A southern Alberta winery is expanding its business with the grand opening of a new tasting room. Little Gem Winery is unique in the region, being one of the only wineries in the province south of Calgary.
Joel Mans is one of the owners, along with his brother and their friend. He says when people first hear they own a winery here, they are surprised and wonder how they grow grapes in southern Alberta. Little Gem wines are made with Haskap berries, rather than grapes, which Mans says they started growing in 2016.
“Haskap berries is a fruit that is oblong in shape, the colour of blueberry but anywhere from three to five times higher antioxidants that blueberries, so they are classified as superfruit in Canada. They originate from Russia and Japan,” he says. “We started growing them so now what can we do with the products — so that’s where Little Gem Winey was born.”
They have sold wine and cider at Lethbridge restaurants and liquor stores for about a year and a half and Mans says the tasting room is the next step to getting more people to try their product. Visitors will also be able to get Dutch food and tours of the winery and orchard.
“With it being a fruit wine, people typically look at a fruit wine as sweet and we have made a fruit wine that is not sweet—so it is in between a fruit wine and a grape wine. We say a distinct wine made simply,” Mans says. “Right from the berry to the bottle, everything happens on this farm here and being local and we are one of the only wineries south of Calgary so that kind of gives us exclusivity there.”
Mans adds he would like to see more wineries and businesses using Haskap berries in the region to help drive tourism.
The winery, which is a 20-minute drive from Lethbridge, will hold a grand opening event on July 8 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.. It will include shopping for local products, a bouncy castle, tractor rides for kids and wine tasting.