3 Canadian Wineries To Keep On Your Radar
Field Stone Fruit Wines
Strathmore, Alberta
Being Alberta’s first licensed cottage winery, largest fruit winery and most award-winning winery hasn’t intimidated owners Elaine and Marvin Gill. Since they launched Field Stone Fruit Wines in 2005, they’ve been producing fruit wines that have wow’d critics nationally and internationally.
Field Stone Fruit Wines produces dessert and fruit wines on their 50 acres of mature berry orchard, located a mere 40 minutes east of Calgary. The Gills allow guests to come and sample the bumble berries – their U-Pick bumble berry orchards are known locally for exceptional, extra-sweet, sun-kissed fruit grown with biological farming principles in mind. However, they keep the fresh saskatoons, strawberries, raspberries, chokecherries and rhubarb, vinting them into award-winning wines.
“From orchard to bottle, farm to table, our wines grew from farm-gate and winery direct sales to popular Farmers Market mainstays,” reads their website. “Then onto the international stage with virtually every wine we have created being noted with awards.” It helps that their original winemaker and consultant was Dominic Rivard, an internationally known fruit-wine expert.
Open Saturday and Sunday from June through August, you can also grab their wines year-round at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.