Cloudsley Cellars
Château des Charmes
Cave Spring Vineyard
Peller Estates
Dobbin Estate Vineyard
Cloudsley Cellars
Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara, Canada
About Cloudsley Cellars
Located in the heart of the Niagara Escarpment, Cloudsley Cellars is a small lot, premium winery that is quickly gaining a reputation for fine cool climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Produced with minimal intervention, the wines reflect the unique terroir of the Twenty Mile Bench appellation and show vibrant acidity, excellent balance, minerality and energy.
Representative Biography
Adam Lowy, President
Adam Lowy’s deep interest in wine led him to seventeen great years selling wines from around the world for a Toronto based agency. During this time, he worked with many great wineries and travelled to most of the classic wine regions. Always tasting and learning, he refined his knowledge and passion for wine and developed a particular love for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. After years of dreaming about the winery side of the business and impressed with the ever-increasing quality of wines coming out of Niagara, Adam made the leap and founded Cloudsley Cellars in 2015. With its focus on cool climate, terroir driven wines, Cloudsley is the perfect expression of what Adam has come to love about wine.
Why We're Cool
It is our goal to make Chardonnay in a style that reflects the regional character as well as the specific terrors in which we work. This means letting the fruit dictate the character of the wines. In our case, this leads us to wines that are focused and vibrant, emphasizing elegance over power. Our winemaking is quite traditional with minimal intervention. We rely only on natural yeast for our fermentations which take place in French oak barrels (less than 25% new).
Château des Charmes
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada
About Château des Charmes
Seven generations of the Bosc family have been born into our way of life. You might say it’s in our blood. In fact, they even live on the farm.
Château des Charmes was founded in 1978 by Paul Bosc, a fifth generation French winegrower. Paul and his young family arrived in Niagara with the idea that growing our own grapes was the best way to make fine wine. More than ever, we believe in this Estate Winery model and we make our wine only from grapes we’ve grown ourselves. When Paul arrived in Niagara he just knew this place was special. The glacial soils, warm days and cool nights and the lush countryside reminded him of Burgundy where he studied oenology and viticulture at the University of Burgundy at Dijon. Today the Bosc family farms four vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake, located in two distinct sub-appellations – St. David’s Bench and Four Mile Creek.
The Boscs believe they are custodians of the land. From the beginning they have been committed to using sustainable practices and are charter members of Sustainable Winemaking Ontario. Paul, Amélie and their team are meticulous. They use modern science and a lot of TLC to coax the best out of every vine.
Representative Biography
Jacob Achorn, Winemaker
Jacob Achorn brings more than a decade of experience in viticulture, cellar operations, and winemaking across Niagara, British Columbia, and New Zealand. His career began at Chateau des Charmes in 2017, where he developed a strong foundation in cellar work, sparkling wine production, lab analysis, and harvest management. Now returning as Winemaker, Jake brings a thoughtful and quality-driven approach to cool-climate winemaking, with a focus on precision, innovation, and expressing the character of Niagara fruit.
Why We're Cool
Niagara is the largest and most diverse grape growing area in Canada. It’s shaped like a pizza slice; at its narrowest in the west and widest in the east. The northern edge is the shore line of Lake Ontario. To the south is the Niagara Escarpment and to the east is the Niagara River. Together these significant features define the region and help to shape the local climate. The Niagara Escarpment is approximately 1 million years old. It is such a unique ecosystem that in 1990 UNESCO designated it a World Biosphere Reserve. And in the past 200,000 years several ice ages have left their mark on our region. As the giant ice sheets covered the land and retreated, over and over again, the soil underneath became more and more complex and diverse. Soil maps of the area are anything but straight forward. But that’s part of what makes Niagara so interesting for growing fine wine grapes. Add to that the climate. Sitting near 43° latitude Niagara is considered a cool climate viticultural area; like the classic regions of Champagne and Burgundy in France. This means we get winter but we also get beautiful, hot summers with plenty of sunshine. Then, around harvest time, the temperature difference between the day and night is wide enough to allow the grapes to “rest” at night. This is why our wines have beautiful structure, finesse and tremendous aging potential.
