The World of Canadian Wines

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Schreiner’s book is a useful acquisition on a number of grounds. First, it updates Tony Aspler’s Vintage Canada (Prentice-Hall Canada, 1983; see CBRA 1983, number 2228, for a review) which is more than a year old; second, it presents some new information, most notably about B.C. wines; and third, it presents its wine tasting notes in a new way. While Aspler rated and evaluated almost all the wines produced in Canada (and arranged them by name of the winery), Schreiner has rated and evaluated only the varietal wines, the premium ones, and has arranged them by the name of the wine rather than by the name of the winery. Other than that, there is some duplication of facts and stories between the two books, which is as it should be given the restrictive nature of the subject matter. Schreiner, who is also Western Editor of the Financial Post and a noted B.C. wine writer, could have spent more time analyzing the wine industry and producing some of the facts and figures needed to present a useful business and corporate history of wines in Canada. But he didn’t, and therein lies the major weakness of the book (in addition to its weak organization, its poor index, and the lack of any bibliographic references for documentation).