At the downtown farmers' market on a chilly fall morning in Edmonton, Xina Chrapko is half educator and half gracious hostess to people who stop to investigate her products. The morning sun spills onto the bottles of colourful farm wines, often called "fruit wines," that her family makes at En Santé Organic Winery: Saucy Saskatoon, Campfire Wild Cherry, Mellow Gold Honey and Green Envy (alfalfa - seriously). A couple from Regina listens to her intently, asking educated questions before laying down $50 for a couple of bottles. Later, an old farmer with some experience in rhubarb wine makes a purchase.
"We call it Calypso so it doesn't remind people too much of the rhubarb wine their grandma used to make," Xina says.
A few moments on, a young woman stops by and orders a bottle of Green Envy. It's not her first. "It's got notes of lime and fig to it," Xina explains.
Maybe so. But it's perfect for sipping with friends, the young woman says.
It took En Santé nine years of lobbying the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC) for the right to sell its wines at farmers' markets, a right that was finally granted to them this year. However, the journey that took En Santé there is many, many years longer.
The story of the Chrapko family farm is a slice of Alberta history. Xina's grandfather moved to Canada from Ukraine as a child. In 1927 he set up a homestead on the lush land near Brosseau, just south of the Franco-Alberta heartland, an hour and a half northeast of Edmonton. In the 1970s, Xina's mother and father, Victor and Elizabeth, took over the land.
"Dad was a visionary," Xina says. "He told us we should try to leave the world a better place than when you found it." Victor ran his mixed farm organically before people knew what that meant. In the 1990s, he started growing fruit for commercial purposes, no small undertaking in a Zone 2 agricultural area, which routinely sees winter temperatures plunge to -40 degrees Celsius. Victor consulted experts, experimenting with various cultivars. Today, the 10-acre farm yields raspberries, strawberries, saskatoons, wild cherries and apples - 39 varieties - among other fruits. The rest of the farm is devoted to organic alfalfa fields.
Post new comment