Regions

Ontario's wine regions and appellations

Three appellations, twelve sub-appellations, and a handful of places outside the lines. What each one is, why the boundaries fall where they do, and what grows there.

How the system works

Ontario's growing regions are defined by VQA Ontario, the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority, under provincial law. An appellation is a geographical area whose boundaries are fixed by regulation; a wine labelled with an appellation must be made entirely from grapes grown within it, and only from approved varieties. A sub-appellation is a smaller area inside an appellation, drawn where soil, elevation, slope or proximity to water produce a consistently different result in the glass. Wines may also be labelled simply "VQA Ontario", which means the grapes were grown somewhere in the province, in or out of the appellations, and met the rest of the standard.

The three appellations are Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore and Prince Edward County. Niagara contains two regional appellations, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Escarpment, and ten sub-appellations. Lake Erie North Shore has one sub-appellation, South Islands. Prince Edward County has none yet.

Niagara Peninsula

The Niagara Peninsula runs along the south shore of Lake Ontario from Hamilton to the Niagara River, bounded on the south by the Niagara Escarpment, the limestone ridge that Niagara Falls tumbles over. It holds the overwhelming majority of Ontario's vineyard acreage and nearly all of its large wineries. The peninsula's climate is a product of that geometry: Lake Ontario moderates the winters and extends the autumn, and the Escarpment sets up a circulation of air between ridge and lake that keeps frost from pooling on the vineyards below it.

Within the peninsula, the differences are real enough to justify ten sub-appellations, grouped under two regional appellations.

Niagara-on-the-Lake regional appellation

The flat, warmer land between the Escarpment and the lake, at the eastern end of the peninsula, on soils laid down as old lakebed. Warmer and earlier than the benches, suited to red varieties that need a long season.

• Niagara River: the strip along the river itself, warmed by the water and by the air moving up the gorge. Among the warmest sites in the province.
• Niagara Lakeshore: the band along Lake Ontario west of the town. Strong lake moderation, later bud break, extended autumn.
• Four Mile Creek: the broad interior plain south of the town, the largest sub-appellation by area and the workhorse of Niagara red wine. Less lake influence, warmer days.
• St. David's Bench: the low bench at the foot of the Escarpment near the village of St. David's, sheltered and warm, with clay soils that hold water into dry summers.

Niagara Escarpment regional appellation

The benches, the terraces of glacial soil that step down from the Escarpment towards the lake around Beamsville, Vineland and Jordan. Higher, cooler and better drained than the plain, with more variable soils. This is where most of the province's serious Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is grown.

• Beamsville Bench: the westernmost bench, steep and well drained, with the strongest Escarpment air circulation. Riesling country.
• Twenty Mile Bench: the central bench around Vineland and Jordan, wider and slightly warmer, with a mix of clay and gravel.
• Short Hills Bench: the easternmost bench, more sheltered, on rolling ground cut by creeks.

The three remaining sub-appellations

• Lincoln Lakeshore: the lakeshore plain below the benches, cooled by the lake in spring and warmed by it in autumn, on sandy soils.
• Creek Shores: the low land between Twenty Mile Creek and the lake, cut by several small streams, with the most varied soils in the peninsula.
• Vinemount Ridge: the only sub-appellation above the Escarpment, on the ridge south of the benches. Highest and coolest, with a shorter season and a later harvest.

Lake Erie North Shore

At the far southwestern tip of the province, along the north shore of Lake Erie in Essex County and the county's islands, is the oldest commercial grape-growing area in Canada and the most southerly. The mainland vineyards are concentrated around Harrow, Kingsville, Amherstburg and Colchester; the islands lie some twenty kilometres offshore. The latitude here is around 42 degrees north, the same as northern California and Rome, and Lake Erie, the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, gives the region the longest and warmest growing season in Ontario, with a heat accumulation that lets Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah ripen more reliably than anywhere else in the province.

The price of that warmth is exposure. Lake Erie's shallowness means it can freeze over in a hard winter, and when it does the moderating effect disappears exactly when it is most needed. Winter injury is a real hazard here, and the flat terrain gives little natural drainage of cold air. The soils are mostly sandy loam over clay, free-draining and quick to warm.

• South Islands: the sub-appellation recognised in 2015, covering Pelee Island and the eight smaller islands of the Township of Pelee. Pelee Island is the southernmost inhabited point in Canada and the site of the country's first commercial winery. Surrounded entirely by water, it has the longest frost-free season in Ontario and a distinctly maritime feel to its climate.

This is the region the original ontariograpes.com was written from, and it has its own page: Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island.

Prince Edward County

Prince Edward County is a large, low headland that reaches into Lake Ontario from the north shore, about two hours east of Toronto. It was recognised as an appellation in 2007 and is the province's coldest and most marginal region for vinifera, which is exactly why its growers are proud of it. The soils are thin and stony over fractured limestone, drain fast, and warm quickly; the climate is cool, with a shorter season than Niagara and winters cold enough that growers bury their vines under soil every autumn and uncover them every spring. The results, chiefly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, are lighter and more acidic than their Niagara counterparts, and the County has built its identity on that. It has no sub-appellations.

Outside the appellations

Grapes are grown, and wine is made, in several parts of Ontario that lie outside the three appellations. Along the southeastern shore of Lake Huron and around Georgian Bay a small number of wineries farm sites that are cold but lake-moderated, mostly with hybrids and hardy vinifera. The Ottawa Valley has a few vineyards on very cold sites that rely on winter-hardy hybrid varieties. In the Toronto hinterland, in the Oak Ridges Moraine and towards Lake Simcoe, growers have planted small blocks on well-drained gravel. Wine from these areas can carry the VQA Ontario designation if it meets the standard, but not a regional name. Whether any of them eventually becomes an appellation depends on whether enough vineyard accumulates to justify defining one.

Reading a boundary

Appellation boundaries are drawn on maps, and it is worth remembering that the vine does not read them. A sub-appellation exists because, on average and over years, its wines share a character that can be traced to its soils and its climate. Any individual vineyard may sit at the edge of the line, on an unusual pocket of soil, or facing a direction the rest of the bench does not. The boundaries are the best available generalisation, not a promise about a particular row of vines. The full regulatory descriptions, with the actual boundary coordinates, are published by VQA Ontario and linked from the resources page.