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Wine region

Ontario

Ontario is a wine region in Canada, home to 138 wineries, producing red, rose, white wines, known for Ice Wine, Vidal Blanc.

Ontario at a glance: roughly split white/red; known for Ice Wine, Vidal Blanc.
On this page

Ontario's 138 wineries make roughly equal white and red wine; Cabernet Franc is the most common single-grape bottling; wines carry VQA designation.

About the Ontario region

    Location
    Ontario wine is Canadian wine produced in the province of Ontario.
    Climate
    All three official wine growing regions in Ontario rely on either Lake Ontario or Lake Erie as a moderator for air temperature.
    Soils
    The soil in the three region is all made of loose gravely soil, laying atop Trenton Limestone, and having been deposited there during the retreat of earlier proglacial lakes, or through earlier glacial events that eroded the surrounding…
    Distinctive
    The Niagara Escarpment is a notable geographic feature of the region, rising 177 metres (581 ft) above sea level, and is used to provide slopes, and elevations, for the cultivation of different wines.

Region facts sourced from Wikipedia contributors, "Ontario wine", Wikipedia, revision 1360166748, retrieved 2026-07-11. (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International).

Characteristic grapes

Ontario is best known for Ice Wine, Vidal Blanc. The most-bottled single-varietal wines here are Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Riesling. Ontario's signature grapes often go into blends, so single-grape bottlings skew toward other varieties.

Wine styles from Ontario

Most common single-grape wines

When Ontario wines are made from a single grape (rather than a blend), these are the most common:

Wine profile

Ontario is roughly split, making substantial white (50%) and red (43%) wine.

1,448 distinct Ontario wines tracked, spanning the colours and styles below.

  • White722 · 50%
  • Red626 · 43%
  • Rose99 · 7%

Types: Sparkling, Still.

Representative Ontario wines

Selected from stable product-to-region relationships for diversity — not a claim that these are the region's best wines.

  • de Simone Vineyards — Sparkling Vidal Blanc
  • Rockway Vineyards — Small Lot Syrah
  • Inniskillin — Reserve Cabernet Franc
  • Featherstone Estate Winery — Sauvignon Blanc
  • Commisso — Riesling
  • Thirty Bench — Riesling Icewine
  • Commisso — Pinot Gris
  • Palatine Hills — Lakeshore Red

Sub-regions & appellations

Within Ontario, these appellationsA legally-defined smaller growing area within a wine region, often with its own grapes and rules. are smaller growing areas, often with their own character:

  • Niagara Peninsula
  • Niagara-on-the-Lake
  • Beamsville Bench
  • Prince Edward County
  • Twenty Mile Bench
  • Lake Erie North Shore
  • Lincoln�Lakeshore
  • Four Mile Creek
  • Niagara River
  • Niagara Escarpment
  • Niagara Lakeshore
  • St. David's Bench

Quality designations

Wines here carry VQA status — a controlled quality designation.

  • VQAVintners Quality Alliance — Canada's appellation system guaranteeing origin and standards.

Canada wine designations

BC VQA
BC VQA is British Columbia’s regulated appellation-of-origin certification system and includes minimum quality requirements.
IGP Vin du Québec
IGP Vin du Québec is the Quebec protected geographical indication recognised in 2018 for qualifying still, sparkling and liqueur wines sold under its approved specification.
VQA
Ontario VQA is a regulated wine-of-origin certification program covering origin, composition, laboratory testing, sensory review and label integrity.
Understanding the wine data
Designation
The protected-origin or administrative category associated with the wine, interpreted using country-aware rules. The same abbreviation can mean different things in different countries, so we only show the meaning approved for that country.
How this ranking is built

Producers are included when WhatDrink has a canonical producer-to-region relationship supported by the catalogue data. Display order may use represented wine count and relationship confidence to provide useful coverage; it is not a ranking of winery quality, prestige, production volume or critical acclaim.

Representative wines are selected from products with a stable relationship to this region, with preference for clear producer identity and a useful spread of producers, wine styles and designations. Inclusion is not an editorial score and does not mean these are the region’s best wines.

Explore Ontario

Ways to browse Ontario — each count is the size of that specific collection (a subset of the 1,448 wines tracked above):

  • White Ontario (136)
  • Red Ontario (93)
  • Rose Ontario (27)

How to choose a good Ontario wine

Look for the VQA designation — it signals a controlled-origin Ontario wine.

FAQs

Where is Ontario?
Ontario wine is Canadian wine produced in the province of Ontario .
Which grapes are associated with Ontario?
Ontario is represented in the WhatDrink region dataset by Cabernet Franc, Riesling, Vidal, Vidal Blanc. Grape coverage reflects the products currently linked to the region and is not a complete legal planting register.
What do the designation terms on Ontario wines mean?
VQA: Ontario VQA is a regulated wine-of-origin certification program covering origin, composition, laboratory testing, sensory review and label integrity. These terms describe geographical or regulatory categories; they do not by themselves guarantee that one producer or bottle is better than another.
How are wineries and producers selected for Ontario?
Producers are included when WhatDrink has a canonical producer-to-region relationship supported by the catalogue data. Display order may use represented wine count and relationship confidence to provide useful coverage; it is not a ranking of winery quality, prestige, production volume or critical acclaim.
How are representative Ontario wines selected?
Representative wines are selected from products with a stable relationship to this region, with preference for clear producer identity and a useful spread of producers, wine styles and designations. Inclusion is not an editorial score and does not mean these are the region’s best wines.
How much wine data does WhatDrink have for Ontario?
The current regional catalogue contains 1448 linked wines from 138 linked producers. Counts describe WhatDrink catalogue coverage and may change as source data is refreshed.

Regional data is aggregated from wine directory and product-catalogue sources; grape and style associations reflect characteristic varieties and may vary by producer and vintage.