Vintners Quality Alliance

The VQA label on a bottle of Canadian icewine.

Vintners Quality Alliance, or VQA, is a regulatory and appellation system which guarantees the high quality and authenticity of origin for Canadian wines made under that system in British Columbia and Ontario. It is similar to regulatory systems in France (AOC), Spain (DO), Italy (DOC), and Germany (QmP). The VQA system allows for sub-appellations, by which the grapes for wines are sourced from extremely specific geographical locations with different soil and climate. This is in accordance with the concept of terroir.[1]

In addition, there are other classifications of wine in Canada. British Columbia has a category known as "Wines of Distinction", Nova Scotia has "Wines of Nova Scotia" and Quebec has "Vins du Québec". All must be 100 percent made from grapes grown in British Columbia, Nova Scotia or Quebec, respectively. Cellared in Canada is a completely separate category.[2]

  1. ^ J. Robinson (ed) "The Oxford Companion to Wine" Third Edition pg 759 Oxford University Press 2006 ISBN 0-19-860990-6
  2. ^ G. Hamiliton "Sale of cheap imports as B.C. wines called 'scandalous'[permanent dead link‍]" National Post Vancouver Sun, September 20th, 2009.