Discover Lulu Island Winery!

We took a visit to Richmond’s Lulu Island Winery, one of the partners of the CARHA Hockey World Cup and spoke with COO, Leo Liu about some of the winery’s history as well as what they have to offer for the 2020 Holiday Season! When did Lulu Island Winery open shop and can you tell us a little about the history of the winery? Lulu Island Winery started in the year 2000 so this is our 20th anniversary! We originally had a small winery close to Richmond Centre but in 2009 we built our much larger winery where we are currently located on Westminster Highway. The whole property is around 15 acres with 12 of those being the vineyard and our Winery is a 22,000 sq ft. facility which makes it the largest winery in Metro Vancouver. We also have 150 acres of fields in the Okanagan area in cities such as Penticton, Kelowna, Oliver, and Osoyoos. How many visitors do you host at Lulu Island Winery each year? I would say an average of 20,000 visitors per year. Many of our guests come on tours and from all over the world, including Asia, USA, Europe, as well as many locals! Our tours give the visitors the full experience which shows the process in fields as well as a tour through our production area to show how the wine is actually made. Can you tell us a little bit about the name of the winery? Why Lulu Island? Well the place we live wasn’t always called Richmond. The island that Richmond sits on is called Lulu Island. The island was originally named in the 1800s by Richard Moody, who fell in love with a popular actress named Lulu Sweet. He wanted to honour her by naming the Island after her, hence the name Lulu Island. The City of Richmond occupies most of Lulu Island so we wanted to name our winery after local traditional culture.