HALIFAX, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

1:00 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon, members of the committee. We would like to welcome the Winery Association of Nova Scotia. There are some members yet to come, and there's another committee going on at the exact same time and there are members who have dual citizenship, they're supposed to be in two places at once. MLAs are usually quite good at a lot of things, but I'm not sure how we're going to manage that one. What we'll do to start, for the members who are here, we'll introduce ourselves. At that point, the floor will be open to you, and if you would state your organization and introduce yourselves for the record, you can then make your presentation. Depending on how long it is, we usually have some time for questions and we'll pick your brain then.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MS. MARTHA REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having us. We are the representatives from the Winery Association of Nova Scotia and the Grape Growers Association of Nova Scotia. Let me just introduce our group. To my immediate right is Hans Christian Jost, President of the Winery Association of Nova Scotia and also the owner of Jost Vineyards, the largest winery in the province, and a smaller winery called Gaspereau Vineyards. To his immediate right is Dr. Jim Warner, who is the president of the Grape Growers Association of Nova Scotia, and the owner, together with his son, John, of one of the largest vineyards in the province. You will see it featured in a lot of our promotional materials because it's an absolutely gorgeous vineyard.

Thank you very much for inviting us to speak with you today. I am Martha Reynolds, and I am the executive director of the marketing council for the Winery Association of Nova Scotia. We'd like to give you a brief overview of the industry, talk a little bit about who the players are, the industry size, a little bit about our association and where we've come since 2003 when this committee met and we presented at that point, and then we'd like to wrap up with a discussion around some of the key opportunities and some of the challenges facing this particular industry in Nova Scotia today. I have about 15 charts. I can zip through them quickly, or stop and answer questions along the way. What's preferable?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Usually we do the presentation and then ask questions, but I think if a member had a question while you're presenting, I don't think there'll be any problem with that.

MS. REYNOLDS: Nova Scotia has a long and rich tradition of growing grapes. It actually dates back to the early 1600s, when Louis Hébert, a French settler planted some vines along the Bear River Valley. Unfortunately, sadly, none of those grapevines exist today. But back at the turn of the century, from the early teens to the 1970s, the Kentville Research Station did an awful lot of experimentation with different grapevines here, and it was Roger Dial, a Californian who moved up to Canada, I think some of you will remember, in the 1970s, who planted some of the first vines and opened the first commercial winery, Grand Pré Wines. His first vintage was in 1980. He then sold that business to a couple of people and they continued to run it for a couple of years, and then it folded.

Since that time, you can see on this chart that there are nine wineries now existing in Nova Scotia, and they're all growing and doing very well. Jost Vineyards, Hans' father began that, and its first vintage was in 1983. Then the Williamsdale Winery, which is predominantly a blueberry, fruit winery, had its first vintage in 1987. Sainte Famille Wines was growing grapes around the time of the early 1980s, then had its first vintage in 1990. Lunenburg County Winery is a predominantly fruit winery, but they also do make some grape wines, and their first vintage was in 1994. They're just located in the little village of Newburne in Lunenburg County.

Blomidon Estate Winery had their first vintage in 1997. They're located in Canning. Then Domaine de Grand Pré was bought by Hanspeter Stutz and reopened after a number of years of grooming and replanting and getting that winery ready, and his first vintage was in 1999. The Gaspereau Vineyard Winery was opened in 2004, with their first vintage. And Petite Riviere Vineyards, a small winery located down along the South Shore, right at Italy Cross, in Crousetown, just opened two years ago, 2004, and they had their first vintage. Bear River Vineyards is our newest member, they've made wine, they have a licence, and they're just putting the finishing touches to their retail operation. They expect to be selling early Spring of this year.

In addition to these wineries, there are three new wineries in development. Some of you may have heard of the Benjamin Bridge operation. It's owned by Jerry McConnell and Dara Gordon. They are planning to be open in 2008. They've invested a considerable amount of money, and they're working with world-class winemakers. The gentleman who was the founding executive director of the VQA in Ontario is their consultant. They are also working with Rafael Brisbois, who is a well known expert in the world of champagnes. He worked making champagne for Piper Heidesiek for a number of years. He's consulting with Jerry and Dara. They're planning to focus on making sparkling wines in the champagne style, which our climate is very suited to.

Just at the other end of the Valley, we have Bruce Ewert and Pauline Scott with about 20 or 30 acres. They're also going to concentrate on making wine from L'Acadie Blanc, which is a white grape. Bruce comes to us from British Columbia, where he worked for a number of years as the winemaker for several Vincorp companies. He has made beautiful award-winning wines for companies like Hawthorne Mountain. If you've ever had a chance to try some of his wines, you'll know what I mean. We're absolutely thrilled that he and his wife have decided to resettle here in Nova Scotia.

We hear Pete Luckett is growing grapes in his backyard, so that could be another addition to the Gaspereau Valley. In the Wolfville area, Dr. Jonathan Murray has about 20 or 30 acres, and another 20 acres, I believe, in the Gaspereau Valley. He and his wife are planning to open an agri-tourism kind of business there. He has just planted his first grapes this past season. Then we're hearing constantly of new vineyards popping up in the Bear River Valley area, up in the Antigonish area, so there are more to come.

When you consider our tiny province, it's extraordinary, actually, in the world of wine that we have at least six grape-growing regions; that is, microclimates that are suitable to growing grapes. They're recognized viticultural areas, in other words. We have the Annapolis Valley; the Avon River Valley where Sainte Famille is located in Falmouth; the Bear River Valley, obviously just outside of Digby; the Gaspereau Valley; and the LaHave River Valley where Petite Riviere and Lunenburg County Winery are located. Then we have the Malagash Peninsula where Hans Jost is growing grapes. Up in the Marble Mountain area in Cape Breton there are at least 10 or 15 acres under vine up there as well.

So what the grape growers and winemakers have found are these little pockets of beautiful valleys that have very conducive climates to growing beautiful grapes.

Having said all that, when you consider that winemaking has been around for at least 5,000 years, going back to some of the early Egyptians and more recently the Romans, 400, 500, 600, 800, 900, 1,000 years ago, our industry is very new. We're very much in an experimental phase. By that I mean that winemakers and the grape growers

are still working with different grape varieties to experiment and see which grapes grow and prosper and make beautiful wines.

[1:15 p.m.]

In addition to the grape-growing experiments, they're also experimenting with winemaking techniques. Our particular climate is very suitable to growing French and American hybrid grapes, so I've just put on this chart a list of some of the more popular varieties, some of the more common varieties that you will see and start to see a number of the wineries produce.

When it comes to making white wines, you'll hear us talk about L'Acadie Blanc, and L'Acadie Blanc is a white grape that's not grown anywhere else in the world, it's only grown here in Nova Scotia. It was originally developed in Ontario, but it wasn't suitable to the Ontario climate but it flourishes here. It's very much a Chablis-style grape. It lends itself to being made in all kinds of different varieties, so you can try a L'Acadie Blanc from one of six or eight different vineyards and wineries and they'll all taste a little bit different, not unlike a Chardonnay tastes different, depending on the winemaker and the region.

New York Muscat is also one of our potential signature grapes that grows beautifully here in our climate. In fact, Hans brought one of his signature products, it's a Jost Muscat Icewine, and this particular product is a wine that has received awards. We feel that we can build a strong reputation around this kind of wine. It's very unique, nowhere else in the world do they make a New York Muscat Icewine.

