AWAKENING A PRAIRIE INDUSTRY NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE ... Manitoba's Vineyard BY WILLOWS CHRISTOPHER I f you know anything about Manitoba, you know it has a reputation for being cold. If you know anything about wine grapes and viticulture,
you know that vines conventionally have trouble growing and surviving in cold regions. So it might come as a surprise that we launched a vineyard in the heart of Manitoba, thousands of kilome- tres away from any others. Our farm, located in southern Manitoba’s Pembina Valley, is surrounded by endless fields of wheat, canola, corn and cattle. SO HOW DID WE GET HERE? I founded a winery with my business partner and childhood friend Zach Isaacs in our hometown of Winnipeg when we each pitched in $25 to buy a jug and some fruit. At the time, I was 18 years old and didn’t know any- thing about wine other than I liked drinking it, and that was the extent of my knowledge of the industry.
THE SHRUGGING DOCTOR VINEYARD Photo courtesy of Shrugging Doctor
We opened Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company to the public on Jan. 21, 2017, when I was just 20 years old. When we first started sell- ing products, we only had rudimen- tary versions of our apple cider, hon- ey wine and a couple other products we have since discontinued. Several months after the launch, we released a line of Prairie fruit wines as well. I still remember the call we got shortly after we were first featured in a Winnipeg Free Press newspaper article. When I picked up the busi- ness line, I began hearing the story of an ambitious orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Jeff Engel, who had purchased land in Manitoba’s scenic Pembina Valley, about 90 minutes south of Winnipeg. He had seen our story in the paper and was interested in making a deal. “Are you interested in making wine from Manitoba-grown grapes?” he asked. Now, I had heard of grape vari- etals such as Concord or Valiant
that grow wild in Manitoba but, in my opinion, they make much better jam than they do wine and would be untenable for our business. “Real wine grapes,” he clarified. My response that day was the same question I’ve been posed thousands of times over the past 10 years: “We can grow wine grapes in Manitoba?” Dr. Engel described his vineyard project as a “hobby gone wrong.” He had planted two acres of grapes to make wine at home, but they proved to be too much to manage and the farm became overgrown. Led by Zach, our team took over the vine- yard completely in 2018 and we’ve been maintaining it ever since. Of course, none of the grapes we grow are the typical varietals that you would have heard of. Merlot and Chardonnay would have a hard time surviving the Manitoba winter. All the grapes growing at our vineyard are hybrids of vitis vinifera, the same species of “normal” wine grapes. These grapes have been hybridized
JAN. 24, 2017, ISSUE OF THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
12 | SPRING 2026 | SAVOUR MANITOBA
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