Inniskillin was founded by
Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser and saw its beginnings in 1974. Before embarking on the Inniskillin project, Ziraldo was running a grapevine
nursery and Karl Kaiser, a trained chemist, was a home wine maker. The first vines were planted in 1974, and since the duo had the ambition to make better-quality wines, their vineyard was planted with traditional European grape varieties, of the
Vitis vinifera species, chosen from those cultivated in colder European regions. Their first vineyard, of was planted with
Riesling,
Chardonnay and
Gamay. At that time the wine industry in the Niagara consisted of five bulk wineries growing American ("non-vinifera") vines, and no winery licenses had been issued since 1929. Inniskillin's license in 1975, which Ziraldo successfully lobbied for, was therefore the first post-
prohibition license issued in the region. The company Inniskillin Wines was formally incorporated on July 31, 1975, and the first harvest occurred three years after their first vineyard was planted, in 1977. While waiting for their
V. vinifera vines to yield grapes, they produced some wine from
hybrid grapes. In 1978, Inniskillin moved to its present location on the
Brae Burn Estate. An existing 1920s barn, thought to have been inspired by architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, was restored for the winery's use, and has become something of a landmark. In 1984, Kaiser used nets to protect Inniskillin's grapes and were able to produce the winery's first ice wine. This wine was made from
Vidal grapes harvested at the Brae Burn Estate and was in fact labelled "Eiswein", the German and Austrian wine term. Thus, Inniskillin was one of the first Canadian wineries to produce ice wine, and the first to do so in commercially significant quantities. The international breakthrough of Canadian ice wine came in 1991, when Inniskillin's 1989 Vidal ice wine won the
Grand Prix d’Honneur at
Vinexpo. Inniskillin wines continued as a subsidiary of Vincor, with the wines labelled as before and Ziraldo and Kaiser in their old roles. In 1994, Inniskillin started activities at a subsidiary winery in Okanagan, British Columbia, under the name Inniskillin Okanagan. After that, the original winery was referred to as Inniskillin Niagara. This winery was started in collaboration with
First Nation locals, the
Okanaqueen Tribe of the
Inkameep people, which kept vineyards on their land and supplied grapes to Inniskillin Okanagan. In April 2006,
Constellation Brands bought Inniskillin's parent company Vincor International Inc., which became Vincor Canada. Later that year Karl Kaiser went into retirement, but stayed on as a consultant for Inniskillin's ice wine activities, and Ziraldo left the winery and his position as president. == Wines ==