Robert Bell's

Wines of Canada

Since 1992

Peter Gamble

Peter GAmble winery owner and consultant.

Peter Gamble is one of Canada's best wine making consultants

Peter's Career in the industry began back in the 1980's as a professional winemaker He quickly entered the international stage as a wine taster and educator.

Peter is a long-time wine industry professional, and an accomplished consulting winemaker. Subsequent to an acclaimed early winemaking career and international recognition as a wine taster and educator, he became the founding Executive Director of the VQA. Following that, Gamble returned to his passion for winemaking and his projects have included a prestigious list of successful, leading edge wine producers in Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Argentina. Since 2017, Peter has applied his magic to Stonebridge’s quest and has been a strong advocate for the rejuvenation of Lailey Vineyards, respectful of the tremendous contributions that Donna and David Lailey, along with winemaker Derek Barnett, brought to the Ontario wine industry. He’s delighted to provide his expertise, targeting a line of complex, terroir-driven wines from our vineyards.

Peter Gamble began his winemaking career in Ontario, at Hillebrand Estates in 1983. He went on to collaborate with Ravine Vineyard Estate Winery and Stratus Vineyards. He also consulted to Benjamin Bridge and Lightfoot & Wolfville in Nova Scotia.

Peter not only created the wines styles, vineyards and winery buildings for these enterprises, he broke ground in establishing the styles and the ‘Terroir discovery’ that these wineries have trailblazed. Peter co-founded the Cuvée Gala and Charity Foundation; he both conceived and made the Vintners Quality Alliance a reality, and he is currently heading up the Wine Standards Commission in Nova Scotia.

Peter and his wife,noted winemaker, Ann Sperling is the new Dobbin Estae WInery on the Twenty Mile Benchon the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario.

With his equally-talented wife Ann Sperling, they founded and run Sperling Vineyards in the northern Okanagan, and in addition created ‘Versado,’ an incredibly stylish Malbec from a vineyard they purchased on the legendary Cobos road in Mendoza, Argentina. A visionary Canadian winemaker, an organiser and leader, a palate without equal, Peter Gamble is a true Canadian treasure whose outstanding contribution to the Canadian wine industry we recognize and honour with the first Karl Kaiser Winemaker Emeritus Award.*1

They began making wine there in 2008, from hundred-year-old vines that “needed lots of TLC, which [she and Gamble] were happy to provide to get it on a solid footing again.” They set it up so that they had key people to manage the day-to-day work in the vineyard and winery and their influence, as Sperling puts it, would be “in a guiding way.”

Their next project (at the time) , at Sperling Vineyards*3 in the Okanagan, on the farm where the winemaker grew up, would be in collaboration with her sister Susan Richardson, niece Jill Richardson-Branby, and their respective husbands, Paul Richardson and Rickard Branby. As the pandemic made regular travel difficult, Sperling and Gamble were thankful for their partners in BC and their team in Argentina. They connected across continents by shipping samples and meeting on Zoom when they couldn’t fly. Both vineyards are, of course, certified organic.*2

Peter recently played a key role in the establishment of Nova Scotia’s Tidal Bay appellation. With perhaps the most stringent standards in the New World, some industry observers feel that Tidal Bay may usher in renewed interest in defining and promoting terroir-driven regional wines.

Peter and his wife, noted winemaker, Ann Sperling have opened the new Dobbin Estae WInery on the Twenty Mile Benchon the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario.

*1 The Golb & Male *2 Thehub.com *3 Sold to Iconic Wines in 2023

Note: Mr Gamble did not responed to our inquires.