Winter Grape Harvest
Night Icewine harvest at Pillitteri Estates Winery, archival photo.
Production of ice wine has plunged dramatically in Ontario over the past five years, according to VQA Ontario.
The provincial regulatory body for the Ontario wine industry says ice wine production has dropped steadily, but with dramatic decreases occurring in 2019 and 2022.
To put that in perspective, ice wine made up about three per cent of the wine produced in Ontario in 2018, but decreased to less half a per cent in 2022.
The decline has been particularly severe since 2021, as production dropped from 502,082 litres to just 111,614 in 2022, a drop of almost 80 per cent.
As well, VQA Ontario said the number of approved producers of ice wine dropped from 41 producers in 2019 to 10 producers for both 2020 and 2021.
VQA Ontario’s director of communications Katherina Radcliffe said fewer wineries chose to produce icewine during those years and there were few applications to become an approved producer.
Dustin Gill, owner of Cool Vineyards, told CBC News that he stopped harvesting ice wine grapes this year, after more than a decade of production, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a high risk, high reward kind of proposition,” he said. “Usually the risk is just weather-based and timing, but it seems like the last couple of years the risk has been what governments are open during the pandemic.”
Gill said the issue really comes down to a massive decline in sales to Asian nations.
The majority of ice wine revenue comes from international sales, where Canadian ice wine is a popular luxury item often given as gifts.
When lockdowns hit various Asian countries like China and Vietnam, Gill said ice wine revenues fell through the floor.