The Daily Fruit Wine

STRATHMORE, AB, Canada

Field Stone Fruit Wines, Alberta’s first cottage winery, was once again awarded medals at two of North America’s most prestigious wine competitions this month.

The North West Wine Summit 2009 has awarded Field Stone Fruit Wines of Strathmore, Alberta a Gold Medal in the Fortified Wine category, for its Saskatoon Berry Dessert Wine. This wine also received the Mount Columbia Award for Best of Region. In addition, Field Stone received a Silver Medal for its Raspberry Fruit Wine in the Non-Grape category, and a Bronze Medal for its Wild Black Cherry Dessert Wine in the Fortified Wine category.

This year’s entries to the competition included over 1000 wines from 5 states and 2 provinces that are included in the greater Pacific Northwest. The North West Wine Summit is open to all types of wines and spirits made or produced in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Alberta and British Columbia. For more information, see www.vinochallenge.com.

The All Canadian Wine Championship 2009 awarded Field Stone Fruit Wines a Gold Medal in the Fruit Wine Fortified category for its Wild Black Cherry Dessert Wine.

The All Canadian Wine Championship encompasses wineries from across Canada. Established in 1981, the competition accepts entries from Newfoundland to British Columbia, and has the distinction of being Canada’s oldest and largest wine competition. For further information, see www.canadianwinetrail.com.

“It’s great to be recognized among Canada’s best wineries, ” says Marvin Gill, partner at Field Stone Fruit Wines. “We felt that our Wild Black Cherry was particularly excellent this year, and we are thrilled that the judges agreed.”

Field Stone is no stranger to prestigious awards. In it’s very first year of operation, its wine won four awards at North West Wine Summit 2006, taking home three Silver Medals for its Raspberry, Saskatoon Berry and Wild Black Cherry Dessert Wines, and a Bronze Medal for its Strawberry Dessert Wine. At North West Wine Summit 2008 it was awarded a Bronze Medal for its Strawberry-Rhubarb Fruit Wine and a Gold Medal-Mount Columbia Award for its Bumbleberry Fruit Wine. In addition, the All-Canadian Wine Championship 2008 awarded Field Stone a Silver Medal for its Raspberry Dessert Wine and a Bronze Medal for its Raspberry Fruit Wine.

In 2005, Field Stone Fruit Wines was the first business to be granted a license under the Government of Alberta’s new cottage winery regulations allowing fruit growers to manufacture and sell fruit wines. Since July 1, 2005, Field Stone Fruit Wines has been a popular destination drawing visitors and customers from around Alberta, Canada, and beyond.

From the AgriDigest

A great event for fruit wine everywhere just happened recently at the Pacific Northwest Summit wine competition.

For the first time, a fruit wine wines a “Best of Region” award in a major wine competition.

Forbidden Fruit Winery with their “Pomme Desiree, Iced Apple Wine, Similkameen Valley, British Columbia” won best wine in British Columbia. BC is known for their excellent grape wines so this is quite a feat!

Fieldstone Fruit Wines also wone best of the Alberta Region.

To top this all off, Fieldstone also received a gold medal at the All Canadian Wine Competition.

The results for these two great competitions and sought after awards for North American wineries are available here:

WINE COMPETITION RESULTS

Congrats to all winning fruit wineries!

By: MONIQUE BEECH

Interesting twist this week in the three-year battle waged by many fruit wineries to allow them to sell their products at farmers’ markets.

Ontario Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowski said she’s willing to entertain the idea of a trial run to see if selling fruit wines at market would work.

This came after Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful MPP Randy Hillier

exploded this week at Queen’s Park, calling on the Liberals to do something for small wineries that are struggling to stay in business during the recession.

Though Niagara has only a few fruit wineries — Niagara-on- the-Lake’s Sunnybrook Farm Estate Winery and Beamsville’s Rosewood Estates Winery & Meadery come to mind — this pilot project could have larger implications for the Ontario wine industry at large.

Jim Warren, chairman of the Fruit Wines of Ontario association, said the idea would be to start off by allowing fruit wineries to sell their products at about a dozen markets. Eventually, the plan is to expand it to include small craft grape wineries, he said.

“We don’t want exclusivity on this. We felt it’s the best way to get the process started,” said Warren, who’s also the general manager of Vineland’s Stoney Ridge Estate Winery.

“Let’s get fruit wines to start it and see what happens.”

But Hillary Dawson, president of the Wine Council of Ontario, said her members would rather the government consider other forums for selling wine — such as fine wine boutiques.

The fear is if the province allows wine sales at farmers’ markets, it may close the door on other ways of selling wine, Dawson said.

But Warren hopes the fruit wine market issue doesn’t become a political football that divides parties but ends up doing nothing for wineries.

He’s not forgetting a recent letter sent to fruit wineries by Ontario Minister of Government Services Ted McMeekin. The Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough- Westdale MPP said the government has no plans to allow fruit wine sales at farmers’ markets. McMeekin also said allowing that to happen would be unfair to grape wineries.

Many fruit wineries argue they’re the ones at a disadvantage. The LCBO carries only four or five fruit wines compared with hundreds of grape wines.

Vintners Quality Alliance wine producers can sell directly to restaurants as if they were selling off their farm without paying LCBO fees. Not true for fruit wineries.

There are other obstacles to the fruit wines market plan.

The government has expressed concerns about selling alcohol in a venue other than the controlled LCBO.

“There aren’t going to be any concerns affecting public morality,” Warren said.

“This is all controlled by wineries that are very professional and all their people have the Smart Serve requirements. It’s an extension of their retail store licence; it’s all done well.”

Gerald Goertz, owner of Sunnybrook, said he gets enough traffic at his Lakeshore Road winery and doesn’t need to sell his wines at market. But he supports the idea for other small fruit and grape wineries that are off the well-worn wine route track.

In December, Leeds- Grenville MPP Bob Runciman introduced Bill 132, an act to amend the Liquor License Act for Fruit Wines to expand the marketing reach of Ontario’s fruit wineries.

It passed second reading in the provincial legislature, but still needs to pass a third and final reading.