Inniskillin
Canada's Grand Estates
In 1971 Donald Ziraldo recieved a degree in Agriculture fom the University of Guelph. He then operated a family nursery specializing in grapevives and fruit trees.
Karl Kaiser a native Austrian who met and married a Canadian woman moved to Canada. He obtained a degree in Chemistry from Brock University and began making wine at home. One fateful day Karl went to Ziraldo's Nursery to buy some grapevines.
After sharing a bottle of homemade wine they decided to apply for a wine licence something that had not been issued in Ontario since 1929. They were granted the licence on JUly 31 1975, establishing Inniskillin Wine Co in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Their ambition produced outstanding wines from grapes grown on the Niagara Peninsula.
The first Inniskillin winery was housed in a old packing shed at the family nursery, two kilometres (km) from the current location, the barn. Inniskillin's vineyard is called The Brae Burn Estate. "Brae Burn" is of Gaelic origin and translates literally as "Hill Stream" referring to the Niagara Escarpment and the Niagara River.
