It might seem premature to use the term “classic” in reference to Prince Edward County, one of the newest wine regions in the world. Even to many in Ontario this region might be a recently discovered gem. To some farther afield in Canada and abroad it is a barely known at all — and is still confused with Prince Edward Island. Surely too young to have “classics”? But it is now 30 years since the first plantings, and I have been an engaged observer for almost that long.
The trouble with aging — me, not wine — is having too much history. I will try to keep this short and to the points, of which there are two. One is that the style of wine being made in PEC has been evident since day one. The County has a clear sense of place. The second is that not much has changed about the County ethos in almost 30 years, nor the sense of pastoral and historical connection that enthralls visitors, and moves them to get involved. Many have relocated their lives there, but most large wineries have stayed away because the margins are too low.
So here, as 2026 dawns — and to quote David Bryne of Talking Heads — it is the same as it ever was. Therefore, perhaps, “classic.”
A Personal PEC Retrospective
I was writing about wine for The Globe and Mail in 1998 when I heard about nascent vineyard plantings in Prince Edward County, a large, jigsaw-puzzle piece of land jutting into Lake Ontario south of Trenton and Belleville. It has over 800 kilometres of shoreline encircled by Lake Ontario to the west and south, and the Bay of Quinte and to the east and north. The eight-kilometre Murray Canal, finished in 1889 at Carrying Place at the northwest corner, connects the Bay of Quinte to Lake Ontario, making PEC technically an island. But I hesitate to call it an island because Canada already has a Prince Edward Island.
I went to the County to investigate, gathering the handful of growers to tell their stories and espouse their beliefs that this was a region crammed with potential to make pinot noirs that might one-day echo Burgundy. Similar latitude at 44 degrees north and the same limestone soils — even more concentrated than in Burgundy, in some places with less than a foot of topsoil before limestone bedrock reveals itself. There is no soil like this in North America that I have experienced.
The assembled growers included Niagara viticulturalist Deborah Paskus planting what would become the Closson Chase winery. Frank magazine journalist Geoff Heinricks had planted a trial acre in Hillier in 1995 and would go on to help found Keint-He and write a great book called A Fool and His Forty Acres – Conjuring a Vineyard 3,000 Miles from Burgundy. There was Mike Peddelsden who would open his own winery on Greer Road, what is now Casa Dea, then move over to help establish The Grange of Prince Edward, to which he returned in 2023. There was also Ed Neuser who would open the County’s first winery — Waupoos — in 2001.
That meeting — which may have been the first among these growers — also included a phone interview with then federal Minister of Agriculture Lyle Vanclief, who was also the MP for the riding now called Hastings-Lennox and Addington-Tyendinaga, that encompasses the County. His presence added gravitas to the notion that something special might be happening in the County wine-wise. Historically, this was an apple belt, and though moderated by Lake Ontario, the winters were deemed too cold for tender vinifera (European) vines. Hilling up to insulate the vines, or more recently covering them with textile blankets, remains necessary.
On a subsequent trip I vividly and olfactorily remember visiting Ed and Rita Neuser’s Waupoos Estate Winery. On the deck of his boathouse on Smith Bay he opened an unlabeled estate-grown 1999 Vidal, planted in 1993, that possessed this wonderful textural elegance and minerality that I still find in most County wines. It may have been the very first bottling of County wine in the modern commercial era. (There were some earlier hobby ventures in the eighties.)
I visited often over the next five years as wineries began opening in the early 2000s — The Grange of Prince Edward, Rosehall Run, Closson Chase, Huff Estates, Peddlesden and Long Dog. In 2005 I moved from Toronto to Belleville to be closer to the action and, after a couple of years, organized a PEC wine competition called Artevino in cooperation with Carol Feeney of the Quinte Arts Council, and sommeliers Andrew Laliberte and Astrid Young, who had helped build a wine program at a Belleville restaurant called Capers that still exists on Front Street. During this period the culinary scene in County towns like Picton, Bloomfield and Wellington was expanding lock-stepped with the wine scene. The star chef was Order of Canada recipient Jamie Kennedy, who left Toronto to purchase a property and plant vines in Hillier.
