Grape varieties

Maréchal Foch: Baco Noir's contemporary, without the market

Two French-American red hybrids arrived in Ontario together, survived the pull-out together, and are still grown on the same kind of ground. One of them sells nine million dollars a year under its own name. The other has no line in the sales table.

The comparison that explains it

Baco Noir and Maréchal Foch are the two red hybrids that stayed. Both are very hardy, both ripen early, both make deeply coloured robust reds, and both were planted in Ontario in the middle of the twentieth century for the same reason — that Vitis vinifera was believed unable to survive the winters. Both came through the 1988 pull-out that removed most of the province's low-value vines, which the history page covers.

They have diverged completely since. In the 2023 LCBO VQA figures Baco Noir sold about $9.0 million, fifth among all varietals and first among reds. Maréchal Foch does not appear in the reported varietal table at all. On acreage, the Agri-Metrics study covering 2018 to 2022 puts Baco Noir ninth in the province and growing slightly, and Maréchal Foch sixteenth and contracting at about 1.4 per cent a year.

What it is

Maréchal Foch — named for the First World War marshal — was bred in Alsace by Eugène Kuhlmann in the early twentieth century, a cross of a Goldriesling vinifera with an American hybrid. It is listed in Table 2 of the VQA regulation, with "Foch" recorded as an accepted synonym, so it may be named on a label.

In the vineyard it is early-ripening, very winter-hardy, vigorous and resistant to the fungal pressure of a wet Ontario summer. Its distinguishing agronomic feature is small berries and small clusters, which gives a high skin-to-juice ratio and produces the dense colour and firm structure the wine is known for. It also buds early, which is its main frost exposure.

What it is paid

The 2026 price schedule lists class 5a as "Marechal Foch, Leon Millot" at $1,131 a tonne — below Baco Noir and Marquette at $1,281 in class 5b, and below Chambourcin's class at $1,194. Only De Chaunac at $956 and the experimental red hybrids at $932 are cheaper among the reds. Léon Millot, its class partner, is a Kuhlmann sibling bred from the same cross, which makes the pairing a genuine family grouping rather than an administrative one.

A high ripeness bar, one notch down

Appendix A sets varietal Maréchal Foch at a minimum average of 19.0° Brix, with no separate appellation tier — as with every hybrid, that tier applies to vinifera. The figure is half a degree below Baco Noir and Marquette at 19.5°, level with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot at the provincial tier, and a full degree above Cabernet Franc.

The Kuhlmann family

Eugène Kuhlmann bred a series of red hybrids in Alsace from the same basic cross, and Ontario's price schedule still groups two of them together: class 5a is "Marechal Foch, Leon Millot" — the schedule’s own spelling. Léon Millot is the sibling — earlier-ripening, slightly less hardy, similar in the glass — and a third, Lucie Kuhlmann, appears further down the schedule in class 5d at $932 a tonne alongside the experimental red hybrids.

All three were bred for the same purpose and arrived in North America together, and the schedule's groupings preserve that lineage. It is a small piece of evidence that the price classes are built on real viticultural relationships rather than administrative convenience — which makes the cases where they are not, such as Pinot Gris being priced with Pinot Blanc, more conspicuous.

Why the two diverged

No official source explains the gap, and what follows is a reading rather than a finding. The most plausible account is that Baco Noir acquired a consumer following attached to its own name during the decades when it was one of the few reds Ontario could reliably grow, and that following survived the arrival of vinifera. Maréchal Foch, whose wine is firmer and more tannic and whose name is harder to sell, largely did not — and a hybrid without a name-level following has nowhere to go once vinifera becomes viable on the good sites, because it cannot be sold as a premium varietal and cannot compete on price with the bulk market.

What remains is grown on cold sites and in older vineyards, often by wineries that have made the wine for decades and have customers who expect it, and increasingly in parts of the province outside the designated viticultural areas where hardiness still decides everything. The varieties page covers the three families and the replanting that reshaped the province.