Selling Ontario wine

Marketing push: (L-R) Hastings Prince Edward MPP Todd Smith, Closson Chase winemaker Keith Tyers, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Jeff Leal and Sylvia Augaitus of the Wine Marketing Association of Ontario.

OMAFRA commits $2.25 million to marketing VQA Ontario wines

Wine is serious business in Ontario. Since 2009, sales of Ontario’s world-class Vintner’s Quality Alliance wines have increased from $170 million to $230 million last year. But that is only part of the story. Ontario wines are also driving tourism and investment and creating jobs. Since 2009, the number of Ontario wineries has increased from 133 to 200 and created 2,000 new jobs.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Prince Edward County.

So it was here in the County that provincial agriculture minister Jeff Leal came with new money, $2.25 million, to invest in promoting awareness of and development in the Ontario wine sector.

“Wine and grape growing in Ontario is a great success story,” said Leal, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. “It has made a great contribution to our economy. We know that marketing is one of your key priorities.”

Leal stood amid the just-budding vines at Closson Chase on Monday brandishing a copy of the new Wine Country Ontario Travel Guide 2016. This publication was designed and developed to encourage tourists from across Ontario to experience wines and the wine regions.

The guide is being distributed at wineries and is included in the summer issue of LCBO’s Food and Drink magazine due out Thursday.

Sylvia Augaitus of the Wine Marketing Association of Ontario thanked the minister for the government’s “vote of confidence” in the sector. She explained why the skyline of Toronto figures centrally in the new wine guide.

“We want the six million people in the GTA to realize that world-class VQA wines and wine country is on their doorstep,” said Augaitus. “We want people to see this and say to themselves ‘I should go there.’”

Part of the new funding will be used to assist VQA Ontario wineries market and promote their products, according to Leal.

“Today’s investment will help consumers recognize the VQA brand wherever it is sold,” said Leal. “We have redesigned the VQA support program to ensure that we are providing the right support and encouraging wineries to scale up and [the program] continues to grow Ontario’s wine sector.”

Both Leal and Augaitus pointed to growing export sales as evidence of a thriving success story.

“Raise a glass to Ontario’s VQA wines produced right here in beautiful Prince Edward County,” said Leal.

MPP Todd Smith joined in praising the investment.

“It’s a great step,” said Smith. “We want to get your product in the hands of more people. That is the way it is going to grow.

He added that he is proud to represent Prince Edward County and has, over the past five years, gotten to know many of the winegrowers in the County.

“This is one of the most exciting places in Ontario,” said Smith. “Things are really growing here. The sky is the limit for Prince Edward County.”