Karl Kaiser and Donald Ziraldo in the Icewine vineyards
DZ: It was a tough decision, but it was time to move on. I am an entrepreneur. I don’ t do well receiving memos from people. Karl and I were ecstatic when we heard Bruce Nicholson was coming to be the winemaker because it reflects on us if the wines aren’ t up to the same standard even after we’ ve gone. Leaving wasn’ t easy. However, in hindsight, I can tell you that it’ s the best thing I ever did because I probably would have been doing this until they buried me under the vineyard. Now I get a chance to look at the world from a different perspective and make way for the next generation with fresh ideas.
Leaving also gave me the opportunity to Chair the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre and Chair the National Grape and Wine Research and Innovation Advisory Council. I also got married, so that was another big change. I did it all at one shot; I figured I’ d get married, get rid of the company, and refocus my attention on giving back to the community. I volunteer for the research station, and that’ s been really exciting because it’ s a whole different field.
GH: I don’ t think anyone would say you’ ve been focused only on the industry. Over time, you have contributed to education, to travel / hospitality development, to many facets of the industry.
DZ: Yes, it all fit to supplement the brand. Tourism, for example, was a significant marketing tool for us. You get 12 million people coming by to see Niagara Falls, and after an hour and a half, they have nothing left to do. Also, we didn’ t have a place to train our viticulturalists and oenologists. There’ s nothing wrong with them going and studying in Davis or in Bordeaux, but they wouldn’ t get the experience of our terroir. The second problem was that they’ d go and they’ d stay there. California is not a bad place to hang out when someone offers you a job. It was all part of what we had to do to build the industry.
GH: You have also authored your second book recently, Icewine: Extreme Winemaking [ Key Porter Books, 2007 ]. That was a project of love as well, judging by the book.
DZ: Well, the first one was The Anatomy of a Winery [ Key Porter Books, 2000 ], which was intended to describe the technical stuff that wasn’ t really written anywhere. At that time, the wine writers around the world would give us a paragraph, and you had to look really hard to find it.
When I did the Icewine book, it was really important that we put the same kind of luxury feel into it. I asked Karl to do the technical part. The food piece was something the publisher suggested. We ended up doing the food part with Izabela Kalabis, who was my resident chef at Inniskillin. She had breast cancer and passed away at a very young 42, so we did it as a tribute to her. We started with 20 of her Icewine recipes and extended it, which tied it into the whole current trend toward local food. I have to keep reminding people that VQA wine is 100 per cent local food!
GH: We’ re getting pretty close to establishing some of the new appellations in Niagara, and this idea of terroir, with the VQA legislation. Is that helping define Niagara?
DZ: It is, and I think it’ s interesting for people who want to, pardon the pun, dig deeper into the terroir. Because the Niagara region is large, we’ re starting to see some distinctions between the Beamsville Bench, Niagara-on-the-Lake and the St David’ s Bench. There are subtleties in the terroir that you see very clearly expressed in the regions in Burgundy, but there, they’ ve been at it for 800 years. The monks settled with two varieties, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and then they started selecting the terroirs. We’ re still at the stage where we’ re working on which are the best varietals for the region.
I am planting a vineyard myself. This is news that I don’ t think anyone else has printed. I’ m planning a two-acre
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