Garry Oaks Winery in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada | Winery

Welcome to the Garry Oaks Winery, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. Garry Oaks Winery is located on a terraced ten-acre vineyard carved out of the south-facing gravel slopes overlooking the Burgoyne Valley on Salt Spring Island.
In 1999, Marcel Mercier and Elaine Kozak left the corporate world to turn their love of the country and good wine into a way of life. They purchased a hundred-year old farm on Salt Spring Island and began the long process of converting it from sheep-grazing to wine-growing.
Over the next three years, seven acres were planted to vine and a Winery built. A century-old orchard of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees was rehabilitated to enhance the beauty of the site and retain the diversity of its flora. A stand of magnificent Garry Oaks was preserved and gives the Winery estate its name.
The essence of our wine growing philosophy is balance and harmony--also the hallmark of a fine wine. We practice a total ecological approach, managing all of the elements in the vineyard, including the soil, water and vine canopy to ensure that they work together to optimize the ripeness of the fruit, minimize pests and disease, and enhance the beauty of the site.
We have completed and registered a comprehensive plan under the BC Environmental Farm Plan Program and employ many organic practices. For example, we have a large scale mulching and composting program that converts over 20 tons of mowings, prunings, pomace into nutrient rich material that we use to build up the organic structure of our soil. The compost pile also has fostered a vigourous community of Red Wigglers which are part of the breeding program at Global Worming. We only replace in the soil what the vines have extracted and for this we use fertilizers made from mined minerals and peat.
Happily, grape growing in our environment doesn't require drastic intervention. The main pests are deer, birds and racoons and we control them with fences, nets and dogs. And if there are any problematic bugs, they appear to be dealt with by the many and varied birds and beneficial insects that we encourage to populate our farm.
We look forward to welcoming you to Garry Oaks Winery, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.