by Susan Desjardins

The weekend of September 20, 2014 found the Muskokas drowned in over 100mm of rain—beaver dams gave way, golf courses flooded and water, water everywhere. What to do when your tee times go, literally, down the drain? Head for the small hamlet of Bala and find your way to Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh, home of Muskoka Lakes Winery.

The marsh is open year round offering a fascinating walking tour that provides great education into the production of cranberries, one of Canada’s few native fruits. No, they don’t grow in water. The ideal cranberry marsh is dug from a peat-based soil with a stream or river nearby. The woody vines, growing low to the ground, are systematically flooded in spring to discourage insects and disease, allowing berries grow dry through the summer with the marsh flooded once again in the fall to float the berries for harvest. 

Orville Johnston, who studied agriculture at my alma mater, McGill University, dreamed of a thriving cranberry industry so he bought ideal land in the Muskokas and dug the first marsh in the late 1950s. His son, Murray, studied agriculture at Guelph University and to this day carries on the cranberry-marsh tradition with his family. He and his wife—her family owned Gooderham and Worts Distillery and her fascination with wine leading her to train as a sommelier—established Muskoka Lakes Winery in 2000 with a goal to ‘take locally grown fruit and use traditional methods to craft artisanal wine.’ Their Cranberry, Cranberry-Blueberry and Red Maple dessert wine are medal winners at the Canadian Wine Championships and available at the LCBO.

Muskoka Lakes Winery Cranberry-Blueberry Wine 2013
Product of Canada $16.95 (609719) 10.5% alcohol
Equal portions of cranberries and local wild blueberries are fermented together to produce a tangy, off-dry wine that offers silky texture and fine berry aromas and flavours. It’s crisp and lively, the sweet fruit persisting on the palate, elusive notes of dried herbs and nut lingering on the finish. Slightly chilled, this wine is a pleasant sipper but also a great match for roast turkey or chicken. (Susan Desjardins)

  
Muskoka Lakes Winery Red Maple 2012
Product of Canada $23.95 (50039) (375ml) 15.0% alcohol
This fortified dessert-wine treat adds maple syrup to the cranberry wine after fermentation. The fruit shines through, with interesting notes of smoke, earth and spice. It’s lush, sweet and fresh in texture; the purity of the cranberry and its zesty acidity shines through. This is a great marriage of the mouth-filling sweetness of maple and crisp tartness of cranberry. Enjoy with a chocolate dessert. (Susan Desjardins)

There is a $1.00 per bottle discount from the price shown for the following wine until January 4, 2015

  
Muskoka Lakes Winery Cranberry Wine 2013
Product of Canada $15.95 (609701) 9.5% alcohol
Off-dry and fruit forward, this wine is true to its source, with aromas and flavours of lively fresh cranberry. Fermented in stainless to showcase the fruit, it’s light-medium bodied, tangy in texture and zesty through the refreshing finish. With turkey, of course!! (Susan Desjardins)