Château des Charmes has Chardonnay planted on each of their four vineyard sites in two distinct sub-appellations and make six different styles of Chardonnays; ranging from Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine, to unoaked Musqué (clone 809) to two classic barrel-fermented & barrel aged single vineyard Chardonnays. Chardonnay is an excellent varietal to showcase the range of flavour profiles Niagara’s diverse terroirs can produce.
Cave Spring Vineyard
Niagara Escarpment, Canada
About Cave Spring Vineyard
Wine is often described as painting a vivid picture on the palate of the place where it was born. At Cave Spring Vineyard, this sentiment resonates deeply as we head into our fourth decade of winemaking excellence. With a profound appreciation for the unique terroir of our Beamsville Bench vineyards, we continue to craft wines that reflect the essence of their origins.
Cave Spring has earned its place as one of Canada’s most acclaimed wineries, renowned for producing elegant and distinctive cool-climate wines. Our journey began four decades ago, when the Pennachetti family pioneered the cultivation of noble European grape varietals on the Niagara Peninsula, planting their first Riesling and Chardonnay vines at Cave Spring Vineyard. Today, the distinct soil and climate of our vineyards remain integral to our vision—a blend of passion, patience, and dedication to the craft of winemaking.
Representative Biography
Gabriel Demarco, Head Winemaker and Chief Operating Officer
Gabriel Demarco is Chief Operating Officer and Head Winemaker at Cave Spring Vineyard. A graduate with Honours of the Oenology and Viticulture Institute (OEVI) at Brock University, Gabriel combines technical expertise with a broad and unconventional professional background.
Before entering the wine industry, he studied theatre arts and world history, earning degrees from McMaster University and the University of Winnipeg, and served in the Canadian Naval Reserve. His early career in Toronto’s restaurant scene with Oliver & Bonacini sparked a deeper commitment to wine, leading him to complete his WSET Advanced Certificate and ultimately pursue formal studies in oenology and viticulture.
Gabriel joined Cave Spring in 2010 and was hired full-time by co-founder Angelo Pavan in 2013. Today, he oversees vineyard and cellar operations while leading the strategic direction and growth of Cave Spring Vineyard.
Why We're Cool
For more than 35 years, the combination of precise work in the vineyards and a measured touch in the cellars have made the Chardonnays from Cave Spring Vineyard standard-bearers for a style that emphasizes finesse, ageability and, perhaps above all, the steadfast belief in making Chardonnay that is true to its cool-climate origins. Today, among its more than 66 hectares of vineyards the winery farms 12 hectares of Chardonnay that are the source of 100% of the winery's production of this noble grape.
Peller Estates
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada
About Peller Estates
Savour life at Peller Estates where winemaker Katie Dickieson and winery chef and TV personality Jason Parsons work together to create Canada’s most creative wine and food experiences. Sample an extraordinary range of wines from the delightful Sparkling Rosé to the powerhouse Signature Series or enjoy innovative wine-tasting experiences including the 10Below Peller Icewine Lounge.
Representative Biography
Katie Dickieson, Winemaker
Peller Estates is based on three generations of commitment to excellence in both cool climate grape growing and winemaking. Winemaker Katie Dickieson has been leading our team since 2012, but her career with our winery began during her first vintage in 2006. Between that first vintage and her return to Peller Estates, Katie spent time honing her winemaking skills in several cool climate regions including British Columbia, New Zealand and France before settling back in Niagara.
Katie is focused on vineyard-driven wines and loves the challenge and opportunity each new vintage offers. When it comes to Niagara Chardonnay, she believes, “our cool climate coupled with a growing season so influenced by lake effect produces Chardonnay with exceptional focus, balanced acidity and ageability.”
Why We're Cool
Peller Estates is literally on the edge of cool climate for viticulture! With the winter temperatures our region reaches, we are only able to grow grapes in Niagara due in part to the Niagara Escarpment and effects of Lake Ontario.
The micro-climate in our Niagara-on-the-Lake vineyards are blessed with the moderating effect of Lake Ontario which provides warming in winter and cooling in summer. Lake breezes in the summer do not allow heat to accumulate in the vineyards, which slows and evens berry development over the growing season, preserving acidity and aromatics.
