Your far-ranging liquor reporter has traveled this great country in search of tipples from coast to coast, and has enjoyed the local grog in cities great and small across the land.
The maritime provinces have always been a favourite of mine, with Nova Scotia leading the pack.
The most familiar hooch from the region is almost certainly Alexander Keith’s, a brewery founded in Halifax in 1820. Indeed, many a night has been spent knocking back pints of the pride of Nova Scotia, as the beer is commonly known.
Whisky fans will recall that Nova Scotia is home to Canada’s first single malt whisky distillery. The Glenora Distillery’s signature brand is the Glen Breton Rare, which is aged in oak barrels for 10 years before bottling, and has earned a spot in the prestigious book 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die.
Your humble narrator has visited both of the above booze mongers on several occasions, in order to sample the golden ambrosia directly from the source.
However, in addition to their rich beer and whisky histories, Nova Scotia is also the next up-and-coming region for Canadian wine.
Nova Scotia is blessed with warm summers and long fall seasons, which creates crisp wines with complex aromatics and a sharp finish.
The Nova Scotia wine industry started out with a single winery in 1980, and has grown to 11 wineries today. Mostly situated in the Annapolis Valley region, there is a warm microclimate created in a trough between two mountain ranges along the Bay of Fundy, which helps the grapes to mature quickly in our short growing season.
While this region has been famous for its apple orchards for hundreds of years, it has only been recently that grape production for wine has become popular.
Because Nova Scotia is considered a cool climate for wine growing, you will not be seeing the big and bold red wines like Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon.
However, there are several white wine varietals that do quite well in Nova Scotia’s climate. Chardonnay and Riesling are two noble grapes from the old world that have flourished, as well as several locally created hybrids such as L’Acadie Blanc, sometimes referred to as Canada’s version of the Chardonnay grape.
The L’Acadie Blanc grape varietal was created in 1953 by crossing several other grape varietals, and was designed to survive harsh Canadian winters, as well as ripen quickly for the relatively short growing season in Canada.
The L’Acadie Blanc grape is now one of the most widely planted varietals in Nova Scotia, and produces a full-bodied and aromatic white wine.
While the L’Acadie Blanc is popular when bottled as a single varietal, winemakers will often blend it with other grapes such as Chardonnay, Riesling, or Muscat. Blending several grape varietals together allows the winemaker to bring out the best features of each grape, resulting in a well-balanced and robust wine.
The L’Acadie Blanc grape has also found a niche in sparkling wine, with many vineyards making their own local twist on the famous styles from the Champagne region of France.
Traditional Champagnes are made from the Chardonnay grape, and our homegrown version of the Chardonnay grape seems to work equally well at creating sparkling wines. Since a cool climate is preferred for the long in-bottle secondary fermentation to produce those delightful bubbles, Nova Scotia is well situated for the production of sparkling wines.
Perhaps the most famous of the Nova Scotia wineries is Jost Vineyards, opened by the Jost family in 1985, and now available at well-stocked booze merchants near you. I can usually find their wares at Mo’s Liquor Store in Chestermere, or in the Co-op liquor stores in Calgary.
While Jost Vineyards does produce a few of the lighter-bodied red styles such as Baco Noir, their white wines are definitely the most popular.
My favourite is the Jost Tidal Bay, named for the premier designation of the Nova Scotia Winery Association. This is the region’s attempt at creating their own regional appellation, similar to the Meritage designation used by many new world wineries.
This particular wine is made with the local L’Acadie Blanc grape, and has aromas of lychee fruit and ripe mango, followed by a robust mouth feel of gooseberry and apple crispness, followed by a hint of minerality. All in all, an excellent summer wine for enjoying on the patio on a sunny day.
