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ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITORPHOTOS BY STEVE PELLERIN

It may come as bit of a surprise for some wine aficionados, but the key ingredient for the tasty drink is not limited exclusively to red or green

grapes. In fact, it can actually be derived from any fermented fruit via the natural chemical process that converts the fruit’s sugars into alcohol—a pro-cess that has been part of human history possibly for as long as 8,000 years.

A little closer to home in 1988, an early cold snap in Quebec left grapes frozen on the vine, leaving many local wine producers crying in their empty cups.

Bad luck aside, one plucky grape farmer tried to make wine anyways, and came up with the happy accident dubbed “ice wine,” although it wasn’t until 1996 that the concept became widely accepted and respected in the established wine industry circles.

And although apples have long been drunk as juice and as a non-alcoholic cider beverage, apple wine simply did not possess the same cache as its grape cousin—until now.

Tracing its origins to Germany and Austria, apple wine has often been dismissed by purists as being too sour or tart, remaining a largely ignored niche product that never really caught the fancy of the global wine-loving audience.

But thanks once again to either Quebec ingenu-ity or fortuitous bad luck with the weather, a Dunham, Que.-based cider processor named Christian Barthomeuf created the world’s first ice cider in 1990, managing to get it stocked in various Quebec shops six years later.

In a mere 17 years, ice cider has become a very popular alcohol beverage in the province of Quebec, nowadays counting some 60 cideries try-ing to make inroads into the niche market.

But that’s not what drew Charles Crawford into the industry—it was vacation planning.

Back in 2000, Crawford and his wife Susan Reid were searching for a summer home when they drove through the village of Frelighsburg, a pic-turesque tableau situated less than four kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border with Vermont, in a valley of apple orchards at the foot of Mount Pinnacle on the Quebec side.

After spying and then purchasing a local farm-house that was built in 1859, Crawford wondered what they could do with the 430-acre apple orchard that was originally planted in the 1920s.

Weekend RetreatMuch like having a metaphorical apple fall on his head, Crawford was struck with the idea of getting involved in the ice cider business—a side project that he could amuse himself with on the weekends when he and his family would become urban refu-gees from the nearby metropolis of Montreal.

“It was just supposed to be something to do with all of the apples on the property—it wasn’t sup-posed to become a full-time passion,” Crawford told Canadian Packaging during a recent interview.

“Now my ice ciders have a 39 per cent market share across Quebec.”

In fact, Crawford’s entrepreneurship has taken his Domaine Pinnacle cidery to the upper ech-elons of not only the ice cider business, but also into creating unique varieties of maple whisky and premium gin—with the key factor being the use

of locally-grown, made-in-Canada ingredients that has not only translated into growing sales, but also caught the eyes and tastebuds of ice wine and blended spirits connoisseurs the world over, while winning many prestigious industry awards.

Leaving the suit and tie behind in the city, Crawford became a gentleman farmer, first selling a 2000 vintage Domaine Pinnacle Ice Cider in 2002.

Buoyed by its highly successful reception in alcohol beverage shops in Quebec, the family decided to make a permanent move into their ‘weekend home’ to take up the mantle of fulltime cidery operator.

After outgrowing the faram’s production capacity, Crawford purchased an existing 25,000-square-foot building in nearby Cowansville, Que., which now allows Domaine Pinnacle to produce and sell some 30,000 cases annually of its award-winning crop of ice cider brands and other spirits.

Crawford says that local history shows that his farmhouse actually used to be a stop on the famed Underground Railway escape route, which once offered a safe haven for American slaves looking for freedom up in Canada.

“And coming full circle, during the Prohibition era the farm house was also a meeting place for bootleggers of alcohol who would transport hooch down across the nearby U.S. border to the thirsty Americans,” reveals Crawford.

In a remarkably short period of time, Domaine

PICKOF THE

CROPQuebec orchard and cidery produces unique award-winning alcohol beverages that have purists purring

Using apples harvested after a spell of frost or a snowfall, Domaine Pinnacle cidery owner Charles Crawford has fol-lowed up on the award-winning success of his ice ciders by expanding into the infused whisky and gin markets.

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Pinnacle’s impressive range of alcohol beverages have garnered over 60 gold medals at many presti-gious national and international competitions.

