Nestled almost halfway between Quebec’s historic capital of Quebec City and Montreal, the province’s biggest city, is a swath of pastoral countryside called the Eastern Townships.
Full of charming New England-esque small towns and agriculturally rich land, today it’s a melting pot of Quebec’s dominant French, or Quebecois, culture and its largely overlooked English-speaking minority.
History
If you look at a provincial map, you will see dozens of decidedly English place names: Sutton, Brom, Granby, Waterloo, Bedford, Farnham, and so forth. Many of these settlements—some of which are barely a hamlet—date to just after the American Revolution, when Americans loyal to the British crown left the newly independent United States. Other waves of English-speaking settlers came during the subsequent decades. That explains why Sherbrooke, which with a population of 161,323 is by far the biggest city in the Eastern Townships, bears its name. It was named after Sir John Sherbrooke, a British general in the Napoleonic Wars and one-time colonial governor general of present-day Canada.Unlike land in the parts of Quebec settled by the French before their defeat by the British in 1759, which was under a feudal system, the Eastern Townships were surveyed and organized into more than 90 named townships not dissimilar from the way several U.S. states were surveyed and organized.
By the late 19th century, however, the English-speaking population declined, partly because the francophone population was having more children but also because the confederation of Canada as we know it today opened the door to westward migration. Today, anglophones account for just 5 percent of the overall population, though there remain parts that are closer to 30 percent.
Wineries
Quebec may not come to mind when you think of wine, but there are more than 20 wineries in the Eastern Townships. They account for more than 60 percent of the province’s wine production.
Your best bet is driving on your own or booking a private car service. In better weather, you can even bicycle between vineyards.
Most of the varieties produced by Quebec winemakers derive from hybrid grapes, namely vidal or seyval for whites and frontenac for reds. This is out of necessity as the cold winters make hybrid varieties essential.
Others I spoke with preferred rosés produced by numerous winemakers, though sparkling wines made from the same traditional method as champagne were also quite interesting. And as with other parts of Canada, ice wines are ubiquitous.
How to Get There
I flew to Montreal, which, depending on traffic and detours because of road construction, is about 90 minutes away from the Eastern Townships. Nonstop flights between the United States and Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport are frequent with Air Canada, American, Delta, and United, serving all the major U.S. airports, including the New York area’s J.F.K., LaGuardia, and Newark airports.Either way, you will need a rental car. I rented with Enterprise, but all of the car companies have branches at the Montreal airport. You will probably want to include a GPS device in your rental as daily roaming charges for U.S. mobile phones can become quite expensive. I had no problems with the GPS, though I did change my rental car’s settings to miles from kilometers.