Some of our red grape varieties are things like Marechal Foch, Leon Millot, Baco Noir, Castel, Luci Kuhlman. Some growers are doing very well with Pinot Noir and DeChaunac. Then, of course, we're making specialty wines like the icewines, fruit wines and apple wines.

Just to put it into context, I was reading some of the notes from some of the previous meetings back five or six years ago when I think there was just a handful of acres. We're now up to 335 acres of vines planted in the province, 305 acres are in production, and we've harvested from 22 grape growers this past season, plus a number of small hobbyists. There are a number of growers who have just one or two acres, who grow beautiful grapes. That all translated into a sales volume in 2005 of 750,000 litres, or $7 million in revenue.

Exports still are relatively small, about $600,000 was the last recorded number for 2003. Now just to put that into context, the Okanagan Valley has about 6,000 acres under vine and Ontario has about 17,000 acres under vine, so we're still small but growing.

The Winery Association was formed back in 2003 and back then there were five beginning members; we now have 10 members as of 2006. About two and a half years ago, the association developed a marketing strategy and a three-year action plan. Then we secured the funding for that plan. We have a budget of about $420,000 over that three-year period, and ACOA has come to the table with 75 per cent funding. The industry has created a marketing levy that the industry funds on its sales of product, and the NSLC collects that on our behalf so that we can maintain confidentiality, because it's based on a per-case basis. Then the balance of our budget comes from various provincial government programs, such as the Destination Opportunities Program from Tourism, Culture and Heritage, and the Agri-Food Industry Development Fund from the Department of Agriculture.

The industry's vision, when we came together to develop a plan, developed this vision, it's of beautiful wines known and appreciated for their distinctiveness and quality by Nova Scotians and international wine lovers alike. The industry's goal is to grow to 20 wineries and 1,000 acres by the year 2020. Judging by the current growth trajectory, we're well on our way to achieving that target.

The principles that are guiding the planning of the association are fourfold, creating distinctive niche market products is at the heart of it. We'll never compete on a global scale by trying to make huge volumes of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, we can't compete against the Australians on bulk, large quantity, inexpensive wines. Where we will make a name for ourselves is in premium quality, niche products.

The second principle is a drive for excellence; to create premium quality products means that we have to be excellent in our operations, so the wineries are building excellence into their operations as we go. No one winery can do it alone, so the industry certainly recognizes that they have strength in numbers. One of the reasons that New Zealand wines and the Oregon wines, for example, have become so popular is because the industry in those areas have come together and realized that they have to work together to make a name for themselves outside of their region. Likewise, the Nova Scotia winemakers and wineries have come together and said, if we're going to put a face forward to the rest of the country and the rest of the world, we have to work together and we have to figure out how we're going to do that as an industry. Everyone is working very much together on that.

Finally, partnerships are very important to building capacity. I can say that over the last couple of years, we've continued to build a number of important partnerships. I'll just give you a small example. A small company by the name of Valley Wine Tours just started up about two years ago. Three young sommeliers came together - sommeliers, by the way, are those folks who are really knowledgeable, expert about wines - and their company now offers tours from Halifax to three of the wineries in the Annapolis Valley. Through their efforts, Nova Scotia wines are now served on VIA Rail trains between

Halifax and Montreal, because they were put in touch with VIA Rail and they offered tours to some of their train passengers. They've in turn now given courses to VIA Rail staff on Nova Scotia wines and food pairings. That's just a tiny example of how partnerships are really starting to work and spread the gospel, so to speak, for the wines of Nova Scotia.

I just want to share some of the key accomplishments of the association over the last couple of years. One of the first things the association did was it came together and created a set of wine standards. All the members came together, and they've agreed to the standards. Those are standards that are more than just standards that determine the origin of the grapes. In other words, they literally lay out what can go into the bottle, what can't go into the bottle, and how the product is to be labelled. It's very much like you would be familiar with if you're familiar with VQA wines from Ontario and British Columbia.

The wineries themselves have achieved a growing list of awards. The industry has created a Wines of Nova Scotia brand. There has to be a way to signal to the consumers that certain products are the first quality, if you will, as opposed to the second quality, second tier, of wines. Every winemaker has to have the ability to make a first quality and a second quality of wines, because some grapes get damaged in the process. So it's important that consumers know which are the first quality. You can see the bottle on each of these charts, in the corner, contains the Wines of Nova Scotia symbol. That will start to appear, in fact it has already started to show up on a number of products that meet the standards, number one, and that are also 100 per cent made from Nova Scotia-grown grapes.

I just want to share some of the partnerships that have been established and are continuing to grow. We're working very closely with the NSLC. We have a wonderful relationship with all of the players at the NSLC. They've been very supportive over the last two to three years. We've worked on a variety of committees. In fact, right now we're working on a Nova Scotia Wine Industry Economic Impact Study that they have agreed to fund. We sit on the steering committee. That study will be ready in about a month's time. We'll have more to say about that down the road. We're working closely with the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, and you'll see a brochure in front of you called, the Marriage of Wines and Food of Nova Scotia. I just want you to know that that was an initiative that we partnered with the Department of Agriculture, and they continue to spread the word and work with chefs throughout the province to encourage the local chefs to serve not only local foods on their menu but then to pair them with the wines.

This past Fall, we worked with the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. We launched the first annual, if you will, Fall Festival. Each of the wineries came together - each of the wineries, in fact, has a Fall Festival. So what we decided to do is

rather than create something new, we would tell the world that we have these wonderful festivals. We packaged all of the harvest festivals, and then went and found restaurant partners who wanted to create menus and pair their meals with Nova Scotia wines, and we launched the Discover the Wines of Nova Scotia Tour. That was, in part, thanks to some support we got through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. More on that later.

The Association of Sommeliers of the Atlantic Provinces is another partner, Acadia University, we're working with a number of licensees, hotels, B&B operators, Appalachian America is an on-line Web site that is based in Lunenburg, as a matter of fact, but they serve the North American market, and their reason for being is to get people to think about the regions that the wines all come from. That was started by two Nova Scotians and VIA Rail, as I mentioned.

Some other steps have been taken. We now have some marketing tools that the wineries all use to promote and spread the word about the availability of wines of Nova Scotia. We produce some brochures and pamphlets and posters. I just mentioned our Nova Scotia Wine Country, and Fall Festival. One of the most important initiatives that got Ontario and British Columbia off the mark was creating this notion of a wine country. One of the things that we determined through research, as an association, several years ago was that Nova Scotians do not believe, or did not believe, that we could grow grapes here in Nova Scotia. So a lot of our focus over the last year has been to build awareness for Nova Scotia wine country and to encourage Nova Scotians to take another look at Nova Scotia wines by reinforcing the fact that we grow grapes here and make beautiful wines.

We've had two symposiums where the Winery Association of Nova Scotia and the Grape Growers Association have come together and brought industry specialists from around the world to speak to potential grape growers and grape growers and winemakers. That has been very much an educational thrust. There are new regulations in the works for the wines of Nova Scotia as well.

The industry supports these regulations because we feel that they will help steer our industry even more as new entrants come into the marketplace. The change to the Act calls for the creation of a new industry board. It calls for revisions to the farm winery policy, and the regulations will actually take the Nova Scotia wine standards that the industry has developed and turn those into regulations.

