Master Winemaker Richard Karlo has made wine for over 20 years and in that time he's won many awards for his fine works. He has come to The County because he believes it is the future premier wine region of Ontario--so much so that he's opened his own Winery not far away. Richard regularly roams the road between Harwood and Karlo Estates. He's our supervising Winemaker, setting out a vision for each wine from the moment the grapes begin to ripen, and shepherding them right through to bottling day.

Because he's adventurous--always pushing the envelope, trying something new--he brings an 'edge of the seat' feeling of excitement to the Harwood winery. Richard is a proponent of  fermenting grapes in their own yeasts, which is appropriately called 'wild fermenting'. There's a level of risk involved, but the results can also be terribly exciting. As can aging wines in Prince Edward County oak barrels to yield the ultimate expression of our own native Terroir.

Each new variety of grape we grow presents a new mountain to the Winemaker. While Harwood has fine Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer, and St. Laurent, we also have grapes not seen in France, Australia, and Argentina. In fact Harwood has a wide variety of hybrid grapes that thrive in cold climates and render luscious wines. Our sexy, sweet "Just Desserts" is a blend of La Crescent, Traminette, Frontenac Gris and Geisenheim. While some of these grapes have never been vinified in Canada before, Richard's touch with them has already won two awards and "Just Desserts" has become one of Harwood's most popular wines.

Edgar is well-known as a perfectionist and his advice is sought throughout Prince Edward County and beyond.

Planting chardonnay in 2010

He has kept Harwood's three vineyards in legendary condition for years. Edgar ranks highly among the expert viticulturists who have helped the Prince Edward County Wine Region develop from a thought to acclaim in an amazingly short span of time.

The Vineyard Manager is really the other half of the winemaking team. Good wines begin with good grapes. The whole process starts as the baby vines go into the ground. Then, there are years in which the vines must be very carefully nurtured even though they are too young to produce fruit that is usable for making wine. When they are mature for making wine, their needs still vary with each passing year. Edgar's family of vines is huge, but they are looked after attentively.

Looking for winter damage

Because of our cold climate, Edgar ties down  and buries some of the canes on each vine during the winter. In the spring he unearths those canes and decides if they have survived, or if the canes left uncovered will carry the new fruit. You'll see a picture of the buried canes on the "Our Vineyards" page. As you can imagine, this is an onerous task.

Harwood is home to many varieties of grape vine and each has its own very personal set of needs and preferences...right down to the individual vine. Edgar and his team of local vineyard professionals have raised them all, right from their earliest days. They know every vine...what it did last year...and the year before...and the year before that...

Craig is the person that you'll most likely meet when you come to Harwood's in-the-winery Tasting Room. Craig is Harwood's Cellar Manager, and that makes him a very important part of the family, looking after not only Tasting Room festivities, but all the details of the Winery and Barrel Room.

The Harwood way of doing things isn't so common in North America, but it's a tradition in other parts of the world to go into the winery, the barrel room and the vineyards to taste wines. We think the sights and smells make the whole experience more enjoyable.

Craig loves to explain the inner workings of winemaking, but far from being mono-dimensional, he's also an accomplished singer and songwriter who you might see at a variety of Southern Ontario venues.

Kerry is a wine aficionado and life-long foodie. You'll find many wine pairing tips and recipe cards in Harwood's Tasting Room that were created by Kerry and Judy Harwood. In fact, they've co-authored a popular 'living' cookbook. You'll find some of Kerry and Judy's most recent pairings and their personal favourite recipes on the Wine with Food Pairings page of this website--a page that gets a lot of visits every day.

You'll usually meet Kerry in our Tasting room on the weekends. She divides the rest of the week between her two other full-time jobs: she's Harwood's president, looking after the complex business management of a vineyard and winery, and she's the president of Mediastats, one of the oldest media data and research companies in Canada.

You may recall from our 'Our Vineyards' page that we often hear visitors say "Someday I'd like to have a vineyard." Don and Judy said that too back in 1963 on the day they returned to Ottawa from a 3-year circumnavigation of the world...on a Vespa motor scooter. They rode the Vespa everywhere there was land, and that included the great wine regions, the names of which are still inscribed on the Vespa's fenders. It took a few years and careers in the Research and TV Ratings industry to get to their dream destination, but at 70 and 79 they finally arrived.

Now, in 2010, if you ask them what they have planned, they'll tell you there are places they want to visit, cultures they want to learn more about, foods they want to savour, and wines they want to taste. They'll also tell you that they're very excited to see the rapid rise of Prince Edward County and pleased to see it take its place with the other fine wine regions they visited 'a few years ago' on their Vespa.