call the Brock University Centre for the Arts Box Office at (905) 688-5550 ext. 3257, toll free 1-866-617-3257 or order tickets on-line at arts.brocku.ca.

In the event of rain, patrons will be offered the opportunity to attend another performance subject to availability. Sorry, no refunds.

Jordan, ON – Sweet. Sparkling. Sensational! The 2012 Twenty Valley Winter WineFest is pleased to announce the addition of Canadian fiddling sensation Ashley MacIsaac and celebrity chefs Kary
Osmond, host of CBC’s Best Recipes Ever and featured chef in Canadian Living Magazine, Rob Rainford, celebrity chef and author of Born to Grill and Michael Olson, Chef Professor at the
Niagara Culinary Institute to its programming. The festival runs January 14 – 15, 2012 on Main Street in the Jordan Village.

The premier wine and culinary festival invites participants to sip, savour and celebrate with over thirty of the Twenty Valley’s most celebrated wineries. Enjoy an enchanting winter afternoon with cozy open fires, sparkling ice cruiser tables and sculptures, live entertainment, picturesque floral displays and sensational tastings. Sweet icewine, festive sparkling wines and sensational VQA red & white wines are paired with delicious offerings from renowned local chefs to tempt your taste buds and warm and tantalize your insides.

Exciting Features of the 2012 Twenty Valley Winter WineFest:
• Ashley MacIsaac in a Saturday night performance: Performing traditional Celtic music Ashley will dazzle our guests into the night.
• The Celebrity Chefs Cooking Demo’s: Featuring Kary Osmond, host of CBC’s Best Recipes Ever and featured chef in Canadian Living Magazine, Rob Rainford, celebrity chef and author of Born to Grill and Michael Olson, Chef Professor at the Niagara Culinary Institute
• Celebrity Chef hosted Black Box Challenges: Two daily cooking challenges will pair local chefs against each other in attempt to win over our celebrity chef’s taste buds.
• Eats on the Streets: Sensational sweet and savoury food trucks will roll into the village to tempt guests with their icewine gastronomically inspired fare. Food trucks include; Blue Donkey, Cupcake Diner, El Gastronomo Vagabundo and Toasted Tangerine.
• Winter Wonderland Winery Tours: Four daily shuttles take guests from the magical Jordan Village to local wineries throughout the region giving guests the ability to visit
retail locations and take Twenty Valley wines home.
• Roll out the Barrels’ winemakers challenge: Ross Wise from Flat Rock Cellars will be back to defend the coveted Golden Blundstone Boot trophy he won last year and take on
all comers.
• ‘Rosy Cheeked and Chic’: A fashion show featuring local winemakers showing off the chic and hip styles of the Village’s specialty shops will also occur daily.

Enhancements to this year’s Twenty Valley Winter WineFest were made possible through the Province’s Celebrate Ontario grant.

This year’s festival runs from 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. on Saturday January 14 and 11:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Sunday January 15. Admission to the event is free, tokens are $3.00. Guests can pre-order packages of tokens and pre-book winery tours by contacting the Twenty Valley Tourism office at 905-562-3636 or info@twentyvalley.ca.

About Twenty Valley
Twenty Valley is situated in Niagara’s lush Greenbelt, less than an hour’s drive from Toronto. The area is composed of local communities including Beamsville, Vineland and Jordan. The area is
extraordinary for wine producing and agriculture. For more information please visit www.twentyvalley.ca

For More Information

JD Pachereva
Executive Director – Twenty Valley Tourism
jd@twentyvalley.ca
905-562-3636

The Icewine harvest has officially begun in Niagara this morning as picking began at Henry of Pelham Family Estate winery as temperatures dropped below -8 Celsius, the audited temperature for VQA rules. Riesling Icewine is being picked first as the skins are very thin and the grapes need to come off the vine as soon as possible. Nets are used to cover the grapes and protect them from the birds, deer and turkeys as the extremely sweet and ripe grapes are the only food source available. “With the unusually warm winter weather our yield is down at least 35%. The good news is the grapes are more concentrated and the juice is very opulent. We picked around 40 tonnes.” Said Matthew Speck, VP Viticulture. “We started picking at 1:30am finishing around 7am and will press the completely frozen grapes for most of the day today”. Wine grapes are 85% water. When they naturally freeze on the vine the sweet nectar is pressed to produce this rare and delisious wine.

