Travel Blog: The Annapolis Valley

Since we are looking for some fall colours on this cruise, we headed out to the Annapolis Valley from Halifax. This tour also showcased a relatively new industry for Nova Scotia - wine production.

The history of winemaking in the valley is actually quite long. The French, when they originally sent the military and first settlers to Acadia in the 1600s, also sent grapevines. The problem at that time was that the vines that were used to Bordeaux conditions couldn't withstand the extreme cold of the winters. At one point, the Acadians did manage to create a hybrid that actually produced wine, but the British threw all of that knowledge out along with the Acadians when they marched in and took over. So again the potential industry languished for a couple of hundred years.

In 1979 Roger Dial, a retired professor who wanted to have a winery, started producing from a hybrid grape developed in Vineland, Ontario and known as L'Acadie Blanc (only because its actual name was a little too scientific). This grape is extremely hardy and fits the environment quite well. It is used to produce a number of different styles of wine, including sparkling.

There is even a specific appellation in Nova Scotia known as Tidal Bay. It has to be produced under strict standards including 100% Nova Scotia grown grapes and other particular characteristics. We tried some of this in each of the 3 wineries we visited on the tour, and although they all met the criteria, they all tasted quite different.

Our first stop was at Luckett Vineyards. The owner and founder has his own story that predates the winery. Pete Luckett immigrated from England and ran a fruit cart that grew into a fruit stand then a chain of 'Pete's Frootique' shops around Nova Scotia. He eventually sold these to Sobey's in 2015 and concentrated on his vineyard which he had established in 2000. We sampled the Tidal Bay as well as a Chardonnay and a sparkling. I enjoyed all of them --- and it seems we can order direct from the vineyard if we want to.

The view from our first stop, Luckett Vineyards

One of the quirks at Luckett's is this English Telephone Box
out in the vineyard. Thanks to Bell Aliant, the telephone is actually
operational. You can make a free call to anywhere in Canada
or the US - as long as you know how to use a rotary dial phone!!

Our second stop was at Grand Pre Winery. This is the winery established by Roger Dial in the 1970s. After his death, the vines languished for more than 10 years until Hanspeter Stutz from Switzerland purchased the winery, replanted the vineyard and put his whole family to work. Now they are all involved in management, his son is the head winemaker, and they have put Nova Scotia wines on the map.

We tasted their Tidal Bay, which was a little fruitier than the one from Luckett, as well as one of their red wines. That was very nice, too. We finished up with the Annapolis Valley answer to Icewine - Ice Cider. Instead of using frozen grapes to make the base, they crush frozen apples. The result looks like icewine but has a distinctive apple aroma and taste.

The gardens are starting to lose their colour
now, but would be spectacular all summer. Anna
Stutz takes care of them all herself.

There are an inn and a restaurant attached to
the winery. It would be a lovely place to stay.

Fall harvest decorations

We did stop at one last place but it was a very small winery and nobody on the tour was too keen on the wines we tried.

Our driver/guide, JD, was a real font of information about the wine industry and everything else Nova Scotia. He took us to a Parks Canada lookout near Grand Pre so we could also see how far the effect of the Bay of Fundy tides reaches. The Dykelands is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; in the 1680s the Acadians developed a system of dikes to allow the farmland to drain into the watershed, but keep the salt water from the extreme tides of the Bay of Fundy from washing out and contaminating the arable land. This system was in use throughout the settlements from the English, Scottish and Dutch all the way to the mid-1900s.