Kew Vineyards

About Kew Vineyards

Kew Vineyards is a boutique winery located along the celebrated Beamsville Bench. The winery is home to an 80 acre vineyard with plantings dating back to the 1970’s.

The winery boutique is located inside the 140 year old Kew Family home which was built by William Kew, a prominent business owner in Beamsville. The Kew Family called this historic estate home right up until the late 1960’s at which time it was sold to start it’s new life as a premium vineyard.

The winery as we know it today, opened 10 years ago with the sole purpose of producing small batch, high quality wines with an emphasis on sparkling. Our unique climate is perfect for producing rich and vibrant traditional method sparkling.

Representative Biography

Philip Brown, Winemaker

Phillip grew up in Campbellville, ON, an agricultural community nestled in the Niagara Escarpment and surrounded by conservation areas. Growing up, his father worked in the restaurant industry with a focus on wine and food pairings. It was customary to have meals accompanied by quality wines, that Phillip would occasionally be given an opportunity to smell (and sometimes taste). His father’s passion for wine and extensive cellar nurtured Phillip’s curiosity, and that curiosity grew to a strong desire to understand more about the world of wine.
Before the age of 19, Phillip joined Niagara College’s Winery and Viticulture Technician program. In 2010, he was introduced to the Arterra family (previously known as Vincor) when his work/study program placed him at Inniskillin Estate as a cellar hand. The following Summer, Phillip worked in Prince Edward County at Stanners Vineyard, a small organic winery, where the Winemaker and owner mentored him through his methods and practices in organic, minimal intervention winemaking.
In 2015, Phillip made the leap from a small to large-scale winery when he moved to New Zealand and worked at Drylands winery in Rapaura, a subregion of Marlborough. Here, Phillip managed a team in the cellar through an intensive harvest, seeing roughly 2,400 tonnes of fruit a day.
His passion and hard work led him to twelve years at Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate, with two of those as Estate Winemaker. His appointment with Kew Vineyards is the perfect fit as he takes his expertise in sparkling winemaking with him. In Niagara, Phillip has fallen in love with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These multifaceted varietals make crisp and vibrant traditional method sparkling wines, as well deeply complex and nuanced table wines that are a beautiful expression of Niagara’s terroir. “I also must shout out Riesling,” said Phillip. “Here in Niagara, this grape always carries mouth-watering acidity which makes it such a refreshing wine to enjoy, dry or sweet.”
Outside of work and wine, Phillip is a lover of the great outdoors and enjoys back woods camping and hiking with his dog. He loves to cook and is working on his green thumb with a small veggie patch in his backyard. Phillip is also a self-proclaimed nerd, and has found a community of like-minded individuals in the wine industry who enjoy getting together for board games and D&D (that’s Dungeons and Dragons) with a glass of wine or two.

Why We're Cool

Kew Vineyards is one of the pioneers of cool climate Chardonnay growing here in the Niagara region, with the Viticulturist Hermann Weis planting some of our original Chardonnay vines on the Kew property back in 1978! That's over 40 years of cool Chardonnay. These vines are growing in a goldielock zone of the Niagara benchlands, just outside the town of Beamsville. The vines are beautifully situated with just the right elevation, distance from the lake and lovely dolomitic limestone soils to grow and prosper. We here at Kew are very thankful to Hermann's foresight with planting these vines and are honoured to get to craft delicious wines from the fruits of his labour.