Cypress Hills Winery finally busts through the border into Alberta

By Collin Gallant on September 7, 2018.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com @CollinGallant

A longstanding plan to sell the fruits of the Cypress Hills Winery in Alberta has come to fruition.

The winery located near Maple Creek has always planned to stock its wines across the boundary for customers in Medicine Hat and southeastern Alberta.

The vineyard has now announced its products are available at South Country Co-op locations in Medicine Hat, and talks are underway for other retailers across Alberta to stock the brands.

“Over the years we’ve had such tremendous support from visitors from Medicine Hat and southern Alberta,” said co-owner Marie Bohnet in a release this week.

The winery, which offered tours, food and tasting as well as a wine boutique, closed its doors to the public two years ago to concentrate on boosting production to expand markets.

“Closing to the public freed up our time to work on extra production to satisfy the Alberta market.We simply weren’t able to make enough wine before.

“We’re proud to have grown this business to the point that we’ve reached this new milestone.”

The wines were made available this summer in Medicine Hat at four South Country Co-op liquor store locations, with the retailers considering adding the Cypress Hills wines to shelves in Lethbridge and Brooks.

“The managers were pretty quick to jump on board and say this is something they wanted to sell,” said Monica Miller, South Country’s liquor division manager.

“It’s a great product and people are looking for it.”

Bohnet states now that her company has an agreement with the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission to handle the wine, it could soon be coming to other stores and locations.

Cypress Hills Wines are available at 126 government and private liquor stores in Saskatchewan.

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