Peaches vs. grapes in Niagara

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The Niagara wine industry has been looking so rosy, it’s lured a few growers away from peaches and into grapes.

This year’s Grape King at the Niagara Wine Festival, Jamie Slingerland, is one of them.

Slingerland is harvesting the Pinot Grigio grapes in his Niagara-on-the-Lake vineyard. With a machine harvester, he can fill the hopper within minutes. “Prior to machine harvesters, we used to have 50 people picking what I would pick today.”

“For peaches and fresh market peaches you can’t do that; they’re too tender.”

Slingerland used to be a tender fruit grower – primarily peaches. But low prices and high labour costs convinced him to take out the trees and plants vineyards.

Slingerland is part of the Pillitteri Wines family, they grow about 120 acres of grapes. “To harvest 50 tons of peaches would probably take about 100 people; to harvest 50 tons of grapes maybe three.”

A few other growers have also made the switch from tender fruit to grapes.

Phil Tregunno, the head of the Tender Fruit Marketing Board says the peach acreage lost to grapes isn’t huge. Farmers are still growing tons and tons of tender fruit, because the Canadian consumer wants to buy local and is demanding it.