Grape varieties

Chardonnay in Ontario, and the two extra Brix points

Chardonnay is the second most planted variety in the province. It also carries the widest gap the regulation sets for any white between what a bottle needs to say "Ontario" and what it needs to name a place — two full degrees of sugar, matched across the whole appendix only by Cabernet Franc. That gap is the most revealing number attached to the grape.

18.0° for the province, 20.0° for the appellation

Appendix A of Ontario Regulation 406/00 sets a varietal Chardonnay at a minimum average of 18.0° Brix for the provincial designation and 20.0° for a wine claiming a viticultural area, estate bottling or a named vineyard. No other white variety in the table is asked to climb that far. Riesling does not climb at all. Pinot Gris goes from 17.5° to 18.5°.

What the two-point jump encodes is a judgement about ripeness and site. Chardonnay will crop heavily and ripen adequately almost anywhere in the Ontario vineyard; it will only produce wine worth attaching a place-name to on sites that can push it further. The regulation is drawing a line between the two uses of the same grape, and it draws that line harder for Chardonnay than for anything else.

An early-budding variety in a frost-prone province

Chardonnay's agricultural weakness in Ontario is not winter but spring. It buds early — earlier than Riesling, earlier than most of what is planted around it — which puts the young shoots in the path of late frosts in a province where May can still deliver one. Site selection for Chardonnay is therefore as much about air drainage and frost exposure as about heat, and low-lying blocks that are perfectly good for a later-budding variety are a liability for this one. The vine year page covers bud break and the frost window; the climate page covers the winter side.

In midwinter hardiness it is moderate: less tender than Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc, less hardy than Riesling. Brock's VineAlert tracks it through each dormant season, and the values move enough between January and a March thaw that a single figure would be misleading.

Planted widely, sold modestly

In the 2018–2022 Agri-Metrics varietal study for Grape Growers of Ontario, Chardonnay ranks second in the province by acreage behind Vidal, and was declining at roughly 1.2 per cent a year. LCBO VQA table wine sales in 2023 came to about $9.9 million, roughly 9 per cent of the category — fourth, behind Pinot Gris, Riesling and red blends.

The 2026 price schedule puts Chardonnay in class 9b at $2,099 a tonne, with a separate Chardonnay Plateau price of $1,610. Chardonnay Musqué is priced in the same class but is treated as its own variety elsewhere in the rules, which is a distinction worth its own page.

What it is used for besides still wine

A significant and growing share of Ontario Chardonnay does not become still white wine at all. It goes into traditional-method sparkling wine, where the early picking date and the high natural acidity that make the grape a nuisance for a rich still wine are exactly the qualities wanted. That has changed which clones get planted — the sparkling selections have followed the category — and it gives growers on cooler sites a use for fruit that would never reach the 20.0° appellation bar. Under the regulation, grapes with a sparkling end use are paid at the varietal base price.

Where it grows

Chardonnay is planted in every Ontario growing region. Prince Edward County has made it something of a specialty, on limestone soils and with the vines buried each autumn; the Niagara benches produce the bulk of the serious barrel-fermented wine; and the Lake Erie North Shore ripens it easily, often too easily for the style the province has built its reputation on. The regions page sets out the appellations and what distinguishes them.

What the Plateau price is for

The schedule carries two Chardonnay figures: $2,099 a tonne, and a Chardonnay Plateau price of $1,610. The second is not a lesser grape or a lesser region. Plateau pricing applies to fruit delivered above a contracted yield threshold, and the roughly $490 gap is the discount the board applies once a block is cropped beyond the level the full price assumes. For a variety as willing to overcrop as Chardonnay, that gap is a direct financial instruction about pruning and thinning, and it is one of the few places in the schedule where the price structure is trying to change a growing decision rather than simply record a value.

Figures here are from the 2023 Agri-Metrics varietal study and the 2026 GGO price schedule, both linked from the resources page. Acreage ranks are for 2018–2022 and move slowly; prices are set annually.