Our Story

Everyone wondered if we could grow grapes in Tweed; grapes that could be used to create quality wine, that is! Yes, we were doubted in the beginning.

We were a company with big dreams but we were constantly told there was no way to grow grapes here and create a viable wine business in this part of the world. Our mission was to create the most delicious wine; full of flavour and jam-packed with carefully chosen ingredients.

Nearly two decades of testing. Nearly two decades of learning. We quashed all the disbelievers and we achieved, in many cases, the only international gold-medal winning wines for Canada.

This had to be about more than mass manufacturing wine! We had to deliver quality and we had to prove that our location delivered something new, exciting and very, very unique. We hope to see you here this coming season to join us in tasting the most beautiful wine from the most beautiful vineyards.

Potter Settlement is a marriage of rustic, old-world charm with up-to-date winemaking techniques. We respect tradition, but we always strive for progression when creating our wines. We create things in our winery by hand; whilst this maintains old values and the same techniques learned on our 188 year-old 6th generation family farm. We are concientious of environmental concerns and pioneered new disease-resistant grapes to Canada that require NO CHEMICAL SPRAYING.

We are happy to promote our organic farming, solar and geothermal energy usage (reducing our carbon footprint) and, most importantly, keeping our wine at optimal quality. We strive to serve you as a guest whilst being considerate and respectful of our surroundings.

Potter Settlement consists of 10 planted acres of VQA-recognized French vinera and Canada’s first plantings of new cold-tolerant and disease-resistant grapes as officially recognized by The Grape Growers of Ontario.

The Potter Settlement Artisan Winery is located just north of Tweed, Ontario at 1445 Potter Settlement Road (nestled between Highway 7 and Highway 37 – linking Toronto and Ottawa). You’ll pass through our hand-forged entrance gates leaving your world behind and entering ours – a vineyard created with love, passion and care. 

We’re at the edge of the Canadian Shield and our organic grapes are like nothing else in the world, so it is worth your time to swing by and visit us. Our sustainably-grown grapes offer a charming selection of highly mineral, delicious and intensely flavourful wines that are winning major international awards.

Our sandy, high mineral terroir creates wines of unparalleled complexity, weight, aromatics and intense flavours. Grown in the ‘Mineral Capital of the World’, Potter Settlement and Hastings County boasts 242 different minerals far above and beyond any wine region on the planet. Potter Settlement is unique in this regard.

Come and discover the amazing beauty and serenity that is here, along with our unique offerings of Potter Settlement wines.

Potter Settlement Artisan Wines was established by Sandor Johnson on the family farm together with his parents.

Sandor has been described as ‘the Quinte-ssential Renaissance man of Hastings County’, a play on words that incorporate the Quinte region. Sandor was born in Hornpayne, Ontario and has a background in journalism where he worked in television as a news reporter and a financial correspondent for CNN news in Tokyo, Japan. He is a much sought after model who has done promotional campaigns for Versace, Armani and many others.  He also had a recurring role on the television soap opera “All My Children”. He was Special Assistant to the Excutive of the Arcus Foundation which promotes harmony between people and the natural world.

Sandor is the first to introduce Frontenac, Marquette, Petite Pearl and Itasca grapes to the province thereby expanding Ontario’s viticulture northwards. For this pioneering effort, Sandor was awarded The Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation and praise from the National Sommelier Guild of Canada for winning wine awards in France for wines made from these very grapes.

The mineral content of our soil is unrivalled on Planet Earth, boasting 242 minerals in comparison to Europe’s highest mineral soil located at Châteauneuf-du-Pape at 14.

But there’s so much more, including wines that we have created that simply are not available anywhere else. This includes:

• Our new Maple Noir wine made with Canadian maple syrup!
• Our Dandelion wine, the only commercially available dandelion wine in North America
• Our Marquette, which is a cross between French Pinot Noir and an Indigenous North American wild grape developed by the “Honeycrisp” (TM) apple creators at the University of Minnesota.
• Our Portage fortified wine which has already won 6 gold medals

Come for a tasting and we will fill you in on more of the things that make us unique. Read our blog, called P.S. The Grape Vine, for further insights into our story!