Manitoulin Island grape growers prove vines can thrive in northern Ontario, but shelve plans for wineries

With straight rows of shaggy green grapevines running down a gentle slope to a picturesque little lake, it looks like a postcard from wine country.

But even 20 years after these vines were first planted in the northern Ontario soil, they seem out of place among the rocks and trees and hayfields of Manitoulin Island.

Nick Harfield has looked after the vineyard, on the shores of Pike Lake near Sheguindah, for over a decade now.

Coming from a cattle farming background, the former teacher was at first really excited to make local wines, but then had "mixed results."

"It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good enough in my mind to justify the effort," said Harfield. 

"So we kind of lost interest a little bit in the wine and even in the grape end of things, managed to keep them alive, but kind of stepped away."

But a few years later his interest was rekindled when a local hobbyist made a red from his grapes that was "spectacular" after being aged for a couple of years.

"I thought 'Ok, it's about time Manitoulin has a winery' and I started looking into it. And it's just totally cost prohibitive," said Harfield. 

"Wineries in Ontario are totally a rich person's game. You have to have money to get one off the ground. I mean I do hope someone takes that on one day."

Harfield does make wine from his grapes, but it is not available for sale.

He is now moving his entire farm, including the sugarbush and livestock, to a "membership model" where people sign on to learn about agriculture, share in the chores and then share in the harvest, with most of the 12 members looking to make their own wine from the grapes. 

"I get so many requests for tasting our wine, for buying a bottle of our wine. I've had people outright harass me 'We really want to try Manitoulin wine!' Harfield said. 

"And I get that and somebody needs to fill that gap."

Rick Krasowski also once dreamed of opening the first winery on Manitoulin Island.

After visiting a large winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake over 15 years ago and being told that it would be impossible to grow wine grapes in northern Ontario, he took it on as a personal "challenge" and planted vines over some of the hayfields on his property near Manitowaning.

The grapes are not varieties that most drinkers would recognize. Well-known wine grapes such as Chardonnay and Merlot sometimes have trouble making it through the much warmer winters in southern Ontario.

So instead, Manitoulin vineyards are planted with so-called "Minnesota hybrids," such as Crescent and Frontenac, specifically bred to survive colder temperatures.

"And voila! They grew," said Krasowski.

He now has 12 acres under the name Angry Antlers Vineyard, but he too has dumped the dream of opening a Manitoulin winery and now instead bottles his grape juice and sells it to health food stores and restaurants. 

"It's a hit and miss venture. You sit there for nine months to 12 months watching this, waiting for it and it could easily spoil on you and then all this time you put into it for the entire year is thrown out. So it didn't feel right," said Krasowski.

"Somebody may actually do it one day, but it won't be soon because it takes time to grow those grapes. But there's a lot of interest out there. And it would be great."