We think we've got a number of opportunities ahead of us, but I just want to summarize some of the big ones. Number one, we feel we have a huge opportunity to continue building awareness of Nova Scotia wine country and wine tourism. This past year during the Fall Festival, we welcomed I know more than the number of visitors that

have attended in other years, so we know by promoting the awareness and encouraging people to come out to the wineries that more people will come.

[1:30 p.m.]

We need to continue establishing the Wines of Nova Scotia, the quality symbol. We have an opportunity to promote the marriage of Nova Scotia wine and Nova Scotia cuisine, because I think we're just scratching the surface there. We've got a huge opportunity to expand the distribution; as we like to say, we'd like to be fishing where the fish are jumping. By that we mean selling wines in the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation stores. That will come, eventually.

We see an opportunity to expand capacity to grow more grapes. We've got all kinds of land that's potentially available for grape growing and we've got an opportunity to revisit our strategic plan and start thinking even more, thinking beyond the year 2020 and where we want to see the industry evolve.

If I had to sum up our challenges, we have three broad areas. With broader access comes the challenge of building capacity in a balanced way. Broader access ties back to what I mentioned earlier about fishing where the fish are jumping. At the end of the day if the Wines of Nova Scotia want to grow, we're going to have to be on the shelves of the NSLC. That's not to say that all wines need to be there but we need to create, we need to be offering our premium quality wines where people are buying premium quality wines.

As that access improves and develops, we'll also have to start planting more grapes, and to grow more grapes we'll have to find a way to balance that growth. We need to attract skilled labour required for this industry. We're just now seeing the second generation of winemakers. Hans Christian has hired a young woman by the name of Gina Haverstock, who is the first graduate from the Brock University and Nova Scotia Agricultural College joint program in viticulture, and she's the new winemaker now at Gaspereau Vineyards. Petite Riviere also has a new winemaker, Ben Sweatenham, and he graduated from the Niagara College in viticulture as well.

We don't anticipate any problems in this area, because the world has produced an awful lot of winemakers with the skills. But I think as our industry grows we'll continue to attract and bring new people to the province; in fact, a number of the wineries are working with French winemakers now, as we speak.

I guess the third challenge we face is the national wine standards in their present form. They are concerned primarily because the way they're written, we believe they will marginalize the Nova Scotia wine industry. The reason we say that is because the wine standards, the proposed national wine standards, are using VQA as the cornerstone of

these regulations and they stipulate a certain list of grapes. We feel that in Nova Scotia, because Canada is such a broad country geographically, we would like to see provincial lists of grapes that could be included as part of the national wine standards. So a product like this New York Muscat, which has won awards, it has been internationally recognized, would not be permitted to be considered the first tier of wines, and there are several other issues.

One of the important steps that I think government has taken is recognized that the industry can profit by having its own regulations, its own provincial regulations, which will allow us to at least have a leg to stand on when it comes down to discussing national standards. Another item that won't be permitted in the national wine standards is calling products icewine. Part of the reason that this product would not be considered a first-tier wine is because it is an icewine made with New York Muscat and New York Muscat is not one of the grapes that's included on the list of first-tier wines. To call a produce icewine you have to meet certain standards. So nevertheless, we are encouraged and happy to see the regulations in place and approved.

That comes to the end of the formal part of our presentation. I'd like to turn it back to you, Mr. Chairman, and invite some questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, thank you very much for your presentation. All right, Mr. MacKinnon, you have the floor.

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First I would like to commend Martha for the outstanding presentation, that was really superb. Secondly, you indicated most of the good growing areas are in valleys and my constituency is the East River Valley, which is just a beautiful place that goes on for kilometres and kilometres. It has a superb climate. I'm wondering what incentives there are, or technical assistance, for people to get involved in grape growing, to establish a vineyard. We have some people in that East River Valley who have a number of vines and I think it's beginning . . .

MR. HANS CHRISTIAN JOST: Is that the valley that goes through to New Glasgow?

MR. MACKINNON: It runs from Plymouth on one side, Riverton on the other, way out to Sunny Brae. It's a beautiful area, spectacular. It's an unsung area of Nova Scotia.

MR. JOST: When it comes to direct incentives in growing grapes, there aren't any that I'm aware of in acreage incentives. One of the odd things about the Nova Scotia Grape Growers Association on the very first founding meeting, in 1981 I believe, it was decided first of all that the Nova Scotia grape growers would not seek government

money to plant grapes. It was decided that in many cases crops were planted for government money and not for the sake of the crop and wanted interested parties. That was the original standing of the association. Whether that may change over the next few years, I don't know, but preferably I like to see people getting into it to grow grapes and not to receive government money and let the money flow through from the top down, so to speak.

So when it comes to knowledge in growing grapes, the best source is fellow grape growers who are in the area and in the region. Further down the shore, around Antigonish, is Kingsley Brown. He grows just over an acre of incredible grapes and does it in a most heavenly way. The grape growers, I think, are the best support of the industry there is.

MR. JIM WARNER: I agree, I think anybody who is interested should really get in touch with the Grape Growers Association. One of our fundamental objectives is to disseminate information on grape growing to people who have not been involved with the industry, and to help them out by introducing them to the idea, having workshops and daily instructions during the summer on how to treat the vines. That really would be a good start for them, to get in touch with the Grape Growers Association. I think that we've found the same thing, that there is no initial support for grape growing, but if a person starts the process, starts to produce acres of grapes that a winery is interested in producing, then that winery will support that grower in terms of helping, in terms of development of the acreage, and in terms of equipment and things of that sort. So there's a lot of support from the wineries to the grape growers by that channel.

MS. REYNOLDS: If I could just jump in as well, the industry has put together, has written a couple of books on winemaking and grape growing in Nova Scotia. If interested grape growers do get in touch with the Grape Growers Association, they can purchase the books from them, which is a good start.

MR. MACKINNON: Does the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture have expertise for technical advice and assistance?

MS. REYNOLDS: They do, the Kentville Research Station.

MR. WARNER: Mostly through AgraPoint. They have some people in AgraPoint who have been involved with the industry for a number of years. John Lewis, for example, who is with AgraPoint, he's very helpful in terms of the concept of how to grow grapes and what varieties to grow and how to avoid disease and so on. He would be a great resource for people who are starting.

MR. MACKINNON: Do I have 10 minutes, or are we going to do questions about, or is it like other committees where we're given a block of time, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're not given a block of time, but just hold your thought. We'll move on.

MR. MACKINNON: I have a series of questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll come back. Mr. Dunn.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Once again, thank you for the presentation, very informative. You mentioned the potential land for wine growing, are there any potential sites besides the East River Valley? Are there any other potential sites in the province that you're looking at?

MR. JOST: Outside of the Valley?

MR. DUNN: Yes. Outside of the ones that you actually have right now. Are there any other potential sites that you're examining, looking at?

MR. JOST: I don't think, as wineries, we've ever really looked at potential sites ourselves as much as people coming forward with their thoughts on potential sites and, in most cases, making us aware of places that we didn't know existed. One spot that is now just starting to develop is the Bear River region that until three, four years ago there was hardly any acreage, and I would say that with what's being planned for that area, it wouldn't surprise me that it would be the number two or number three growing area in the province within five to eight years, just from what I see that people want to plant in that area. It's really starting to come on and in looking at it, it should be a prime area.

