Red wines love to sit in the bottle, generally they don’t get old and sour like Aunt Lorna. Wines smooth out over time releasing their tartaric acid, and mellowing to show all its true colours. Generally speaking you will notice the biggest difference in your red wine after the first 6 months, but they will continue to change after that. If you open a bottle, and don’t really love it, try it again in a few months. We have some “Big Red’s” that really benefit from aging, and we have some others that are really friendly and can be enjoyed right away. Most whites and rosé’s do not require aging, but they certainly will still benefit from it.

By in large, you can drink it when you like it, even when it’s freshly bottled.

After bottling with us it is best to leave your bottles upright for 2 weeks to allow any pressure to slowly release through the cork, after that, best practice is to lay your bottles on their side. You’ll want to keep them stored on their side for the remainder of their lifetime, reason being, it prevents the corks from drying out, becoming brittle, and compromising your wine.

Keeping your wines in place that is cool and a moderately consistent temperature, like a basement or cool room. Avoid long term storage in places like a garage, or above the fridge.

All our wines make between 28-30 bottles of wine. If you’re not wanting to commit to a whole batch of one wine (and want to experiment with a few), or just like to have a few around the house for gifts or company, we suggest a group share.

Get a group of 3 together, and you can share a batch between you (9 to 10 bottles each). Or, split 3 wines between your group and you still end up with about 30 bottles, but you get 9 to 10 of each variety. A nice way to explore more of the wines we carry.

Looking at getting into fruit wines? Yes, we can turn your fruit into wine, just not yet. Some of you may know, I purchased North Vines in May 2022, and fruit wines was something on the training list that we didn’t quite get to, but we will! Hopefully by fall 2023 we will be offering fruit wines again!

You need 25-30lbs of frozen fruit to produce 23L of wine.

Great question, I get antsy too!

Mangrove Jack Ciders: 4 Weeks

Breezin’ Fruit wines: 5 Weeks

Cru International Wines: 6 Weeks

Cru Select & En Primeur White Wines: 7 weeks

Cru Select & En Primeur Red Wines: 8 Weeks

Nope.

Just give yourself some time to come into the shop, look around, ask more questions, and select your wine variety. The actual making process takes less than 5 minutes, and you’re a certified wine maker.

You will need to book an appointment to bottle your wine.

You bet, we love that in our line of business we can create less waste. Most wine bottles can be re-used, even screw top bottles can be corked.

In order to use your commercial bottles however, you must remove (or at least deface) the original label.

Most of the labels that we supply are easily removable.

If you do not have bottles, we stock 750ml green & clear bottles, as well as 375ml green & clear.

Never bottled wine before? We’ve got you! We will give you a step by step tutorial on how to clean,, bottle, cork, label & shrink your bottles. First timer’s can expect to be here for 45 minutes.

If you’re here, I’m assuming that you already enjoy some kind of wine, or at least know elements that you like and don’t like.

We’ll ask questions like:

What kind of wine do you buy from the liquor store? - Whether it be a brand, a specific type or blend, or region.

Do you like wine that is full bodied? really in your face? Or something a little lighter and crisp?

We will ask all kinds of questions to steer you in the right direction. We have a booklet that details each of our wines flavour profiles and dry/sweet scale. We want you to be 100% satisfied with your wine.

Well, Sugar we sure do!

The Orchard Breezin’ line is a fruit centred wine that is 75% wine & 25% fruit juice with only 9% ABV (alcohol by volume).

With flavours like Peach Perfection, Strawberry Sensation & Rockin Raspberry Rosé…they taste just like they sound, light, sweet, and delicious.

Great on their own, and perfect for summer. Add a splash of soda water and lime, or mix with ice, and tequila for a fancy summer Margarita. Freeze them in an icecube tray and blend with other juices to make a delicious summer slush…The Breezin’s are a summer treat!

Congratulations, you struck gold…well, DIAMONDS! WINE DIAMONDS!

I can only imagine the look on your face, probably the same as mine when I first found wine diamonds.

According to “how it’s made”, “Wine diamonds are considered a sign of quality, at least in the eyes of sommeliers and wine makers who say their presence indicates that a wine hasn't been over-processed.”

Wine diamonds are not uncommon, either. "Tartrate crystals are as natural to wine as seeds are to a watermelon," Master of Wine and Master Sommelier Ronn Wiegand said in a statement for California's Jordan Winery.