DrinkTheEarth.com Blog

As promised, we’ll be publishing the next article in our series from last month’s Sonoma/Napa visit shortly (a review of the Frog’s Leap Winery tour is coming soon).   In the meantime, we wanted to share some news from a wine region we’ll be covering in a bit more detail early next year.  Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Southbrook Vineyards announced yesterday that their hospitality pavilion was recently granted LEED Gold certification.  Located in Ontario, Canada, Niagara-on-the-Lake is an up and coming wine region probably best known for producing world-class icewine from producers such as Inniskillin and Hillebrand Estates.  At last visit several years ago, my wife and I discovered some very good Canadian whites, in particular many wineries who were doing quite well with German-style varietals such as Gewurztraminer and Riesling.

Southbrook just officially opened in June of this year, and more recently received their biodynamic certification from Demeter.  They appear to be the only winery in Canada at present to receive this distinction.  Achieving LEED Gold and Demeter certification just months apart is a double-feat you don’t see very often in the industry, so we pass along to them our congratulations.  We’ll be featuring more Canadian organic and biodynamic winemaking efforts in the first-half of 2009, so stay tuned.  Incidentally, Southbrook informed us that they hope to offer U.S. distribution for their wines early in 2009 as well.

LEED Gold-certified Southbrook Vineyards Hospitality Center (copyright Southbrook Vineyards; used with permission).

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