Altar wine’s Quebec comeback awaits approval January 9, 2021
A new, eco-friendly Mass wine is awaiting approval from the Archdiocese of Montreal to bring a locally-made wine back to the altars of Quebec churches.
If approved, wine fermented by the Vignoble Vertefeuille vineyard in La Prairie, Que., could soon be incorporated into the eucharistic celebrations, the first Quebec product to be used since 2015.
Norman Lévesque, who led the first push to introduce eco-friendly altar wine when he joined the Green Churches Network in 2009, played an instrumental role in identifying Vignoble Vertefeuille as a potential partner. It follows on his previous experience in using a local winery to supply altar wine when in 2010 he successfully identified a Mass wine partner in Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise, a 7,500-hectare vineyard at Dunham, Que.