My first visit to Stratus vineyards was in the winter of 2010. Walking around the retail store, I fell in love with the architecture and design of the building. Being a Niagara native, I was also impressed with the vision of Winemaker JL Groux and owner David Feldberg to create ultra premium wines grown in Niagara on the Lake that could stand up with the best wines in the world.
I applied for a co-op placement in the spring and was lucky enough to secure a job placement in retail sales and cellar hand for the 2010 harvest. My first harvest experience was exceptional and I knew that there was no other career that would compare to winemaking, I was hooked.
When harvest finished, JL offered me a position as the lab technician to develop my experience in wine analysis and testing. JL preached to me that to be a quality winemaker, I should take my time and master each role in wine production methodically one by one before adding new tools to my tool box . This was tough to hear as a young professional who wanted quick immediate success but it turned out to be some of the best advice I have ever received.
I spent the next 4 years honing my skills in the cellars and lab while developing my winemaking palate. I spent two years as the lab technician and two years supervising the winemaking in the cellars until the end of 2014. What came next changed my career forever.
In 2015 I was offered the role of Vineyard manager at Stratus to complete my training. It was a long held belief at Stratus that wine was made in the vineyard and I was sure that getting experience managing the grapes was integral to truly understanding premium winemaking. There’s so much opportunity to learn when applying different viticulture techniques in the vineyard. This was a perfect pairing to my curious nature and I enjoyed observing many of the different experiments we conducted in the vineyard.
The key to winemaking is that you never stop learning. As a winemaker, you’re a life long student. In 2017 I took on yet another role and became the Assistant winemaker at Stratus. I had went full circle and developed my skills in the cellar, lab, and vineyard and was ready to put it all together to oversee the day to day winemaking operations that I manage to this day.
Over the course of the last 12 years I was always determined to put my time and energy into learning the many nuances of premium wine growing and winemaking. I also decided to start teaching viticulture and old world wine courses at Niagara College to work my teaching and public speaking ability. I also found plenty of time for travelling to many winemaking regions to see first hand how wines are made around the world.
Its safe to say that my entire 20s were heavily focused on the exploration of everything wine.
