🏷️ Vintners Quality Alliance
Canada's system for wine quality and origin.
VQA, the Vintners Quality Alliance, is Canada's system for controlling the origin and quality of wine. It works at provincial level: Ontario and British Columbia each have their own rules.
The point of the system is that the letters VQA on a bottle tell you the wine was made from grapes grown in the named area of Canada. The rules set the borders of wine regions, permitted grape varieties and production methods. Wines are checked and tasted before they receive the mark.
Canada is best known for icewine, so VQA describes it in particular detail. The grapes must freeze on the vine and are picked in hard frost. VQA rules say how cold it must be and how sweet the juice has to be.
VQA belongs to the wine classifications, like the French or Italian naming systems, but it applies only to Canadian wine.
How it connects to Wine
🏷️ Vintners Quality Alliance → kind of → 🏷️ Wine classifications → kind of → 🍷 Wine
Links
- Part of
- 🏷️ Wine classifications
- Similar and different
- 🍷 Ice wine
Frequently asked questions
What does VQA on a label mean?
The wine was made in Canada from local grapes under the rules of the Canadian origin and quality system.
Where does VQA apply?
In the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, each with its own authority and rules.
How is VQA linked to icewine?
VQA rules describe in detail how icewine is made: the grapes must freeze on the vine before harvest.
Similar
🏷️ American Viticultural Area · 🏷️ Wine of Origin · 🏷️ Geographical indication (Australia) · 🏷️ Klosterneuburger Mostwaage · 🏷️ Cava (Greece) · 🏷️ Reserva (Portugal)
⚠️ Wine contains alcohol: adults only, drink in moderation. Wine usually contains sulphites; egg white or milk proteins are sometimes used for fining — important for allergies and for vegans.