On Friday evening, our co-founder Carolyn Hurst sat down with CTV News to talk about something remarkable that has happened in Ontario wine country over the past sixteen months.
Since March 2025, when Ontario wine drinkers began reaching for local bottles in earnest, Westcott's sales at the LCBO have grown six-fold. Visits to the winery are up twenty per cent. And we are not alone: the LCBO reports Ontario VQA wine sales have climbed 44 per cent across the board in the past year!
"Every dollar that's been spent on an Ontario wine, and on a Westcott wine, has gone right back into the province of Ontario."
— Carolyn Hurst, co-founder, Westcott VineyardsHere is what that looks like on the ground at 3180 Seventeenth Street. This season we are replanting and investing in our vineyards across our two properties on the Twenty Mile Bench and Vinemount Ridge, growing the estate by a third. We are in the permitting process for a new building to keep pace with demand. Every one of those vines, and every hour of work that goes into them, exists because you chose a bottle from down the road over one from far away.
Many of the people who found us for the first time this year have told Carolyn the same thing: this isn't a phase for them. They've discovered what grows an hour from Toronto, and they're staying. We think the past year has changed how Canadians see their own wine country, permanently.
So this post isn't a victory lap. It's a thank-you note. To everyone who picked up a Westcott Chardonnay at the LCBO, drove down to the patio on a Saturday, joined the club, or poured our Pinot for friends and said "you won't believe this is from Niagara," you did this. We're excited for the future and grateful for your support.
The new 2026 vines are in the ground now. Come and see what you've helped grow.
