Pelee Island Winery

Monday, May 9, 2011 Categories: , , ,

Pelee Island Winery

When they won a medal in Paris in 1878, Vin Villa began a long and prosperous history of winemaking on Pelee Island. Vin Villa was founded in the 1860s, and was Canada's first estate winery. Its remains still stand on the island today as a reminder of its rich heritage.
In 1980, Pelee Island Winery planted its first 85 acres of 6 different varieties of vitis vinifera vines, which has expanded to approximately 500 acres and 17 varieties today.


Pelee Island Winery's most popular varieties include Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Gris, Merlot, and Vidal.




Pelee Island benefits from a longer growing season, attributed to the moderating effects of Lake Erie. Pelee Island shares a similar amount of frost-free days as Mendocino County (California), Rome (Italy), and Madrid (Spain).


Pelee Island Winery is Canada's Southernmost and Largest Estate winery and differs from many wineries that purchase grapes from individual growers in that they have our own viticulturist.


Since 1982, the production facility has been located on the mainland in Kingsville, only about 30 minutes from the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, Michigan an Windsor, Ontario. Fermentation and Storage is done at the winery's mainland facilities which includes about 2.8 million litres of wine which includes Oak Cask capacity of over 140,000 litres and the bottling line can produce about 2000 cases a day.


In addition to purchasing wines through the LCBO, directly from the winery on Pelee Island, or its Kingsville production facility/retail shop; the winery ships wine all over the world including places such as Taiwan & Japan (Ice wine), UK, Holland, Austria, Germany, USA (Michigan and Ohio), and of course all over Canada. 

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