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Glen Duff
 
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I can probably give you a knowledgeable answer to your query.

I believe the "wine kit" industry was literally started in Vancouver, B.C.
by a gentleman by the name of Stanley Anderson in the late 60's through a
company called WineArt. My wife opened his second store (New Westminster,
B.C.), his original store I think was on West 10th Avenue in Vancouver. He
was an interesting and enterprising man who made more than a few Canadian
shekels on the whole operation.

The popularity of making wine from kits boomed, especially across Canada.
It was of course, a simple, recipe approach that simplified the whole
process of winemaking but was really driven by the fact that wine and all
booze was, and still is, extremely expensive due to our high taxes on all
alcoholic beverages (and anything else the bureaucracy here can get there
hands on). Once established the kits in Canada improved from the original
concentrating process as the first ones tasted quite cooked. Also, the
original grapes used were not always the best but soon the process and the
grapes improved through California and european sources as well as greatly
improved vinifera grapes available in the Okanagan valley of B.C. and the
Niagara penninsula in Ontario.

It was very interesting times as the methods used by the large immigrant
population in Canada that brought traditional european winemaking,
especially the Italian community, was somewhat frowned upon as they had the
audacity to begin by crushing grapes, using barrels and other
non-conventional means (at least according to the recipe approach)!!!

I think we've now learned that everything they did was not so stupid.

Cheers,

Glen Duff
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"geo" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Our friendly neighborhood brewer's supplier has raised its prices,
> supposedly because the weak dollar is making it more expensive to buy
> wine kits from Canada. That got me wondering why the wine kit industry
> seems to be almost entirely based in Canada. Wine is one of the larger
> industries in California. You'd think that some of the vineyards in
> Napa or the central valley would try marketing grapes in the form of
> wine kits. (Sounds like a natural for Bronco - How do you follow two
> buck chuck?)
>
> Is there some regulation that makes it difficult for American vineyards
> to produce wine kits?
>