Category Archives: beverages

Local grape-drying system helps Canadian winemakers deal with cooler climate

By Lilian Schaer

Vineland – A made-in-Ontario grape-drying system is helping Niagara winemakers work with Canada’s shorter growing season and produce more premium wines in the process.

It was those winemakers who approached researchers at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland) in 2011 for solutions to enhance their grapes. The answer lay with a centuries-old grape-drying tradition from Italy called Appassimento that the Vineland team adapted for use in Canada.

“We’ve developed a patented system here at Vineland for drying grapes and reducing their moisture content before making wine,” explains Darren Ward, Vineland’s manager of business planning and commercialization.

The drying process results in less water and more concentrated flavour and sugar in the grapes which, when translated into wine, means greater flavour and aroma complexity. Continue reading →

Guelph cider start-up brings local ideas near and far

Revel in a good drink

Revel Cider’s Tariq Ahmed extracts a sample

By Matt McIntosh

Guelph – Revel Cider Company may only be three years old, but its brand already spans the province.

With between 70 and 80 bars and restaurants on the customer list, the company’s hard cider continues to exploit a lucrative market for locally made and sourced craft brews.

“We only sell to bars and restaurants at this point. They’re all over Ontario, from Thunder Bay to Ottawa and London,” said Tariq Ahmed, the company’s founder and sole employee.

The basis for Revel Cider first started fermenting during Ahmed’s time as a farm hand. An old cider press in one of the farm’s outbuildings peaked his interest, so he started brewing as a hobby. That hobby became Revel Cider in March 2013. Continue reading →

Ontario technology makes single serve coffee more environmentally friendly

mike-tiessen-left-and-atul-bali-right-webBy Lilian Schaer for AgInnovation Ontario

Leamington – A unique partnership involving a local biopolymer compounding company, technology from the University of Guelph and a food packaging company could make single serve coffee pod garbage a thing of the past.

Competitive Green Technologies of Leamington is working with the world’s leading single serve coffee brand owners on a recyclable and compostable version of the single serve coffee pod.

Its key structural components are made from bio-composites using biomass like coffee chaff, a waste stream of the coffee industry. Other biomass such as corn fiber, bio-carbon and miscanthus are also used, ensuring added markets for agriculture. Continue reading →

The discovery that could transform Canada’s wine industry

End of Season growth - Sharifi - webBy Lilian Schaer for AgInnovation Ontario

Peterborough, Ontario – Although Canada is home to internationally award-winning wines, the cold winters and short growing season are a constant challenge. The solution is one that has never been tried with wine grapes before until now: moving production indoors.

That’s what Dr. Mehdi Sharifi, a Canada Research Chair in sustainable agriculture and professor at Trent University’s School of the Environment, has been working on.

And it could change the entire future of Canada’s wine industry, including dramatically expanding organic wine production. Continue reading →

Creating a cancer-fighting ice syrup

Jeff Stuart Biologist at Brock University - web
By Lilian Schaer for AgInnovation Ontario

St Catharines – Researchers at Brock University have teamed up with a local firm to add potential cancer-fighting health benefits to their sweet ice syrup.

Biologist Jeff Stuart is working to extract antioxidants from the grape skins left behind after ice wine and ice syrup are made in order to put them back into to the ice syrup as an additive.

“Ice syrup is a sweet and very fruity syrup that is produced from ice wine grapes, but without fermentation. It’s non-alcoholic and sold as a high end food flavour enhancer,” says Stuart of the product made by Sweet and Sticky, the syrup’s Niagara Falls manufacturer that received a Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence for its innovation. Continue reading →