Course:FRST270/Wiki Projects/Icewine industry and management in the Niagara Peninsula

Icewine industry and management in the Niagara Peninsula

This case study examines the ice wine industry and management in Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, Canada. At first, this case study broadly explains the general information on ice wine, such as how the ice wine is made and chosen, the production of ice wine in Canada, and the features of ice wine. This study focuses on Niagara Icewine tourism which is well known to Japanese visitors. Niagara’s Inniskillin Winery is the most famous ice wine industry and it is located near Niagara river. The primary winemaker and founders of the Inniskillin Winery, Karl Kaiser, and his partners, are also introduced in the case study, and how they started, regulated and finally established this successful ice wine industry. This study explores the tenure arrangements, how VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) manage and influence the standard of the ice-wine production and how they work with the government and the community. It also examines how the Japanese tourists, as the interested stakeholder, can affect the local people and grower from Inniskillin Winery which are the affected stakeholders. The general idea is that this Inniskillin has created economic profits for its local region, Niagara Peninsula; it has improved recognition of the ice wine industry line in Canada; thus, Canada has become globally famous for its ice wine.

Description

Niagara's Inniskillin Winery is one of the most famous ice wine industry, which is located in lush vineyards near Niagara river. It is also one of the first estate wineries in Canada. In 1929, the Chairman of the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) gave Karl J. Kaiser and Donald J.P. Ziraldo the first winery license in Canada. In 1974, they established Inniskillin, and “Inniskillin” was named from the farm. On July 31st, 1975, Karl J. Kaiser and Donald J.P. Ziraldo founded and incorporated Inniskillin Wines.

Tenure and Administrative arrangements

Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) plays an important role in managing the Crown lands and forests in Ontario. MNRF leads the management of both Ontario's Crown lands and the management of provincial parks and protected areas. MNRF is also important to assure the sustainability of Ontario's Crown forests.

In Ontario, there are two land tenure categories, public and private land tenure. Public land is divided into crown land and patent land.
In crown land, there are MNRF Unpatented Land Public, MNRF Acquisitions Public and MNRF Non-Freehold Dispositions Public.

• MNRF Unpatented Land Public are “lands controlled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), which have not been sold or granted by the Crown to people or organization for private use.”
  

• MNRF Acquisitions Public are “secure lands that are managed by the MNRF can be owned by private organizations through some approaches.”
  

• MNRF Non-Freehold Dispositions Public is “Crown lands that can transfer the right to use from Crown to individuals, organizations or federal government. That included Leases, Licenses of Occupations, Easements, Beach Management Agreements and Land Use Permits (LUP).”
  

Patented land is not owned and managed by MNRF, which is owned by a Crown agency.

Aboriginal Land claim

There are many kinds of land claims; the ones that Ontario focuses on are about Aboriginal communities’ rights to the ownership of the land and the access to use of the land. In the land claim, Aboriginal community requests Ontario to deal with the historical issues.

There are three main types of land claims, “Reserve land claims”, “Unsold surrendered land claims”, and “Title claims”.

• Reserve land claims are about how big and where the land to reserve, and how the government uses the reserved land in a wrong way. In a reserve land claim, the Aboriginal community may declare that the extent of the reserved land should be regulated and corrected; the reserved land can be used after permission, and people should be charged when they use reserved land.
  

• In unsold surrendered land claims, the Aboriginal community may look for “the return of, or payment for, reserve lands that it surrendered to the federal government before 1924, but which has been sold.”
  

• In title claims, the aboriginal community may state that “under lands traditionally used and occupied by its members were never surrendered by them to the Crown under a treaty”. This type of claim is unusual in Ontario since the Ontario province is under by “historical treaties”.
  

Only the minority of land tenure is private land in Ontario.

• The Inniskillin Winery belongs to private land.

Affected Stakeholders

Affected stakeholders are any individuals, groups or organizations who can be impacted directly by the changes in local area activities, and their livelihoods depend on the area. In this case study, affected stakeholders (farm workers and local people) mainly rely on the development of Inniskillin Winery industry.

• Farmworkers are some local people and outsiders who got jobs since the winery companies established. Then, their lives rely on the Inniskillin Winery, but they have very low power on decision-making; they are totally under control of the higher levels in the company.
  

• For local people, there is not that much influence on the first nations, because the land tenure of Inniskillin Winery industry is private land which did not occupy the aboriginal lands. But there is still a few impacts on the first nations’ lives, such as the increase in their social coherence and involvements and GDP (Gross domestic product).