Our average GGD would illustrate our region as being cool climate and our relatively short growing season and proximity to cold landmass bring on an earlier fall and winter than in warmer regions.
Our winemaking style incorporates a judicious use of oak to respect our fresh fruit aromatics and a measured approach to malolactic fermentation and lees management. We aim to produce cool wines with balance and ageability!
Our Chardonnay Vineyards:
Our Signature Series Chardonnay vineyard bears 25 year old vines grown less than 1km from Lake Ontario (Niagara Lakeshore). The lighter, sandy soils help control vine vigor and produce fruit of exceptional quality.
Further into Niagara-on-the-Lake, our Chardonnay blocks in the sun-soaked Four Mile Creek sub-appellation have an early bud break, maximizing our growing season and offering fruit of great maturity, fruit intensity and richness.
Dobbin Estate Vineyard
Ontario, Canada
About Dobbin Estate Vineyard
The Dobbin Estate vineyard is nestled in the heart of Niagara’s Twenty Mile Bench sub-appellation. Naturally low yield land, excellent moderation and air drainage bless our unique combination of both north- and south-facing slopes. Deep, calcium-carbonate rich soils with excellent percolation, ideal to produce classically styled, cool climate Chardonnay, have been for decades organically farmed, nurturing a rich biodiversity of beneficial microbes, insects, natural vitality and complexity. Well composted and with minimal compaction, the soils optimize the potential of our vines - - a meticulous selection of varieties, clones and rootstocks specifically tailored to this terroir, taking into account the impacts of climate change and encouraging higher acidities, lower natural alcohol and, in general, overall balance and greater elegance.
The viticulture boasts optimal spacing (approaching double the Niagara norm, at 2520 vines/acre vs 1285), intensive underdrainage, freeze protection to ensure the optimal health of our vines, laser bird scarers to avoid nets that reduce both airflow and sunlight penetration, and upwards of 30 hand operations per vine per season.
Only handpicked grapes by our own highly trained team are utilized, and often multiple passes are undertaken to ensure optimal selection.
The winemaking is equally painstaking, with only one wine at a time on the crush pad and detailed double sorting with the finest equipment. A gentle (optional) destemmer and a legendary JLB basket press best prepare the grapes for wild fermentations and minimal winemaking intervention in a cherished collection of variously sized French oak barrels, concrete eggs, amphoras and stainless steel.
Elaborate temperature and humidity control permit slow, classic elevage where the wine style demands it; and top-flight winemaking with local knowledge and a track record ensure meticulously crafted small batches that embody the outstanding terroir of our unique Niagara vineyard.
Working with only Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Riesling, our goal is to produce a focused line-up of the finest estate-grown wines in Canada - - ageable, complex, harmonious, and refined.
Representative Biography
Peter Gamble, Executive Winemaker
Peter Gamble, a lifetime wine industry professional whose career has encompassed roles as a distinguished professional winemaker and consultant, an internationally recognized wine taster and judge, and the founding Executive Director of the VQA, has long worked alongside Canada’s most passionate winemakers to achieve greater heights with our finest appellation wines.
Since 2000, Peter’s company has been dedicated to prestige wineries in their start-up phase, providing expertise in a range of areas critical to the successful establishment of ultra-premium winemaking operations. Along with international work, Peter has been the lead consultant in significant Canadian projects including, in Niagara, Stratus, Ravine, Cloudsley, On Seven and Stonebridge; and in Nova Scotia, Benjamin Bridge Vineyards and Lightfoot & Wolfville Vineyards.
With the purchase of a top-flight ancient Malbec planting in Mendoza, Argentina, in 2008, and the opening of Sperling Vineyards winery in the Okanagan, Peter and his winemaker wife, Ann Sperling, broadened their company’s winemaking activities. But Niagara remains their cherished home base, and among other prestigious winery start-ups here, including York Vineyards, Kirby Estate and the revitalization of Lailey Vineyard winery, Gamble turned his attention to the vineyard development and winemaking launch of Dobbin Estate on Niagara’s Twenty Mile Bench.
Notable awards for Gamble over the years include the inaugural Tony Aspler Award for contributions to the Ontario wine industry and, in 2019, the inaugural Karl Kaiser Winemaker Emeritus Award for Outstanding Services to the Canadian Wine Industry.
