The year is 1948. Gary Pillitteri is 12. He crosses the Atlantic, leaving his mother and four siblings behind in Italy, ready to learn a new language, adapt to new customs, and tend to his dad’s fruit farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
He had no way of knowing that the small fruit farm his father had just purchased was sitting on rich deposits of shale, limestone, and sandy loam. He didn’t know that the long hot summers and cold sharp winters were part of a globally unique microclimate. He didn’t know that their small roadside fruit stand would turn into one of Canada’s most celebrated wineries. And he most certainly didn’t know that he would be harvesting grapes in the dark of night, in the middle of winter, by hand. He collected frozen grapes for Canada’s first Icewine harvest, he was the first to grow the Amarone varietals in North America, and he was the first wine producer in the world to be an official sponsor of a National Olympic team.
Gary’s grandchildren now run the winery started by their pioneering grandfather. You will find the Pillitteris at 43.25 degrees north, compared to the family’s native Sicily on the 37th parallel. It is the 802-foot-deep Lake Ontario and the speed of the Niagara River as it rushes to Niagara Falls, just an hour east of the winery, that allows grapes to thrive this far north. Gentle sloping east- and south-facing vineyards on ancient glacial soils capture the warmth of the Canadian sun during the day with their electric acidity preserved from the cool lakeside breezes of crisp Ontario nights. This unique terroir produces world-class Riesling, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc grapes along with carefully selected Italian varietals and the ever-charming new world Vidal to produce crisp whites, complex reds, and cellar-worthy dessert and ‘Appassimento’ Amarone-inspired wines.
Most unique to Pillitteri is the making of wine from late harvest’s frozen grapes. Each frozen grape yields mere drops of decadently sweet, bracingly crisp and deeply aromatic nectar. For comparison, the amount of grapes it takes to make a case of table wine will not even yield a full two bottles of Icewine. Sold in 35 countries around the world and tasted by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, Pillitteri is well beyond the bounds of dessert wine. The winery’s restaurant serves an entire Icewine-based cocktail list in the summer. And you have not truly lived until you taste Pillitteri Icewine with a washed rind cheese, salumi, Korean Fried Chicken or a bacon & egg blue-cheese burger. We can all be grateful for young Gary’s crossing and the legacy he left behind.
Pillitteri Estates Winery