“This weather came up quickly as it has been a warm winter so far.” Says Paul Speck President of the family owned winery in Niagara. “We have called off the harvest a couple of times as temperatures got close to -8 but then warmed up. Volumes are down and demand is up. Prices will likely remain the same but there will be less available”

Henry of Pelham is an independent family owned winery who have made award winning Icewine since 1989. Having won awards all over the world their Icewine is sold throughout Canada and around the world. “Our largest market outside of Canada is China followed by Japan and the U.S. “said Paul Speck. “While the difficult economy remains in some markets we have seen Icewine sales increase particularly in Canada and China. I think because it is so rare and Niagara is considered the best in the world we will see our sales continue to gain in the Global markets.” This vintage will be available in wine stores worldwide in the fall of 2012. The Icewines available now herald from the 2010 vintage. Icewine is enjoyed as a dessert or in cocktails such as Icewine cosmopolitans. It is enjoyed on release but can age for well over 10 years. For more information call Paul Speck at 905-684-8423 ex. 222 or ptspeck@henryofpelham.com follow us on twitter @speckbros.

While the sudden dip in temperature may be frustrating for some people, at least two Niagara wineries have found solace in the cold.

Workers at Henry of Pelham Winery and Pillitteri Estates Winery were roused from their beds early Thursday morning for the icewine grape harvest as the temperature hit -9°C.

“It’s an expensive year for us, but that’s the way icewine goes,” said Paul Speck, president of the Henry of Pelham Winery in west St. Catharines. He slid his hands into his coat pockets and smiled. “We were glad to get it done because every day we lose more yield.”

Just inside the Henry of Pelham processing facility, a forklift gently manoeuvred a barrel-shaped container brimming with a half-tonne of Riesling grapes. It’s one of 80 to 90 containers destined for the wine press.

That means about 40 tonnes of grapes were picked this season — a significant decrease from last year’s crop of about 200 tonnes.

Speck had expected this year’s yield to be smaller. The autumn rain prompted the winery to harvest more of its grapes for table wine. Then, as the mild winter temperatures delayed the harvest, the grapes were threatened by rot, dehydration and predators.

“It’s unfortunate, but the good news is, because of the lower yields, the grapes are more concentrated,” he said, watching as one of the workers poured some of the thick Riesling grape juice over a refractometer. The small device measures the sugar content in the juice.

“We’re looking for at least 36,” Speck said. It was 39.8. “This is going to make a really opulent tasting wine.”

Pillitteri Estates Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake opted to pick its delicate Riesling and Cabernet Franc grapes, and left the heartier Vidal grapes on the vine for a more frigid night.

“The red (Cabernet Franc) took a beating this year,” said winery president Gary Pillitteri. “If we don’t get some of it harvested, it will dry up.”

This year has been difficult and different from other years, he said. The red grapes were dehydrated, riper and some started splitting in October.

The mild winter has been frustrating, but Pillitteri said there’s still hope for the Vidal grapes still on the vine.

“We are disappointed, but we still say we’re in Canada,” he said. “The results in the yield will be much, much less but the quality will be more excellent.”

While Henry of Pelham and Pillitteri decided to start the harvest, there are dozens of wineries still waiting for that perfect temperature. Wine producers have a window of -8°C to -12°C to pick the icewine grapes.

Frank Hellwig, viticulturalist manager at Inniskillin Wines in Niagara-on-the-Lake, prefers to wait until temperatures hover around -10°C to -12°C.

“We don’t pick on the first occasion anyway. We need a couple of freezes to get the character notes we want before we pick,” he said. Ideally, Hellwig wants to see a sugar concentration of about 40.

Sue-Anne Staff from Staff Estate Winery in Jordan is another producer who has chosen to wait.

“I just looked at the long-range forecast and Jan. 3 looks pretty good,” she said, then laughed. “It’s my birthday, so that would be good.”