I grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario and was raised in a household surrounded by wine. My father worked in production for 42 years at a local winery, so we never had a shortage of wine in the cellar. For much of my childhood, I spent time in the vineyards of Niagara on the Lake and attended many family events at the winery my father worked at.

Aside from wine, tourism is the big draw in the Niagara region, which is where most teenagers land part-time gigs throughout high school, myself included. My teenage years were spent working at local restaurants and hotels in the heart of Niagara’s tourist district. Serving local wine in restaurants was when I really began to understand the importance of wine to the Niagara region. 

As a teenager, I was also passionate and interested in science. Chemistry and biology were my favourite subjects in school and I knew that I wanted to pursue further studies in a science-related field. After I graduated, I spent a year studying health science at Niagara College, dreaming of a future as a dietician. During that time, the world was also hit with the 2008 recession and a challenging job market. As a result, I began to second guess my decision to pursue a career as a dietician. 

To my good fortune, I still had wine. Growing up with the industry, I always had a passion for wine and a general curiosity about where the flavours in wine came from. In the fall of 2009, I switched into the Niagara College Wine & Viticulture Technician program, leaving health science behind. I was very intrigued by Niagara’s wine program because it had the perfect blend of science, winemaking, viticulture, marketing and applied hands-on learning. 

At the time, Niagara College had a newly built teaching winery and a state-of-the-art vineyard where I spent two years experimenting and learning everything I could about wine and viticulture. In this time, I also completed WEST 3 at Brock University to further my knowledge in wine regions of the world. In the Spring of 2010, I began my co-op placement in the cellars at Stratus vineyards in Niagara on the Lake.

I felt like I’d found the perfect combination of science and wine that would lead to an exciting career.

And I wasn’t wrong.