The Rural Voice, 2003-10, Page 12CANADA
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8 THE RURAL VOICE
Robert Mercer
Making wine with aid of bulk milk coolers
Robert
Mercer was
editor of the
Broadwater
Market Letter
and
commentator
for 25 years.
I got quite a shock when I visited
the specialty fruit winery in
Markdale, Newfoundland. There,
lining the whole side of the
processing building were a series of
Targe 2,000 gallon milk coolers —
with all the familiar farm milk house
names. But rather than cooling milk,
they were keeping batches of
specialty wild fruits and berries warm
in the fermentation process for wine
making.
Rodrigues Winery in Markdale
was an unexpected pleasure to visit.
It is tucked away off the Trans-
Canada Highway a few kilometres
west of St. John's in an old cottage
hospital. I didn't know there was a
winery in Newfoundland, so we took
a special half day trip to visit this
anomaly.
Founded in 1993, it was
Newfoundland's first winery. Ten
years later, and after three major
expansions, it is the proud producer
of fruit wines and liqueurs based on
hand-picked and freshly harvested
island fruits and berries.
In the first year Dr. Hilary
Rodrigues, (a practicing dentist)
produced 300 cases of local -based
wines. f heae were all sold out in the
first 10 days. Now the winery
produces over 25,000 cases of wines
a year. It sells nationally and
internationally with a special
emphasis on catering to the kosher
trade in both Toronto and New York.
Another first for Rodrigues
Winery was the establishment of
Newfoundland's first distillery in
2001. (The locals describe it as
Newfoundland's first legal
distillery!").
The products from the distillery
range from plum and pear brandies to
black currant and cloudberry
liqueurs. The latter is an apricot -
coloured product made from the
cloudberry or bakeapple berry that is
a product of the local peat bogs.
When we visited the winery and
wine shoppe, we tasted the full range
of the wine products many of which
had won national and international
competitions in the fruit wine
category.
We purchased a couple of bottles
of the Exotique Wild Cloudberry
made from the bakeapple. It has a
very distinct and different taste which
we felt would go well with desserts.
These fruit wines, we were told,
should be consumed within four
years as they do not mature in the
same manner as grape wines.
Another specialty wine from
Rodrigues was the lingonberry or
partridgeberry. This is a red berry and
a member of the northern cranberry
family which grows low to the
ground in the open barren areas of
Newfoundland and Labrador. This
berry is promoted for its high anti-
oxidant and vitamin C content.
The newest venture for this
company is bottled "Iceberg Water".
The ice is "harvested" from the
icebergs that float past or get stranded
on the beaches of Newfoundland.
Blocks and chips are broken off the
iceberg and hauled to the plant. When
it arrives at the winery it is stored in
vast holding tanks to melt, be filtered
and then bottled. These tanks are so
big that the last plant expansion had
to build the roof almost as high as a
cathedral.
Although this current iceberg
water project is for another label,
Rodrigues Winery is in the process of
using its distilling process and
iceberg expertise to produce and
market an Iceberg Vodka.
The winery which employs 5 to 8
people, prides itself in having berries
and fruits grown in a "true pollution -
free environment of clean soil,
clean air and clean water". And
that is something Newfoundland
and Labrador can boast about and
enjoy.0