MR. WARNER: Just to add to that, there is a program that AgraPoint carried out with the school in the Valley on geomatics. They did a temperature monitoring program throughout the Valley and in other parts of the province, as well. They've been recording temperatures continuously over the last several years. So they're developing a great database of temperature variation in the province, and where the maximum heat units are and where the cold areas are. It will help people to select their sites based on climate conditions, which is very important for grape growing.

MR. DUNN: In the opening comments, I believe you made mention of approximately, maybe, $7 million in revenue and approximately $600,000 in export sales. Are there any strategies in place, or will there be strategies in place to sort of bring that $600,000 a lot higher?

MS. REYNOLDS: There will be a strategy in place. It's in development at the moment. We're using the economic impact study that's in the works right now as a bit of a jumping-off point, and we're just getting that data now that we'll use to form part of our discussions, as an association, with stakeholders.

What we've seen in the figures is that it will give us a sense of what the local market will absorb and what potential lies outside of the market.

MR. JOST: One of the joys of the wine industry is that for the time being - it may not be the case in 20 years' time or 30 years' time - any bottles sold of Nova Scotia wine in Nova Scotia is import displacement, which is as good as an export. Once we start fighting it out amongst ourselves, then it's maybe not as much so, but for the next few years I would see it as import displacement.

[1:45 p.m.]

MR. DUNN: With the global warming trend that's occurring, I think we have great things ahead for the wine industry in Nova Scotia. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your presentation. Martha, do you ever consider using the handle of Martha's Vineyards? That may be a good promotion tool for Nova Scotia.

MS. REYNOLDS: I've considered that, yes. Stay tuned.

MR. THERIAULT: Right on. You spoke about there being 1,000 acres here of vineyards by the year 2020, I believe. How big is that? Compared to other provinces or other countries, how big are we? Give us an example of how big that is, 1,000.

MS. REYNOLDS: We're tiny by comparison. We're about 5 per cent of the Okanagan.

MR. THERIAULT: So 1,000 acres will be 5 per cent.

MR. JOST: Well 1,000 acres would end up being 20 per cent - less than 20 per cent of what the Okanagan is right now.

MR. THERIAULT: Well, that's not bad for Nova Scotia.

MS. REYNOLDS: No.

MR. JOST: No, but we're hoping for more.

MS. REYNOLDS: If I could just give you an example. Oregon, for example, in the United States produces probably some of the world's best Pinot Noir and California is the region in the United States that everyone thinks of when you think of American

wine, quite often. But in Oregon now they are 400 wineries strong and I can't remember what their sales volume is and their exports, but they came together as an industry and decided that if they were going to grow and be on the world stage, they had to look outside their own state borders. So while they're a tiny state relative to California and many other states in the United States, they produce a huge volume of wine that's largely exported, so we've got a number of models to look at and all kinds of opportunities to consider.

MR. THERIAULT: How is the price of wine determined? Is it supply and demand? Is it where it comes from? The quality of grapes? How is the price of - is it supply and demand?

MR. JOST: Yes to all of your questions. (Laughter) Supply and demand, quality, it all plays a part, at least on our behalf. We figure out the value according to the ease of growing and part of the grape. A Pinot Noir, where we can only get a few tons a year, with the most extreme tender care and all the attention in the world given, it obviously has to be given a higher value than another variety that more growers are willing to grow. They're more willing to grow it because its easier to grow, so that plays a big part of it.

Supply and demand and getting the grapes, and that carries its way through. Then, of course, the quality of the wine, the awards you win, things of that nature. I have a little bottle, this is our 1999 Vidal Icewine where we won Canada's Wine of the Year. It came from Jim's vineyard and was the first time that award ever went outside of Ontario or British Columbia. That was this little wine. Sadly, we only had 200 litres of that year's icewine made, and we ended up winning that award. We hadn't bottled it yet by the time we won the award - good thing. When it comes to the demand and supply, we were selling icewine at the time at $50 for a 375 millilitre bottle, but we didn't have that much of it. So we decided to stick it in 200 millilitre bottles and charge $50. It still sold out. That all plays a part.

MR. THERIAULT: I like your brochure here, with the two wines on it and the lobster. Nova Scotia has the biggest lobster industry in the world, and here we are going to make it big in wine. I like this brochure, it's nice. It's great promotion. It's great promotion for the lobster industry itself. Have you approached the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture in the province to try to work out some kind of a deal here, or the lobster industry itself, the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association? Has that been on your radar at all, for promotion? I think it would be a big seller, go in and buy a dozen lobster, get a bottle of wine, or vice versa. I think, all over the world - our lobsters are going big time all over this world. To throw in a few bottles of wine with a dozen lobsters, or vice versa, you're talking big stuff here. Have you ever looked into this?

MS. REYNOLDS: We're just scratching the surface. We haven't explored it to the extent that you're talking, but it is a little bit on our radar. We're working very

closely with an individual in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Amanda Langley, who is a huge fan of Nova Scotia wines, but she's plugged in, as well, to the fisheries. In fact, we're working on a program that's going to come out in February that's going to pair Nova Scotia wines with Nova Scotia foods. I love that idea. We'll continue on that front.

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you very much.

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Again, I want to commend you on your presentation, Martha. I guess I want to start off with looking at the industry. You indicated in your opening comments that we're looking at about a $7 million industry. Also, with your comments, you indicated we're exporting $600,000 worth. Where to?

MS. REYNOLDS: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island . . .

MR. JOST: Alberta, Manitoba and Japan.

MR. GAUDET: Japan? The obvious question is, or how do we reach out to people from Japan or elsewhere?

MR. JOST: We sell maple wine and icewine to Japan, Jost Vineyard does. This was something that was actually initiated by the Department of Agriculture and Marketing, or Fisheries a few years ago in a program that I would love for them to do again with other countries. So many times there are trade shows to a variety of places. If I were to go to a trade show in Japan, I wouldn't know where to start. I don't know the marketing philosophies or how anything works in Japan. What the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries did at the time was they found the biggest importer of Canadian wine in Japan, he does icewines there, and they brought him to Nova Scotia, and said, can you help us?

This guy took me by the hand, basically, and brought our products to Japan. We're shipping every few months, a little bit of wine, to Japan, not huge quantities, but every time it's more and more. He says it takes patience to deal with there. Just to give you an idea of how we would have messed up it weren't for him, on our maple wine and our icewines we have our English label and French. I told him, after the first couple of shipments, if you like - we get our labels printed digitally - we could get them written in Japanese for you, because he has been sending us these stickers to put on the back that were written in Japanese. I didn't think that looked very professional. I said we could get our actual label printed in Japanese if you like. He goes, oh Heaven forbid, don't do that. You want to have the original label on in Japan and if you notice that the label we send you, you can easily peel it off.

The Japanese do not believe a product is authentic unless it has the authentic label on it. So it is little things like that. If the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries is able to find someone in China or in Europe to hold my hand with icewines and that sort of thing, I think it is a wonderful way to go, in Louisiana or wherever it may be.

MR. GAUDET: I want to, Martha, look at NSLC. I guess I'm trying to understand what's the process for our wineries to try to get some of their products on shelves in our stores?

MS. REYNOLDS: Do you want to speak to that? I'm going to turn the answer to Hans Christian because he deals with that every day.

MR. JOST: The NSLC generally, over the last few years, have said we will list any of your wines, our wines, Hanspeter's, Sue's, that are Nova Scotian and good. It is as simple as that. So when it comes to listing, I don't think there have been any problems with NSLC.

