The Austrian viticulture expert Dr Karl Kaiser (1941-2017) first came into contact with viticulture as a seminary pupil in the Cistercian monastery of Lilienfeld (Lower Austria), when he was allowed to assist the monks in pressing the grapes. He finally gave up his original plan to become a priest, left the monastery, worked as a teacher for the time being and emigrated to Canada with his wife in 1967. Here he studied at Brock University in St. Catherines near Niagara Falls and graduated as a chemist in 1974. In the same year, he and his partner Donald J. P. Ziraldo (*1948) obtained the first wine-growing licence in Canada since Prohibition. The two founded the Inniskillin winery, introduced European grape varieties for the first time and produced dry wines here for the first time.
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Diplom-Sommelier, Weinakademiker und Weinberater, Volders (Österreich)