SPENCERVILLE — Wild Women White, Oxford Station Libation and other whimsically named vintages beckon from the bottle racks at the latest — and one of the first — Eastern Ontario grape wineries to reach production.
Four years after planting five acres of red and white grapes on their 75-acre spread, Green Gables Vineyard founders John and Gaye Spencer are now offering the liquid fruits of their labour.
The married baby-boomers made 3,000 litres of red and white wine from their first real harvest, picked last fall and processed and bottled through the winter. Inside their winery and retail shop — a small converted barn at 1600 Porter Road just off LG County Road 44 — the couple also produced an additional 2,000 litres from Viniferous grapes brought in from the Niagara region.
The Spencers currently grow only cold-tolerant Nordic varieties of Frontenac and Sabrevois grapes in their Grenville County soil. Three of their wines — ‘Grape Escape,’ ‘TGI Frontenac’ and ‘Victorian Secret’ — are made exclusively from those varieties.
"Our wine is new to a lot of people, although people have been making it in Quebec," Gaye Spencer says of Nordic-based vintages. "It tastes like red wine, while the white field blend is a little different than most people are used to."
By contrast, the available Viniferous wines cater more to individuals with "traditional tastes," she adds.
Patrons can try out the flavours for themselves at the licensed winery and tasting facility, which opened its doors several weekends ago. (It’s open Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Available only in 750 ml bottles, the wine ranges between $13.15 and $14.95 in price.
"We’ve had people come down from Ottawa, and we’ve had a lot of support locally from people who have been driving by for four years and watching us."
Tied up in neat rows stretching for hundreds of metres, this year’s crop on the vine appears very good, she says, which could mean tonnes of additional grapes come harvest time.
Last fall, one of their fields provided a glimpse of what an exceptional harvest might look like, producing about three tonnes of fruit. But overall, she estimates the vineyard’s 2006 output at about 60 per cent of its potential.
After purchasing their rural property five years ago, the Spencers plunged into viniculture without prior agricultural experience. She’s a supply teacher with the Ottawa Carleton School Board, while he works in IT in the city.
"I like to joke that I was a pioneer in a previous life," she quips.
"We just wanted a business, and we wanted to use the land to do it, and something we could have fun with, too," she says. "When we do retire, we’ll have something to keep us going."
Her husband got the idea after reading about the success of Nordic grapes, developed at the University of Minnesota, in Quebec. She credits him with doing the research that’s gotten them this far in their knowledge of running a vineyard and making wine.
But it’s been a lot of hard work tending the vineyard — between the weeding, pruning, mowing, harvesting, and warding off hungry raccoons and birds.
And that’s before a single bunch of grapes is ever picked, let alone crushed, fermented and bottled with a small array of tanks and equipment the owners bought for the operation.
With a smile, she admits, "We just didn’t know what we were getting into. If we did, we might not have done it."
The couple have hired hand helping them out a couple days a week, but otherwise do most of the labour themselves.
A cadre of about 20 friends and family also assisted at harvest and crushing time last September, including their 32-year-old son, who came home on vacation for the chore.
‘We learned to buy plastic gloves pretty quickly, so you don’t go to work the rest of that week with purple fingers," Gaye Spencer says.
After initial thoughts of going into berries, Christmas trees or maybe a nursery, they are happy with their decision to enter this fledgling local industry, she says. "It’s really rewarding. When you have your first harvest, it’s amazing."
From the Archives:
AgriFocus, August 2007