It should be pointed out that NSLC over the last few years has been a dream or a pleasure to work with, compared to 10 or 15 years ago, where the word "control" seemed to dominate every movement and action. It has really come around in the last few years. Quite frankly, it just comes down to money and the NSLC, its primary mandate is to raise funds for the province. It has a mark-up system that is primarily designed for large producers, worldwide or the Wolf Blass' and the Andres' of the world. When it comes to specialty products, Nova Scotian products, we generally cannot produce them profitably at the mark-up levels that exist, to sell to the NSLC. That's what is comes down to. It is a considerable mark-up and I believe that's being looked into as well right now.

MR. GAUDET: Do we have a sense of how many Nova Scotia products they do carry?

MS. REYNOLDS: As a matter of fact, I brought copies. One of the ways that the NSLC is helping us as an industry and working with us is putting together - this is their annual report, we brought copies for you to take. They have devoted the first half of the book to a story about each of the wineries in Nova Scotia, the micro breweries. In this book, the annual report, they identify - I think the number is about 50 - Nova Scotia products that they carry on their shelves, so we couldn't be more delighted.

The way this has been designed, it allows us to take the pages that we want out of it and we can produce a brochure from it.

MR. GAUDET: You indicated that we are actually selling some Nova Scotia products in neighbouring provinces. What's the process involved there? Is the NSLC marketing our products outside of Nova Scotia or do we . . .

MR. JOST: No, that's done by the wineries themselves. The listing process is very similar across the country. The NSLC, especially in the last few years, has been much more open to Nova Scotia products than ever before and than any other province.

MR. GAUDET: Just one quick question; I am curious, how many jobs are we looking at from this industry, a ballpark figure?

MS. REYNOLDS: Today somewhere between 150 to 200.

MR. JOST: With growers.

MS. REYNOLDS: Yes, with growers.

MR. GAUDET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Gaudet. Mr. Barnet.

HON. BARRY BARNET: Let me apologize first. The vast majority of my knowledge of wine and vineyards has been from sitting here today listening to you and a half an hour listening to Gina Haverstock or Costa Halavrezos on the CBC about a month or so ago. So that's where I get my knowledge from. I'm going to ask a question that may sound stupid, what is icewine?

MS. REYNOLDS: It's not stupid at all.

MR. BARNET: I have no idea what it is.

MR. JOST: Do you want to take care of that?

MR. WARNER: Sure. Icewine is a process where you leave the grapes on the vine past the normal harvest time. The varieties you leave on are those which are fairly robust and tough skinned, so that they don't deteriorate with time. There are several varieties that are best for that and one is the Vidal grape. That's used extensively in Nova Scotia and in Ontario for an icewine.

You leave it on through the harvest until we get temperatures which are minus eight degrees Centigrade or lower . . .

MR. BARNET: So they actually freeze?

MR. WARNER: . . . so they actually freeze as hard as marbles. You leave them on until they're that hard. Then you pick them at that temperature, without thawing, and bring them into the press and press the juice that is remaining in the hard Vidal grape. So you can see the sugars that would be there would be extremely concentrated, so you are really pressing out some distinctive qualities of the grape and the production of that then occurs over perhaps a 12- or 24-hour period where the temperature stays at minus eight degrees, so you have to ensure that that is the case. Once that is completed, we then transfer the product to the wineries that then put it through the fermentation process.

[2:00 p.m.]

MR. JOST: You're always looking for pickers, aren't you?

MR. WARNER: Yes, some time over the next three weeks.

MR. JOST: Usually between Christmas and New Year's.

MR. BARNET: You never know. The vineyards in Nova Scotia, in terms of the quality of the grapes and the flavour of the grapes and the amount of grapes per acre, how is that compared to other jurisdictions? Do you compare that?

MR. JOST: Yes, we compare our qualities with that of other regions and when it comes to - it is the belief of many people that grapes are grown in a hot climate but if you look at the best grape growing areas, they are generally grown in the moderate climates. The greatest finesse you'll ever find in a red wine is in the Bordeaux region which doesn't really get that overly hot there, or in the Burgundy region. There are much hotter regions of France which produce lesser wines, for example.

Whatever variety we grow here, or anywhere in the world, the general rule that we go by is the longer it takes for any variety of grape to go from blossom to ripeness, the more flavour character you get into that grape. You're picking up flavours from the air, from the soil, from the vine itself.

It is much like strawberries; late strawberries taste a lot better than early strawberries. Late corn has better flavours than early corn, all of these sorts of things. The same thing works with grapes. The Riesling variety, for example, the best Rieslings come from Germany - I have to say this, I am German - from the Rhine or the Mosel region and much lesser Rieslings come from the hotter climates of California because they just overheat and you have these somewhat flabby characteristics.

The same thing with the varieties we grow in Nova Scotia. Marechal Foch will ripen in Nova Scotia, you generally harvest somewhere around Thanksgiving, starting at Thanksgiving. In Ontario the same variety is harvested September 10^th or so, basically

a month earlier and our blossom is within days of each other between Ontario and Nova Scotia. So we end up with what I would consider considerably more flavour in that variety in Nova Scotia than you would get in Ontario. The reason we can make Muscat icewine here and it's not possible in Ontario is because we're able to hold some acidity and a certain amount of finesse that doesn't exist in Ontario Muscat. That's why they banned it from the list, because they can't make a decent wine out of it, and we can. This is one of the reasons that we want to establish Nova Scotia wine standards, and have done that.

MR. BARNET: My final question is around - I was in Australia a number of years ago and there was a winery tour. To be honest, it's the only one I've ever been on, the only winery I've ever been to. Brown Brothers, I think, was the name of the place. It seemed to me it was less about the winery and the vineyard and more about the destination, the restaurant, there were buses pulling in there, there was a huge parking lot. It was a large tourist destination in that particular area. How many of our wineries combine the restaurant and the tour, and develop it as a destination? Is that an area where you see growth in the future?

MS. REYNOLDS: Yes. There is one operation that marries a restaurant and a vineyard experience, and the winery operation. Grand Pre Wines in the Grand Pre area. Several of the other wineries also have what I would call, while they don't have a formal restaurant, they do provide an eating experience, if you will, with picnic tables and barbecue setups.

MR. JOST: If I could, personally, the way I see things developing in Nova Scotia in the wine industry over the next 15 years is although we have what I would consider a successful business in Malagash, and there's more industry and restaurants opening up around us, a cottage industry of, literally, cottages and that, in the end I see the centre of Nova Scotia wine growing in the Annapolis Valley, or maybe even closer down to the Gaspereau Valley with a number of wineries opening up. Quite frankly I see that region, the Annapolis Valley, being the same way in people's minds to Atlantic Canadians as the Niagara region is to those in central Canada or the Okanagan is to those in western Canada.

If you're a wine lover in Calgary, you're going to make that trip to the Okanagan; if you're a wine lover in Ottawa, you'll make that trip down to Niagara, sort of thing. My hope is that if you're a wine lover in Fredericton or Moncton or Charlottetown, you're going to make the trip to the Annapolis Valley, via Malagash, to experience that. One of the things that we're very fortunate with, especially in that region, is there's already incredible inns, there's incredible restaurants, there's a whole infrastructure already in place that is so easy to build upon and develop even further.

