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A Toast to Three Generations of Winemaking

Peller

24 September 2011

Andrew Peller was once a struggling immigrant. The business he founded 50 years ago now employs 1,200 people across Canada.

It was the late 1950s and Andrew Peller wanted to start up a new winery near Hamilton — the first since the end of prohibition.
But there was a woman named Gertrude Frost. She believed alcohol was the tool of the devil, and also happened to be the wife of the premier of the province, Leslie Frost. She pulled rank on “Old Man Ontario” and had him block Peller’s bid.
Peller had already clashed with bureaucrats. Some years earlier he beat the odds and red tape to open in Hamilton the first new brewery in Canada in more than 25 years. But he couldn’t advertise Peller beer, not even on his own trucks. He had an idea. “Beer and cold go hand in hand,” he thought. So he started an ice company, which he could promote, and soon his vehicles were sporting in big black letters “Don’t forget the Peller’s” followed by a tiny word “ice.”
The attorney general hit the roof. He had the law changed so that all the words had to be the same size. Peller had the signs altered accordingly, but with the Peller’s part a standout bright blue and the “ice” virtually the same colour as the truck bodies, so the word was all but invisible.
The story is a glimpse into the mind of the man who over the next 30 years built one of the country’s most successful family business empires. Today, it’s officially Andrew Peller Ltd., but most consumers who have been around a while know it better as Andres Wines.
This year has been one of celebration. It marks 50 years since Andrew Peller finally did open his winery and 40 years since he introduced the product that put both him and Canadian wine on the national map — Baby Duck.
“He always felt Canada would become a wine and food culture and he was right, just decades ahead of his time,” says John Peller, Andrew’s grandson and current president and CEO of the company. “As a family, we have always tried to see where consumers are in their tastes and stay ahead of that and be innovative. We do not try to tell consumers what they should want. That has been a huge part of why we’re successful.”
Across their various winery properties in B.C., Nova Scotia and Ontario — including Andres, Peller Estates, Hillebrand, Trius and Thirty Bench in Niagara — the company is producing millions of cases every year, and is the biggest Canadian-owned wine conglomerate. This month, the Pellers staged gala celebrations for their employees past and present in Niagara and Kelowna.

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