What the man who might be the country's only Black winemaker says about making wine in Canada

During his second year of university in 1996, Steve Byfield was looking for part-time employment, and found a job as a customer service agent at The Brew Factory — where customers could make their own beer and wine.

Hamilton-based Byfield — who was born and raised in Kitchener to Jamaican immigrants — said he was immediately "bitten by the wine bug" and was so "intrigued with winemaking" that his plan to teach music went out the window.

"Within, I'd say, two months of that job, working twice a week through studies, I really got fascinated with the whole process of winemaking and wanted to learn more," Byfield told CBC Hamilton.

"So, by the time I graduated from university I was really fascinated with it, enthralled with it, in love with it and figured it would be kind of cool to see the winemaking process from the commercial end."

He said that opportunity presented itself a year and a half later when he was hired as a product consultant at Southbrook Farms, which was located at Richmond Hill, Ont. A year later he was offered an apprenticeship opportunity to become a winemaker.

Today, Byfield is one of only a few racialized winemakers in Canada — and the only Black Canadian with their own wine label.

Byfield, 55, is the owner of Nyarai Cellars, a virtual wine label. The company does not have a building or vineyard of its own, but contracts grapes from growers in the Niagara region. The wine is made at a winery in Hamilton — West Avenue Cider House — where Nyarai Cellars has its own barrels and tanks.

"It's just a way for winemakers to essentially create a wine brand and run it as such, minus the overhead costs [associated with it] — owning a vineyard, owning property — and really allow them to develop that brand," Byfield said.

When Byfield started Nyarai Cellars in 2008, his virtual wine label was one of only three in the Niagara region.

Byfield said land ownership is among barriers facing racialized individuals entering the industry as winemakers.

"Most wineries are operations that have emerged from family farmsteads," he said. 

"Despite the fact that communities of colour have always had a presence and involvement in the wine industry, primarily labour equity or farm work, opportunities to invest in properties may have been determining factors contributing to the lack of diversity in the ranks of winemakers," he said.

Byfield said he "definitely would love to see more" racialized individuals joining the industry.

"If you're passionate about it, if you're driven to learn and work hard, it is rewarding," he said.