MR. BARNET: I'll just ask one more quick question. Maybe there's no particular reason for this, maybe it's just something I noticed, but it seems to me that a lot of the vineyards that I've noticed, the one in Gaspereau, are at the foot of a hill. Is there a reason for that? They're at the edge of the valley.

MR. JOST: They're not in the valley, primarily. The reason being that cold air flows the same way as water. You have to have a place for the cold air to slide to, and if you're in the bottom of the valley, that's where all the cold air piles up and your vines would be frozen, whereas this site here, this is the Warner Vineyards, they're Seyval Blanc planting, I believe, and there's incredible air flow where that planting is. Then you see the next batch of rows, and you have varieties there, or the variety up top, you wouldn't be able to plant at the bottom. It would be frozen out. It's a three-woods distance away from one variety to the next.

MS. REYNOLDS: John, your son was telling us one day, there's about a five degree difference in the temperature from the top of the vineyard to the bottom.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Belliveau.

MR. STERLING BELLIVEAU: I have a number of questions, but first of all I want to thank you all for your presentation here today. My background is fishing. I want to compliment you on this particular brochure. My neighbour here, the member for Digby-Annapolis, got ahead of me. In the interim, I was toying with the line, I think Orson Wells talked about I'll drink no wine before its time, I just couldn't get that out of my mind. I was looking for a caption to replace this one that you had here, A Match Made in Nova Scotia Heaven. The best I could come up with in that short term is the loftier saying, I will not shell out a dime unless it is Nova Scotia wine.

MS. REYNOLDS: I love it. (Laughter)

MR. BELLIVEAU: Give it some more time, I think. But seriously, I do think that our industry needs some promotion, the fishing industry, and naturally the lobster is a main industry here and I think that this particular one industry also is in need of some promotion. I just think that there's a marriage there, using your words. Anyway, I like that in the short notice.

Getting back to Shelburne County, Shelburne County is basically a cold climate during the summer seasons because of the Bay of Fundy, the fog and the temperature there, but it's also known as the "banana belt" of the Maritimes, if you look at our winter conditions. I know that some of our retired fishermen have become very excellent farmers and this little challenge about the pumpkin growing contest that we have across Nova Scotia, I'm sure that Howard Dill maybe loses some sleep knowing that some of these guys down in southwestern Nova Scotia are actually in this friendly competition

of growing these large pumpkins. They are very successful - not at the level of Mr. Dill, but they're getting there.

My question is, I sense that there are pockets of areas that can be used or that wineries can be introduced there, or I think there is, so I'm going to ask that question of you and I'm talking about the central parts of Shelburne County, Upper Clyde and the inland, Upper Ohio, there are places there that seem to be that you can do some of these growing vegetables and crops like this. Would that be a good location for something like that? We could have our own unique name.

MS. REYNOLDS: I'm not aware of anybody growing grapes in those areas, are you?

MR. JOST: I'm not aware of anyone growing them there yet.

MR. BELLIVEAU: But you made reference to some of these - there was temperature monitoring across Nova Scotia and I guess my question should have included, is there monitoring done in certain areas showing that there's a capability of this industry?

MR. WARNER: I don't think there are any stations down there but it might be worthwhile to look at that. I know that one of the new areas, the LaHave River basin, is one where they put monitoring stations and that shows to be a very acceptable climate for grape growing. So I'm sure there are hidden areas within the province, like you're talking about areas that are away from the immediate coastal region in which you generate a lot of heat units, so there are probably pockets like that that people could use.

MR. BELLIVEAU: The second part of the question, you talked about the icewine, is that something that could be unique to that area, knowing that the southern part of Nova Scotia is classified as the "banana belt" when you're talking about the winter conditions, is that something that can be unique to that condition or that particular product, the icewine; is that something that could be tied into that climate?

MR. WARNER: Well, the icewine, the colder it gets, the better. There are some areas in Nova Scotia probably where you couldn't produce icewine, that the temperatures don't stay low enough long enough to receive that cold, cold temperature, particularly really near the coastal regions in Yarmouth and Shelburne. But again, if you go inland, you get away from the ocean effects and you probably could grow them.

The difficulty with some of those areas, of course, is the amount of fog that sometimes persists in Yarmouth and Shelburne. That would reduce the heat units that would be available for growing the grapes in the summertime. It's a matter of looking

at each site in particular. There are unique characteristics that maybe could be taken advantage of.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'd like to ask a couple of questions, if I may. I'm really interested in what people do and what visions people have of things that have never been done, although maybe in the case of Mr. Jost you have a family tradition of doing some of this and we were lucky that you chose Nova Scotia to come . . .

MR. JOST: My dad, yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. A couple of questions, one around policy, I guess, or a couple around policy. I'm curious about the individual you mentioned from AgraPoint who has some expertise. Was that someone who, as far as you know, was with the department at one time?

MR. WARNER: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm also curious about policy around growing grapes with the department. It seems to me that over time there has to be a greater local content, or Nova Scotia content, in the product that you produce. So I guess maybe this goes to Mr. Jost, but anybody who can answer, I'm trying to think of who might have been around or at the table at those early discussions. Can you explain for the committee exactly how that's supposed to work, to the future, I guess?

[2:15 p.m.]

MR. JOST: In the mid-1990s a formula was developed to push the local content for farm wineries from at the time 35 per cent to its standing now at 75 per cent. A week or two ago at a meeting we had decided actually on moving it up to 85 per cent Nova Scotia content on wines that have what you would call the mark-up advantage of private sales, through our own stores and to licensees and that. When it comes to our logo that you see on the bottle, as a winery association we've agreed on 100 per cent. So if you want to use the logo, it has to be 100 per cent Nova Scotian. If you want to use the word Nova Scotia on the label as a geographical indicator, it has to be at least 85 per cent. So it has moved up quite nicely.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The reason I ask is really concern about buying local and for local farmers to sell their product and accessibility to, say, Sobeys or Superstore or whatever, more and more the control at the retail level is getting into fewer and fewer hands when you think about groceries in particular.

In the interprovincial trade agreement, Chapter 9, there is a limiting clause that says you can't interfere with the flow of agricultural goods. So I'm really curious,

because I've looked at the wine industry as an example of where that really doesn't apply because we were trying to promote more local content. No flags have ever been raised from other jurisdictions or anything. Do other provinces do the same thing, do you know? Or has anybody said oh, you know, you can't be doing that?

MR. JOST: In 1986 the Nova Scotia farm wine policy was put through, allowing us to sell directly to licensees. We were the first province in all of Canada to allow that. Afterwards, Quebec, British Columbia and finally Ontario followed Nova Scotia's footsteps and allow, as well, direct sales to licensees from the winery.

I don't see - initially the large wineries from outside of this province had a problem with us selling directly to licensees and then they realized that they could use us as an example, to be able to do it in their own respective provinces, so they've quieted right down.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good. Martha, you mentioned VQA. Is that vintners quality assurance?

MS. REYNOLDS: Vintners Quality Alliance.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I was wondering what that meant. Mr. Fage, you're next on the list.

HON. ERNEST FAGE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to compliment everyone on the fine presentation. I think everyone here recognizes how hard the industry, the growers, have worked to put a quality product in front of the consumers here in Nova Scotia, and certainly now a wider audience with exports, and how unswerving the association has been in its goal to establish the industry and gain a larger portion of the retail market, particularly here in Nova Scotia. It has been a strategic growth where objectives have been, in my view, acknowledging where you want to be and then the course and the strategy to get there. My association with the industry through my agricultural background gives one a bit of insight into it, and specifically Hans Christian and I were in other commodities in a former life. It's wonderful to see the evolution, and using the geography, the microclimates, and the opportunities there.