“Our ice cider is produced from a select blend of six apple varieties grown in our orchard—some tart and some sweet—that we harvest after frost, ferment for eight months, blend for vintage, bot-tle and store for over a year to ensure the f lavours become more round,” explains Crawford.

The family-run Domaine Pinnacle produ-ces annual vintages of Domaine Pinnacle Ice Cider, Domaine Pinnacle Sparkling Ice Cider, Signature Réserve Spéciale Ice Cider, Verger Sud Still (spark-ling cider); Domaine Pinnacle Crème de Pommes, Réserve 1859 Domaine Pinnacle, Coureur des Bois Maple Whisky, Coureur des Bois Maple Cream, Coureur des Bois Maple Cider and Ungava Canadian Premium Gin.

“After the initial success of the ice ciders, we began to examine different ways to establish our-selves,” says Crawford, “so we formulated new products like our Crème de Pommes, featuring fresh cream, ice apple wine and apple brandy.”

Even with the plethora of awards beginning to crowd his shelves, Crawford understood that future growth of his young company could be stumped by a lack of primary ingredients.

“I love producing ice ciders and the other prod-ucts, but we are actually limited by acreage as to how much of it we can produce annually,” says Crawford, noting he is reluctant to purchase apples from outside sources because he can’t provide due quality assurance.

He continues: “So in an effort to find additional revenue streams, we began processing our own unique whisky blends featuring locally-produced premium-grade maple syrup with our Coureur des Bois brands,” he relates, “and then thought we should try something completely different.”

Not one to sit on his laurels, Crawford leaped outside his comfort zone of award-winning sweet beverage production he was known for to create a drink that would, again, be uniquely Canadian, namely the Ungava Canadian Premium Gin.

“I thought that spirits segment would be an interesting niche we could cultivate, as there really aren’t that many gin producers out there that truly possess a Canadian identity,” notes Crawford.

According to Crawford, who launched the product in 2010, “The first thing everyone notices about his gin is the bright, rich yellow color, which really makes them wonder what the heck it tastes like.”

Recently declared the world’s best gin, the novel Ungava spirit utilizes six all-Canadian botan-ical herbs unique to the northern Quebec arctic region: Wild Rose Hips, Arctic Blend, Cloudberry, Labrador Tea, Crowberry and Nordic Juniper,

with juniper berries being the key ingredient in the gin distilling process.

Beating out global competition, Ungava won a Platinum Best in Show award under the Flavored/Infused category at the prestigious World Spirits Awards held this past spring in San Francisco, with judges notes citing: ‘unique take on gin, with an unusual color that helps grab your senses.’

While historically there have been many gin brands possessing color, Crawford’s Ungava seems to be in a class all its own, arriving at its hue thanks to the choice of ingredients.

Wild Things “The wild rose hips—a fruit of the rose plant—is the chief reason for the yellow color, but truthfully, it’s the combination of all of the ingredients which gives it such a rich hue,” explains Crawford.

For Crawford, like in the creation of all his bev-erage recipes, the ingredients had to be Canadian, and in the case of the Ungava Canadian Premium Gin, it had to use ingredients that were present in Canada long before the arrival of the Europeans, who planted many non-native species of f lora.

Situated at the northern tip of Quebec, the Ungava region is covered in ice and snow for nine months of the year, having provided home to the Inuit and their ancestors for thousands of years.

In fact, the name Ungava is taken from the Inuit lan-guage Inuktitut, meaning “towards the open water.”

Because there is usually only a four-week win-dow to harvest the six key ingredients, Crawford says he hires two pickers from the northern village of Kuujjuaq to pick the botanicals some 1,500 kilo-meters north of the farm.

“These pickers are great,” says Crawford. “They get us everything we need, picking maybe 200

kilograms of the botanicals into clear bags.”In keeping true to its colors, Crawford has

imbued the labels for Ungava Gin with a label design that pays homage to the drink’s Inuit roots. The label itself is produced by Groupe Lelys Inc., a 50-year-old printing company located in Laval, Que.

“They did a great job on the label,” says Crawford, adding that Lachine-based Bruni Glass Packaging provides the glass bottles for the Ungava brand.

For the whisky and apple brand alcoholic bever-ages, Domaine Pinnacle relies on the services of the Sainte-Julie-based Imprimerie Saint Julie Inc., a family-operated label suppler with a pair of converting facilities that specializes in f lexographic and digital printing.

