Rural History Roundtable
Photograph: Large group eating meal after raising barn, Stephen Sylvester Main collection, University of Guelph Library, Archives, and Special Collections, Agricultural History (XA1 MS A230 #214)
The Rural History Roundtable is a speaker series that has been in operation since 2002. It hosts scholars of international repute and provides a venue for graduate students to present their latest research. It is vertically intergrated drawing into its fold undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, faculty, archivists, alumni, and other members of the public.
All are welcome to attend!
The second hybrid presentation of the 2025-26 series will take place Wednesday, October 29th in the MacKinnon Building Room 132 at the University of Guelph from 3:30-5:00pm EST. To view the presentation on Zoom, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/drinking-ontario-wine-a-dream-tickets-181604...
Presenters: Dr. Marcel Martel (History, York University) & Dr. Alex Gagné (History, Wilfrid Laurier University)
Title: "Drinking Ontario Wine: A Dream?"
French immigrants Pierre-Antoine Robinet and his son Jules were among the first to envision a future for wine production in Southwestern Ontario at the end of the nineteenth century. Settling in the Windsor region, the Robinets brought with them both technical knowledge and the entrepreneurial spirit that characterized many French settlers of their generation. Like their British and American counterparts, the Robinets believed that Ontario had the potential to rival Europe and other emerging wine-producing regions around the world.
The birth of the Ontario wine industry, however, was far from easy. The international wine market was dominated by France, Italy, and Spain, which together produced approximately 85 percent of the world’s wine in the second half of the century. Yet even these dominant producers faced crisis. The devastating outbreak of phylloxera brought ruin to countless growers and created uncertainty about the future of European viticulture in the 1870s. What was a disaster for Europe became an opportunity elsewhere. Regions previously considered peripheral to the global wine trade—such as California, South Africa, Australia, and parts of Canada—saw potential to fill the void left by European decline.
This presentation argues that the industry’s initial development was part of a larger process of transnational knowledge transfer, where immigrants adapted European techniques to North American conditions. Yet this transfer was constrained by social values rooted in Protestant culture. The temperance movement viewed alcohol as a source of moral decay, crime, and social instability. What motivated immigrant entrepreneurs to invest in a product that faced cultural resistance? And how did global agricultural crises, such as the phylloxera epidemic, reshape economic opportunities in the world?
Questions? Please contact:
Dr. Ben Bradley
ben.bradley@uoguelph.ca
Dr. Rebecca Beausaert
rbeausae@uoguelph.ca
For a list of past Rural History Roundtable speakers, see here.
