Since 2021, Mason Vineyard has welcomed guests to the property to sample her wines, offering tastings by appointment and hosting winemaker’s dinners.Nataschia Wielink/Supplied
There isn’t a sign announcing Mason Vineyard to passersby. Visitors need to slow as they approach along King Street in Vineland, eyes peeled for the squat post displaying the street address.
Kelly Mason’s e-mail invitation stresses “left at top of driveway” so visitors take the road to her home and vineyard on Niagara’s Twenty Mile Bench. Since 2021, Mason has welcomed guests to the property to sample her wines, offering tastings by appointment and hosting winemaker’s dinners. (To fund her winemaking project, she also rents the house to guests looking for vineyard accommodations for the weekend.)
“This way I get to meet all the customers and see their reaction to my wines,” says Mason, a Montreal native whose passion for wine brought her to Niagara to study at Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute. After graduation in 2010, she started working in the industry with the goal of producing her own label.
Hosting groups of 12 to 20 people per session, Mason introduces her vision while pouring the wines that she crafts with the grapes grown on the nearby chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet franc vines as well as other small batch wines made as collaborations with other winemakers with grapes grown in different Niagara vineyards.
She says, “How often do you experience the owner, the vineyard manager and the winemaker pouring their wine for you?”
Mason bought the 13-acre property in 2012 while she was working at Le Clos Jordanne. A few years later, she snapped up an adjoining property to plant more pinot noir and chardonnay vines. Her drive and determination captured the attention of Toronto documentary filmmaker Maya Gallus who shadowed Mason and other Niagara grape growers and winemakers for two years for her film, Crush: Message in a Bottle.
While she cultivates her own business, Mason continues to work full-time as chief winemaker for Domaine Queylus, which earned Winery of the Year honours at the 2024 Ontario Wine Awards. She started there in 2013 as an assistant winemaker to Thomas Bachelder and moved into the top job when he left to concentrate on his own wine brand in 2018.
The Mason Vineyard wines are also made at the Queylus winery, which helps her manage the intense harvest season, monitoring Queylus’ vineyards and extensive portfolio red, white and rosé wines.
“At Queylus, I describe my role as the air traffic controller,” she explains. “Brooke [Husband, her assistant winemaker] flies the plane.”
Mason Vineyard’s current releases include two sparkling wines, a Blanc de Blanc (made with chardonnay) and Blanc de Noirs (made with pinot noir) from the 2020 vintage and a chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon from the 2022. The wines across the board are enticing and sophisticated, with ripe character, structure and potential for aging. The 2022 Matriarch Pinot Noir and 2022 The Landed Cabernet Franc are outstanding by any international standards.
There are also three different wines released under the Collab Series label, a 2022 Viognier, 2023 Rosé and 2023 Sauvignon Blanc. “The Collab Series is a give and take,” Mason explains. “Either I get to mentor someone or they mentor me.” For instance, the sauvignon blanc was made with Craig McDonald, vice-president of winemaking for Andrew Peller Limited, who shared extensive knowledge of a grape variety she had never worked with previously.
Mason’s tastings, wine releases and winemaker dinners are promoted via e-mail to subscribers. Online sales and information about coming tastings are available via masonvineyard.com
Meet Your Maker
Winemaker-led tastings are increasingly available in Niagara wine country, particularly with smaller producers looking to share their story with consumers. Case in point: visitors to Dobbin Estate in St. Catharines, King and Victoria Winery in Vineland or Black Bank Hill in Beamsville often interact with the people responsible for the wines they are sipping. Winemakers Morgan Juniper (16 Mile Cellar) and Ron Giesbrecht (Wending Home) share why they enjoy the personal approach.
16 Mile Cellar (St. Catharines)
Kelly Mason, the founder and winemaker at Mason Vineyards.Allan Glanfield/Bellwether-X
“One of my goals is to demystify the wine experience,” explains Morgan Juniper, winemaker and general manager at 16 Mile Cellar in west St. Catharines since 2018. “My husband works in beer and when we go to beer tastings, it’s so much more casual and fun. I strive to make people feel more comfortable with wine after they leave.”
16 Mile Cellar produces 1,000 cases of wine each vintage, with a focus on pinot noir, gamay and chardonnay from its estate vineyard. Winemaker-led tastings have been offered on the property since the winery opened to the public in 2015.
“My hope is to be less of a sommelier and more of a winemaker. I lean away from telling guests what they should be tasting so I can focus on the process: Let’s talk about the hard work it took to get this wine into this bottle. That’s something a lot of people don’t really understand.” 16milecellar.com
Wending Home (St. Catharines)
“I hate the idea of bellying up to the bar for splash and having to strain to listen to what somebody has to say about the wine,” says Ron Giesbrecht, who established Wending Home Winery in west St. Catharines with partners Huaying Feng and her husband Jianneng Li in 2019. A veteran winemaker, known for his 23 years at Henry of Pelham Estate winery, and retired professor from Niagara College’s Canadian Food and Wine Institute, Giesbrecht hosts tastings for groups of up to six people at the boutique winery (annual production is 2,000 to 2,500 cases) by appointment. Guests can tailor the wine selections to match their tastes and interests.
“Our bookings are listed for one hour, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent less than an hour and a half with any group. There are always interesting things to talk about; mainly wine related, but lots of things come up and it’s fun.” wendinghome.ca