The other thing I want to comment on is how pleased I am with the co-operation you receive from licensing agencies, the receptivity of retailers in this province, and culminating now, the last number of months, with the NSLC working even more closely with you, recognizing the opportunity for themselves as basically the largest wholesaler/retail agent, but also the opportunity that affords individual grape growers growth in Nova Scotia's economy, because there's a really nice mix there between the two.

My question, after those observations: the co-operation is bearing fruit, hope, and not looking to know what's in the report but looking for impression, are things moving forward in the right direction? What other steps can be taken to promote the industry in the future?

MS. REYNOLDS: I'll just jump in and answer some of that. There's tremendous co-operation, as I mentioned earlier, in the industry. I think one of the key opportunities that the industry faces now is to take some of the learning that it has gathered over the last year and from the study, and start to maybe think even a little bit more broadly about where we could take the industry. It's a funny thing, when we learn new things it does change our perception. I'd venture to say that five or six years ago, when the industry started to think about a long-term plan and a strategic plan and was thinking about 20 wineries and 1,000 acres, it was thinking, gosh, that sounds like the moon when you're starting from maybe 100 acres.

Now that we're where we are today and we've had really just one year of experience with the new symbol, well, not even a year, six months with the new symbol, some promotional materials, we've seen such great results in the last six to eight, nine months that we're in a great place today, I think, to stop and take stock, to rethink and to vision.

One of the points I wanted to draw upon was the point earlier where we talked about Nova Scotia's place in the world of wine. We're not going to compete by making the best Chardonnay in the world, for example. I use Chardonnay only because it's probably the number one white grape in the world and it's so popular and it's so widespread. It may be that Nova Scotia will make brilliant Chardonnay down the road. But we have such a wonderful opportunity to be thinking about how to create a unique name for ourselves in the world. We have to be thinking about that.

MR. FAGE: I think on that marketing side, I applaud your strategy. If you think of south of the border, one of the bigger players, there are a couple, Mondavi, and Ernst and Julio Gallo, you go on their sites, the winery, and it's like going to a massive oil refinery. It's that big. The reason for drawing them as the example is the industry isn't ready to take on, on a volume basis, the players anywhere. It's about quality and being strategic in marketing and a unique taste, bouquets and fragrances.

MS. REYNOLDS: I don't think that we want to underplay the marriage between our food and wine. I think that's really where part of the strategy needs to evolve to. There's a gentleman by the name of Tony Aspler, who is one of Canada's foremost wine critics. He's written a book called, the Wine Atlas of Canada. This is his second or third edition. Typically, books on wine in Canada feature a huge section on Ontario, a smaller section on British Columbia, and perhaps a paragraph on Nova Scotia, and a little paragraph on Quebec. In this book, he has included a tremendous section on the wines

of Nova Scotia. This Fall, when he launched his book, he did his launch presentations in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax.

He was quoted in the paper as saying he feels that one of our best possibilities, if you will, is with our marriage between food and wine. Really, when you think about the Okanagan Valley and the Niagara Valley, they're known as bread baskets, certainly, but they don't have the same reputation and following, if you will, for food that Nova Scotia does.

MR. FAGE: One of the things I personally participated in in the mid-1980s, late-1980s was actually working with the wine industry in Ontario. It goes right to the point of Mr. Theriault's and your point now, marrying it with food. I don't know if you recall a program that was called, Simply Wine and Cheese. I represented the dairy industry at that time. The dairy industry put up two-thirds of the funding for the national TV show and campaigns. I had the pleasure of appearing with Al Waxman on the inaugural national show, Simply Wine and Cheese.

It was a wonderful promoter of cheese and the variety we have in Canada, where it came in different provinces, matching it with wines that you would serve with that particular type of cheese. I think that ran for about three or four years, mid-1980s. It goes right back to tying it with another food product that has resources to share, too, with promoting both instead of just one.

MS. REYNOLDS: It's a great idea.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're going to start the second round. Mr. MacKinnon has been waiting with bated breath, so go ahead.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I felt a little short-changed with my one question. I've been counting those of the other members as we're going around here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It was quality versus quantity.

MR. MACKINNON: First of all, a comment. In relation to the NSLC and this publication, as the NDP NSLC Critic, I want to go on record as commending the NSLC for such an outstanding job. This is superb. Also, having said that, I also want to be positive in relationship to what Hans Christian said about the NSLC being less controlling than it was 10 years or more ago and more co-operative. I think that's a bouquet that should be recognized as well.

Now another comment in relation to the fishery and this publication, I really like the marriage with the lobster here. However, and I'm not taking away from this, but I was the head of a trade delegation a number of years ago to South America. We took some

pails of Solomon Gundy, a penny fish, the little chunks of herring, the pickled herring, and unfortunately it was Chilean wine that we bought down there. This was a number of years ago, before you produced as much. Anyhow, having said that, Nova Scotia had a booth with about eight or nine companies represented. Norway had numerous booths. We were getting more people at that one booth with that Solomon Gundy and the wine than you can imagine. If you're doing sampling somewhere, I think there should be a marriage with herring. It's so cheap, it's a penny fish and it's really something else to give out with wine. Maybe you could consider that.

Now, the question, in the partnerships, I noticed there are a growing number of partnerships but I don't see the Nova Scotia Community College system on there as a partnership in relationship to cuisine and the courses that are offered there and so on. What an opportunity to form partnerships there. Maybe you're already looking at that. Is there the possibility of a good marriage there, with the community college system?

[2:30 p.m.]

MS. REYNOLDS: Absolutely, in fact some of our members have been in touch with the college. For example, there have been a couple of initiatives, so it was an oversight on my part to not put them on the list. Last year, in fact, some of the students from the culinary program developed a wine wheel in partnership with Taste of Nova Scotia. Taste of Nova Scotia, through the Department of Agriculture, is also a key partner as well. We agree with you, and I think the educational aspect is such an important piece to this, education when it comes to understanding the wines' potential matching with foods, and also understanding the wine producing side of the equation.

MR. JOST: If I could just add to that, with the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, three or four years ago they started a program, they actually added one course to their curriculum regarding wine, and that is a grape growing course, to their degree part of their curriculum. That allowed agricultural college students to take the first two years of the Brock University program here in Nova Scotia, and then do the last two years of the Oenology and Viticulture program at Brock in St. Catharine's, Ontario. I believe this year again there are two students who are looking at moving on next year to Brock from that program.

One of my personal favourite things about this industry now, where we've been at it for not quite 25 years, or Grand Pre had been, is that we're now finally getting Nova Scotians, and young Nova Scotians, thinking about entering the industry because there's an industry here. It's not imports, it's not my dad, it's not Roger Dial from California, or whatever. It's Nova Scotians making decisions about wanting to be part of the industry. I think that's a sign of maturity, that we're moving in that direction. When I see Ben Sweatenham from Halifax, the winemaker at Petite Riviere; or Gina Haverstock of

Port Hawksbury, the winemaker at Gasperau, those are definitely happy moments in my heart, to see that.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I'm really excited about this presentation today, because it has been quite inspiring. One of the things that I would like to ask is in relation to extracts being used. A lot of people consuming look at Andres, and I hear no mention whatsoever of them in the presentation. A lot of people feel they're buying a Nova Scotian product when they buy Andres wines. What is the involvement with that organization, and so on, with yours?