By 2007 Prince Edward County had reached 500 acres of vineyard, thus qualifying for official status as a VQA wine region. There had been local debate about calling the VQA appellation Quinte. As with Niagara, this is an Indigenous name. I also advocated for this name because it was a shorter, more memorable and exotic one that wouldn’t be confused with Prince Edward Island. But this is staunch United Empire Loyalist country and the loyalists were being loyal. (Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, had a law office in Picton in his early career.) Nowadays, in Ontario wine circles at least, it is just called “The County” or PEC.
In 2010 I moved back to Toronto to escape the frequent 200 kilometre commutes as WineAlign was gathering steam. The number of wineries kept growing, hitting almost 40 until Covid wreaked its tourism havoc. On top of which, commercially, the County has never been easy. Viticulture is painstaking to say the least, and yields are low (which, on the plus side, amplifies wine quality). So no one is getting rich making wine here. The wineries have stayed small and family-owned, except for Arterra’s purchase of Sandbanks Winery in 2020, which last year welcomed over 400,000 visitors. PEC is probably still better known for the largest inland dunes in eastern North America in Sandbanks Provincial Park.
Since 2010 I have kept in continuous touch through many visits, and by attending tastings in Toronto through the 2010s called County in the City. In November 2025 I felt particularly re-connected when asked to participate in the Judgement of Kingston.
The Judgement of Kingston 2025
Created by Kingston Royal Military College professor emeritus Lubomyr Luciuk, who founded the Royal Winers tasting group, this is a charitable event raising funds for food-security projects in Kingston, which lies 30 minutes east of the County (if you catch the Glenora Ferry on time). The premise was to conduct blind tastings of County chardonnays and pinot noirs versus various global examples. The paying customers taste blind and pronounce a “People’s Choice” winner. A panel of expert judges do their own expert judgment.
After years of scheduling conflicts, I was able to attend in 2025 and delighted to join the expert panel with friend and colleague Geoff Heinricks (mentioned above, and often herein), MJ McDonald of the Cellar Sisters and Decanter PEC wine bar in Wellington, and Astrid Young, sommelier and musician (Neil Young’s sister), who was involved at Capers restaurant in Belleville way back when.
The 2025 Judgement ditched the notion of comparison with other regions, signalling confidence that we no longer need to do so in order to feel good about ourselves — which is so true and so necessary, and very much the new way of thinking in Canada. The People’s Choice and Experts Choice Chardonnay was the Last House Hillier Blanc 130 2023 reviewed below. The People’s Choice Pinot Noir was Stanners 2022 (now sold out, so the 2023 is reviewed below). The Experts Choice was Broken Stone The One 2023 which is already reviewed in my post on Canada’s Exciting Pinot Noirs.
Recent Vintages in Prince Edward County
Before turning to the 10 selections in this post, a word on the 2023 vintage in Prince Edward County, represented by many of the wines below. According to VQA –—Ontario’s Wine Appellation Authority — “Spring arrived with a slightly delayed bud break, attributed to a cooler-than-average start. However, a warm and dry summer, with consistent sunshine, facilitated optimal grape maturation. This was followed by a mild and extended fall, allowing for a gradual harvest and optimal ripening across different varietals.”
This describes a very typical pattern in the County, at least in the past five years — usually a slower start in the spring, hot, often dry summers, and a decent autumn harvest period lasting well into October. Only in 2021 did significant autumn rainfall muck up the harvest, but the chardonnay and pinot noir did ripen fairly well before that happened. The County is actually drier on average than Niagara during the growing season, and often quite windy, which reduces disease pressure. The real blessing over the past five years, that might be driven by global warming, is that there have been no winter freeze events, or late post-bud-break spring frosts. Knock on wood.
I actually prefer vintages in PEC that are not too hot and ripe. I prize the natural elegance and minerality that can be downplayed if alcohol and fruit levels are elevated, as happened a bit in 2022. But I know that others do prefer this richer profile. In any case 2023 fits this PEC profile window to a tee and should please just about everyone. And 2024, which is just starting to appear on the market, is being called even better than 2023, if with a reduced crop due to smaller berry size, which should mean more flavour depth. Let’s go.