Most recently, Gamble was delighted that the first vintage of wines made at Dobbin Estate earned them the distinction of “The Most Thrilling White Wine of 2023” in the highly respected year-end report by Wines in Niagara wine journalist Rick VanSickle.
Why We're Cool
Our own kind of Cool!
Even though we’re new on the scene in Niagara, the Dobbin Estate has been cool for a long time.
Located in the Twenty Mile Bench sub-appellation, and organic for nearly 30 years, our soils are derived from the ancient Lake Iroquois Bench including extremely high levels of active calcium in deep, moderately drained clay till. We grow chardonnay in threes – three distinct blocks on the property and three clones – 96, 76 and 15.
We stay cool in several ways – our 50 acre property has only 17 acres of vineyard planted, surrounded by ravines with forests of native trees, drawing away excess moisture and humid air while providing diverse habitat for a huge range of species. Our gentle north-facing slope mitigates the summer sun’s intensity; and even our south-facing slope abuts our very own seven-acre lake in the heart of the vineyard, providing a cool sink to moderate changes in daily temperatures. The organic farming with regenerative practices includes permanent cover crops to keep soil surfaces cooler while drawing down seasonal rainfall.
Founding winemaker, Peter Gamble, who designed the vineyard plantings with moderately high density (2520 vines per acre), walks each block to determine ideal harvest timing followed by hand harvesting with selection and individual handling throughout the winemaking process. After wild fermentations in French oak barriques, and wild malolactic fermentations, barrel lots are assembled 18 to 22 months after each vintage to produce two or three unique bottlings.
Tony Aspler - A Wine Lover’s Diary, Part 882: Dobbin Estate (Posted on June 5, 2023 by tonyaspler)
Dobbin Estate Chardonnay 2019 ($75, Twenty Mile Bench)
Golden straw colour; spicy, toasty, apple nose with fragrant apple blossom notes; medium-bodied, dry, elegant, beautifully balanced with apple and lemon flavours and well-integrated oak. Lovely mouthfeel. Reminiscent of a Chassagne-Montrachet. (95 points)
Dobbin Estate Chardonnay 2019 (Estate fruit, bottled in magnums only, $260)
Bright golden colour; rich, expressive nose of vanilla, apple, lemon zest and oak spice; full-bodied, richly extracted apple flavour tinged with oak. Lovely mouthfeel, great length. Very Burgundian in style. A sensational Niagara Chardonnay. (96 points)
Rick VanSickle - Wines in Niagara - June 2, 2023
“The new Dobbin Estate winery on the Twenty Mile Bench is a showpiece for the region and will help raise the bar for luxury Niagara wines in the years to come.”
Dobbin Chardonnay 2019 ($75, 93 points) There are only 190 cases of this soulful Chardonnay available. It’s a mix of estate fruit and a neighbouring Twenty Mile Bench vineyard. It’s anchored with grapes from the estate’s small Charlene Vineyard which consists of the original organic plantings. It was whole cluster pressed and wild fermented in French oak barrels. Secondary fermentation was also wild and aged for 18 months in French oak of varying ages. It has a penetrating nose of ripe pears, yellow apples, chalky/saline minerality, subtle savoury notes, lemon tart and perfectly integrated fine oak spice. It’s rich and luxurious on the palate with a silky texture, a textural theme that is common in all these wines, to go with concentrated pear, quince, lemon preserves, and more tantalizing spice notes that lead to a lingering and finessed finish.
Dobbin Estate Chardonnay 2019 ($260, magnum only, 94 points) — This is a unique offering from Dobbin that is taken from one barrel of the estate’s Charlene Vineyard. … It shows a light golden colour in the glass and has a rich and concentrated nose of ripe pear, wildflowers, stony minerality, yellow apples, lemon zest and integrated spice notes. This is such a deep and concentrated Chardonnay on the palate with swirling chalky/flinty minerality, stone fruits, zesty citrus notes, toasted almonds and spice with a long, finessed and echoing finish. A treat of a Chardonnay that will improve for 5+ years in the cellar.
(At the time of printing, the 2020 Chardonnays have not yet been released or presented to the press.)
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