“We print a lot of labels for Domaine Pinnacle,” explains Imprimerie’s vice-president of sales and administration Caroline Fournier. “We have been producing labels for about 20 different products over the years.”

Fournier explains that the company she runs with her sister Marilène primarily uses a Hewlett-Packard (HP) WS6000 digital press, with an additional pass or two along a Galaxie press from SMAG Graphique to add little extras such as spot gloss varnish, hot-stamping, silkscreening and embossing—all key features that make the Domaine Pinnacle labels pop on the retail shelves.

The WS6000 can print up to seven colors and includes what HP describes as an “improved white” for printing on metallic label stock and f lexible packaging films.

HP’s SmartStream labels and packaging solutions runs on robust EskoArtwork software that allows for more efficient file processing, excellent color-

A close-up view of the SEW-Eurodrive motor that dis-trutes power to the AROL automatic capping system.

The energy-ef� cient, long-life SMVector variable-frquency drive supplied by Lenze Americas provides an ef� cient means of helping Domaine Pinnacle pump water from one � ltration tank system to another (background on right).

After capping, a Domaine Pinnacle employee hand-packs the bottles of � nished product inside wooden crates.

Imprimerie Saint Julie Inc. supplies full-color labels for the distiller’s Coureur des Bois Maple Cream liqueur.

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up controller capabilities, step-and-repeat work, and variable-data applications.

“We are a family-run business, and I believe customers like Domaine Pinnacle enjoy the more personal touch that we can bring to the table,” says Fournier.

“I think we have developed an excellent relation-ship with their marketing team, and we cite Domaine Pinnacle as our best example of product development, innovation and trust between customer and supplier.”

Although there are two other lines, the main bottle filler used by Domaine Pinnacle is a 12-head monoblock custom system manufactured by the Italian firm Eurostar, designed to clean the bot-tles before filling them, and to apply different caps styles as required.

Domaine Pinnacle also utilizes a special water treatment system to purify the water used in the

manufacture of its Ungava Gin brand. On this treatment system, an SMVector vari-

able-frequency drive (VFD) supplied by Lenze Americas helps to pump the water from one fil-tration tank to another.

Built for SpeedAccording to Lenze product leader Thomas Robbins, “The VFD is available in a wide var-iety of standard voltage and power ratings, and can be used for improved motion control of many applications.”

The SMEVector will also help reduce mechan-ical shock and large power surges to the motor, which can contribute to a longer life for the motor, Robbins adds.

“There is also the added benefit of better speed control, as infinite speed adjustments are possible with Lenze’s different input control methods,” explains Robbins.

The SME Vector that Domaine Pinnacle uses is actually a sensorless vec-tor drive, which means that there is no closed-loop feedback, allowing the motor to control the current more accurately.

According to Robbins, the actual SMEVector VFD used by Domaine Pinnacle is the com-

pany’s NEMA-4X enclosed drive which can be safely used in a washdown application.

Says Crawford: “I’m proud of the equipment we have purchased along the way: it has definitely played a big part in helping us produce our won-derful ice ciders and now maple-infused whiskey and gin beverages.

“By creating superior ice cider products, Domaine Pinnacle has helped grow the category not only here in Quebec, but also across Canada and in parts of the U.S. as well.

“In fact, we have a distributor who has success-fully helped us get our products to a whole new customer base in Europe and Asia, totalling about 50 countries worldwide,” he sums up.

“We are happy to welcome more thirsty con-noisseurs ready to take a big bite out of some tasty award-winning alcohol beverages.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE 113

For More Information:Groupe Lelys Inc. 480Bruni Glass Packaging 481Imprimerie Ste-Julie 482Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. 483SMAG Graphique 484Esko-Graphics bvba 485Eurostar S.r.l. 486Mitchell-Lincoln Packaging Ltd. 487Norampac (Div. of Cascades Inc.) 488Lenze Americas Corporation 489SEW-Eurodrive Company of Canada Ltd. 490Schneider Electric Canada 491La Garde (Div. of SML Stainless Steel Group) 492

Working together, Schneider Electric’s Telemecanique contactor is used to start the conveyor’s motor, whose variable speed is adjusted by a Lenze VFD control.

Domaine Pinnacle product manager David Marino poses in front of the stainless-steel La Garde wine tanks used to make products like the yellow-colored Ungava Canadian Premium Gin made from inidgenous ingredients.