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From Vogue to vintner

Caroline Granger is not your typical winemaker. The president and owner of Grange Winery in Hillier, Ont. had a successful career as a model for Vogue and spent many years working in France, where her love of wine blossomed.

Gentle and soft-spoken, she’s still as beautiful as her days as a Ford model, only now, instead of walking the runway, she spends her days strolling through the rows of vines on her family’s farm.

The transition from high fashion to farming wasn’t a fluid one. Granger says that her role as a mother made her reevaluate her life and she decided she wanted to spend more time with her family.

Granger’s family had owned their farm since she was a child and in 2001 she planted her first vines in soil that mimics the Burgundy region of France.

What started with 10 acres and three varietals has slowly grown to encompass more than 60 acres and seven different types of grapes, making it one of the largest in Prince Edward County. Her first production year in 2003 yielded 1,600 cases; now she’s bottling 10,000 each year.

After speaking with her a while, it’s clear that she’s not just another pretty face. Granger really knows her stuff when it comes to winemaking and viniculture.

“Ontario doesn’t know what’s in its own backyard,” she says, “There are so many terrific wines in this province.”

Like everything unexpected in life, Granger says that making wine required a leap of faith. When she first told her family her plan to plant grape vines her mother responded with: “What’s the worst that could happen – you ruin the family.”

[See also: The science behind wine pairing]


She jokes that in her first year she learned a valuable lesson – raccoons like Gamay. The following year she was more diligent about protecting the vines and saw a larger harvest.

Life on the winery is now a family affair, set to come full circle when Granger’s daughter Maggie helps with this year’s production.

After swearing she’d never be back to the farm when she went off to university, it seems that just like for her mother, the pull of family was too much to resist.

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