MR. JOST: I think right now there is none, no involvement in either direction. I would guess that they have a successful business doing what they're doing. It wouldn't surprise me that in the next number of years that they wouldn't start knocking on the doors of growers. I'm kind of surprised that they haven't. That's just a personal observation.

MR. MACKINNON: Is there an opportunity some time down the road to feed extract to other places?

MR. JOST: You mean juice or grapes?

MR. MACKINNON: Yes.

MR. JOST: I think generally that is inevitable, once we hit that 1,000 acre - or whatever it may be - number. There's always an ancillary business, not 100 per cent of acreage goes to wines, somebody will do the home juice business or the home winemaking business and provide juice for that industry or maybe the fresh juice industry or grapes. A couple of our growers already provide grapes for Pete's Frootique and some of the markets, for example. So that grows with the industry sort of on the side.

The other thing with a growing industry that we hope will be achieved by a certain size is that right now our supplies of equipment, corks, capsules, glass and so on, are mostly Ontario-based, maybe New York State-based, maybe California-based, not a whole lot of Nova Scotia-based. I hear rumours of some of the larger Nova Scotia home brewing centres wanting to get into the commercial end of it, to be able to provide the refining agents and the yeasts and all these sorts of things and the corks for the wine industry itself. I think that again would be a great step forward.

MR. MACKINNON: I don't want to monopolize any more time but I want to commend all three for the insightful presentations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do any other members want to ask a question? We have a little bit of time. Mr. Dunn.

MR. DUNN: Just one quick question. How do you compare the other Atlantic Provinces with Nova Scotia as far as production, quality, et cetera?

MR. JOST: I think that Nova Scotia, at this point anyway, is the most developed when it comes to grape wine industries in Atlantic Canada. We have the most acreage by far of any Atlantic Canadian province and the most wineries. I don't think New Brunswick is that far behind but they are mostly fruit wineries. So overall, at this point, we're leaders in Atlantic Canada.

MR. WARNER: I think that the other provinces have to struggle a lot more with the colder winters and the damage to the vines during winter. We are fortunate here that we don't have as much of a problem that way. We don't lose as many vines in the wintertime and crop levels are higher and so on, so it is more productive from a grower's point of view in Nova Scotia than it would be elsewhere.

MR. DUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm curious about how many producers there would be in the province that this would be their sole income. I mean you might say well, so-and-so is retired and he has got a pension but he's growing grapes. How many in the province would be doing that and what is the potential? How big an operation would you have to have, how many acres in order to make a living growing grapes? If you were growing grapes, would you have to be making wine? Could you just be growing grapes to sell to a winery? So I'll let you answer that first.

MS. REYNOLDS: An excellent question. Do you want to speak to that, Mr. Warner?

MR. WARNER: There are not many people I don't think who are growing grapes solely as an income. I guess a lot of people like myself got into it at an early stage of development where we had only a few acres and started and just kept adding as we went along.

The problem, of course, is the amount - there is a big cost associated with developing a vineyard from scratch and if you try to do it too quickly you're going to be putting a fair amount of money into that development. There are a lot of people who don't want to do that up front because they're not sure of the grape growing as an industry, they're not sure whether they're going to like it or not. So it is an evolutionary process for most people; they start out small and then grow.

If you're going to do it as a sole source of income, one way to do it would be to own the land, first of all, so you don't have carrying costs with the land. To have equipment as well - if you're a farmer who wants to change their industry from growing

apples or another crop into growing grapes, you'd have a lot of equipment there, so the carrying costs per year would be less. You would have to grow somewhere between probably 50 and 100 acres to make it a money-making operation. You can't do it with anything smaller than 40 acres. So it is a fairly intensive involvement of somebody to try to make a living off grape growing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: When you talk about micro climates, I am assuming that all of these areas that you mentioned where people have now come to realize that you could grow grapes, I am assuming there are somewhat different ranges in temperature, they all can't be exactly the same. Is there an optimum range? You know if you could say well, if I could find a spot that was this, I'm assuming there is - and I suppose if you're doing icewine or particular varieties, you'd say well this would be great for that variety but I couldn't grow something else there, but just generally speaking across the province, what type of temperatures would grape producers need to look at in order to say, gee, I think this would work here?

MR. JOST: I think first of all, fog-free is right at the top of the list. Two, I generally tell people that if you happen to have a frost by Thanksgiving, don't bother trying. That is usually an indicator as to when your Spring frost is on the other end.

In Malagash, we generally don't have a frost until the very end of October or the first few days of November, at least in the last seven or eight years, so we're very fortunate there. Now overall in the province, from what I can tell, virtually the whole North Mountain, from one end to the other, you could paint a strip along that whole North Mountain for 130 kilometres and grow grapes pretty well on the whole length of that. If you wanted to, you could flood Atlantic Canada or Eastern Canada in wine from what could be grown in this province. I don't think that is going to happen but I think the capacity is there, acreage wise.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That would pretty well put my farm out. I think - well, I can't say that we get a lot of fog but it is not uncommon to have frost by August now and then.

My other job, I'm a sheep producer so I'm really looking forward to the lamb and wine brochure.

If no other members have any questions? Okay. Then I'll give you a few minutes if you want to have some wrap-up comments; I'd be glad to hear them.

MS. REYNOLDS: I'll start then. We want to thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present an overview of our industry. We're very excited as, hopefully, you could gather, with the potential and where the industry has come today. We think Nova Scotia has an opportunity to not only penetrate the local market but to penetrate the

world of wine at some point in the future. We're very pleased with all of the partnerships and a lot of the support that has been coming our way.

Just the other day we had calls from a reporter writing an article on Nova Scotia wines from Canadian Business Magazine. We're starting to get press not only in our own market but across Canada, so the future looks good.

MR. JOST: As well, thank you for having us here. I guess overall, I just want to say that I hope to see you all at a Nova Scotia winery somewhere in the next few months. We are not that far away and tens of thousands of visitors come visit us, as Nova Scotia wineries. I hope you're all one of them. Thank you.

MR. WARNER: I'd like to thank the committee for having us today. I think one of the messages that I've always liked in terms of the Nova Scotia wine industry is it's about quality wine that Nova Scotia can produce from Nova Scotia-grown grapes. That's the message we want to get out to people, to understand that. That's what we're striving for in terms of both the growers and the wineries. It's a co-operative venture here to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I was on the committee the last time you made a presentation here. Really interesting to hear about the growth in the industry and the optimism. Not all the stories in agriculture are positive ones, and this is one. It's nice to really hear that. Martha.

[2:45 p.m.]

MS. REYNOLDS: I just wanted to leave one thought, and I forgot to mention it earlier. Grape growing and winemaking, especially, is the value-added part of the business. It's very much a value-added business, but it's also an industry that's rooted in the ground. It can't be transported to another part of the country. What's built here stays here, and in fact when we're selling Nova Scotia wine, we're selling Nova Scotia, because that's what makes the product so special, it's because it's grown here, rooted here in the ground.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well said. Thanks very much. On behalf of the committee, I want to wish you well over the Christmas season. (Applause)

For members of the committee, the next meeting is January 16^th. We'll be in the House, and whether we'll be out of the House, I'm not sure.

[The committee adjourned at 2:46 p.m.]