Isle St. George is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) on North Bass Island in Lake Erie, eight miles off the coast of Ohio. The tiny island is roughly one square mile (3 sq km) in size, half of which is under vine. The climate here is heavily moderated by the lake, allowing for the production of grape varieties such as Riesling, Chardonnay, Delaware and Catawba.
The island, which is just seven miles (10km) west of the Pelee Island wine region of Canada, enjoys a maritime climate that is moderated by lake breezes. Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, and therefore the warmest, and during the summer and fall, the vines benefit from breezes that have been warmed by the lake's warm waters. In fact, such is the impact of these breezes that the growing season here is much longer than in mainland Ohio, with harvest sometimes coming as much as six weeks later.
Isle St. George has a long history of winemaking. Settlers from central Europe, particularly Germany, began to settle in northern Ohio in the mid-1800s. The first of these made their way to North Bass Island during this time and, spurred on by the high quality of the wild grapes they found there, began to plant vineyards. Prohibition brought about an inevitable hiatus in Isle St. George's wine industry during the first half of the 20th Century, but in 1982, it became one of the first wine regions to be officially recognized as an AVA.
The only town on North Bass Island is also called Isle Saint George, although the name must be abbreviated to Isle St. George when labeling wine. The state of Ohio owns the island's land in order to safeguard it from commercial development, but leases some of it to winemakers. Just a handful of residents live here permanently, including some full-time winery staff. Firelands is the only winery that grows grapes on the island; other winemakers import them from the mainland.