Interested Outside Stakeholders

Interested stakeholders are any individuals, groups or organization who are outside of the community and can be impacted indirectly by the changes in local area activities. Since their livelihoods do not totally rely on the activities. In this case, interested stakeholders (Japanese tourists, VQA, WCO, LCBO, Ontario licensees, tourism to wine country and tourism stakeholder collaboration, other wineries, and the Outsiders who want to move to Niagara) just get some interest from the Inniskillin Winery industry, but not rely on it.

• Because of the high-quality souvenirs, Inniskillin has taken actions to attract Japanese tourists, such as offering Japanese guide, making signs in Japanese, and taking large Japanese operators’ advice. Japanese tourists have stayed in touch with Inniskillin since 1995. The important characteristic of Japanese tourists is souvenir shopping, which not only improved a lot on the local economy but provided a huge and effective proportion of the tourism company’s sales. Japanese tourists became the major market of Inniskillin for buying about 60,000 bottles of icewine annually. Their power is formed medium to high.
  

• VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) is a regulatory agency that pursues the unification of local wine designation, accomplish winemaking and labeling standards. The progress of Inniskillin wineries helped VQA to develop, which includes the higher requirements of wine quality, more grape varieties and a wider range of the export of products. Therefore, its power is very high.
  

• WCO (Wine Council of Ontario) is the voice of the Ontario wine industry, and it is the ties between government and its agencies, growers, the LCBO and other Ontario wineries. WCO has a close relationship with Ontario and federal government, which could benefit the members of WCO (almost all wineries in Ontario). Thus, it has a high power in the management of wineries.
  

• LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), Ontario licensees, “tourism to wine country” and “tourism stakeholder collaboration” are four specific ways on marketing initiatives, which have medium relative power on managing winery industry.
  

• Other wineries are leaded by the Inniskillin Winery and co-op with Inniskillin Winery. The other wineries could influence Inniskillin Winery, but the impacts are not inevitable and insoluble. Therefore, other wineries have a low to medium power to influence Inniskillin Winery.
  

• Outsiders who want to move to Niagara are limited to prevent the damages and negative impact on grapes growth. Since Niagara is the best place for growing wine grapes, people manage and take care of the land carefully and seriously. Therefore, in this case, the outsiders almost have no voice to decide if they can move to Niagara or not.
  

Aims and intentions of community forestry project

The main aim of Inniskillin Winery to export Icewine is to help Canadian wines to be famous globally and related to the international network. By doing so, it also improves the long-term economic sustainability of the local community. The Inniskillin Winery has attracted wine tourists from other places to visit, and let Canadian ice wine be internationally recognizable.

Assessment of relative success

Since the 1990s, Canada was famous for high-quality wine export and the exports expended a lot. The exported ice wine was especially popular with Japanese tourists. As time has passed, Inniskillin Icewine became globalized and increased the prices of their products. Then, they changed from free for duty sales to duty paid. Finally, Icewine was popular approval. Inniskillin Icewine became the global leader in Icewine.

Issues or conflicts

The processes and requirements of producing ice wine are critical, such as the natural environments, which includes soil, sunshine, temperature, seasons, and the overall management. For example, to make ice wine, grapes need to put on the vein to shrivel and dry up during fall. When temperature decrease to about -10 degrees, farmer pick them up by their hands. During the gap time, farmers set beside the grapes in a small part of their vineyard (one or two acres) and wait for cold. At -10 degrees, grapes are fully frozen, which is the best for making ice wine and a super-sweet dessert wine. Because if people press one grape, “only one drop of sugar-laden is extracted.” Therefore, the area where to plant grapes and make the wines is very difficult to find and develop. And it is also difficult for farmers to grow, pick and press the grapes.

Some people argue that Canada should not export their wine to maintain their own domestic market. They believe that if Canada restricted the exports of ice wine, then people could buy Icewine only in Canada, which will encourage more tourism and make Canada more attractive and famous globally. However, wine tourism and export can both enhance and exclude each other. More wine exports, may attract more people want to come and see how ice wine is produced. It may also lead to a decreasing number of tourists, since people from other countries can buy Canadian ice wine in their own countries rather than go to Canada. Relatively, more tourism may cause a decline in exports, because less people buy Canadian ice wine internationally. It also could result in ice wine become more famous, and more people in the world recognize it and then more countries would like to import the Canadian ice wine. Therefore, whether Canadian ice wine should be exported or not is a controversial issue, we should always consider in general and comprehensively.

Recommendations

The suggestion about this community forest project is the lessons learned from the successes of this industry could inspire other winery industries in other countries. And the Ontario provincial government should explore more on the winery industry and provide more support on it. Also, the government should have a close relation with other communities, such as VQA, WCO, LCBO, Ontario licensees, tourism to wine country and tourism stakeholder collaboration, and all wineries, to develop and improve the industrial line.

References

This conservation resource was created by Course:FRST270.