In Niagara (6) Mason Vineyard with the remarkable Kelly Mason
Kelly Mason is chief winemaker at Queylus, but she has her own project called Mason Vineyard based on a beautiful vineyard on Twenty Mile Bench. She bought the property in 2012 when she was working as an assistant winemaker at Le Clos Jordanne with Sebastian Jacquey. Initially she sold the grapes, but began making wines under her label covertly in 2018. This is a remarkable story of persistence, timing and an astonishing work ethic that has resulted in some of Niagara (and Canada’s) very best wines.
When she bought her first property, which is at the end of Twenty Mile Bench near Vineland, Kelly also had an eye on the next-door property, which would help create a vineyard of the sort of size that would make a wine project of the perfect scale. But soon after she’d purchased her vineyard, this adjoining property also became available. This was terrible news, because she thought she’d missed her chance, as she didn’t have the money to buy it.
But she managed to get the lease on it and stop it being sold, and through many years of sacrifice, that included working three jobs and not even living in her own home for an extended period (she only moved into her own home in 2019), she managed to stay afloat and now has 25 acres on the bench with no investors. As well as working at Queylus, she had jobs at Honsberger and The Farm. The initial vintages of the Mason Vineyard, 2018 and 2019, were made at Honsberger, but in small quantities. Now the wines are made at Queylus.
12 of these 25 hectares are planted to vine, with more-or-less equal parts Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay, with just a few rows of Cabernet Sauvignon. When she got here she had just 4 hectares. The vines were old, planted in the early 1990s, and were geared for large production, with 4 arms. Kelly converted them to 2 arms, and also grafted across some of the vines, as well as planting another 8 hectares. She’d learned viticulture by spending a summer with a Mexican crew working for Bill George, so she did all the manual labour herself.
Kelly has done something remarkable creating a domaine from scratch with no financial backers at a young age (and not after a lucrative career somewhere else). Her background isn’t wine: after her studies she did an MBA and worked for two years in Italy in a corporate gig, before pivoting to wine. The wine phase began in Napa: she spent two years at Saintsbury in Carneros and then she studied winemaking in Brock.
Kelly recently featured in a documentary called Crush, focusing on making wine in Niagara, and it is well worth watching:
I asked Kelly for a low down on recent vintages in Niagara
- 2020: she says this was a fantastic vintage, but when you are doing wild ferments it’s dangerous to chase brix so she had to pick early. ‘You had to be careful and pick early for whites and Pinot.’
- 2021: ‘Was a shit show, the worst vintage I have ever seen. I dropped half of my Pinot to the ground.’ [The documentary Crush was filmed during this season.] ‘Heavy crops, humid and wet, and the heavy crops started to rot fast. There were tons of grapes on the vines that couldn’t sell, and the vines didn’t shut down well. 2022 had a cold snap and many people lost 50% of their vines.’
- 2022: ‘Anything is great after 2021. 2022 is rock solid for reds and whites.’
- 2023 ‘An easy vintage. It’s good to be on the Bench this year because none of the vines were lost and disease pressure was less than in 2021 because of the great airflow.’
THE WINES
Mason Vineyard Blanc de Blancs Hors Domaine 2020 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
3 g/l dosage. Releases a bit every few years. Lively and bright with juicy citrus fruit. Nice acidity and purity with a steely edge and some fine herbal hints. Bright and linear, showing precision and focus. This is really precise and beautifully focused. 92/100
Mason Vineyard L’Avenir Chardonnay 2022 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
12.3% alcohol. Clone 76, 17 months in used French oak. This is textural and lively with sweet pear and white peach, but also nice acidity. This has nice weight with lovely texture to the crystalline citrus fruit. Very pure and fine, balancing generosity with precision really well. 94/100
Mason Vineyard Viognier 2022 Lincoln Lakeshore, Niagara
13% alcohol. A collaboration wine with Brooke Husband, assistant winemaker at Queylus. [Every year Kelly does a collaboration wine.] This is pretty and expressive with lovely bright peach and apricot fruit, showing some varietal character. Lively and bright with nice acidity – so sophisticated and nuanced, with sweet aromatics but a dry palate. 93/100
Mason Vineyard Cabernet Franc Rosé 2023 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
Another Collaboration wine with Brooke Husband. Wild fermented, which is hard with rosé. Whole berry to press and a slow press cycle. It comes out of the press a little darker than the finished wine, and it’s fermented in stainless steel. Salmon pink in colour. This has beautiful texture with some fine spices and notes of pear and cherry. Lovely weight and balance with fine fruity notes. Dry and textural with a slight saltiness on the finish. 93/100
‘In the cellar, it’s so important to clean the fruit on the sorting table,’ says Kelly. ‘Once those grapes get into the tank there’s nothing I can add.’ She is always at the end of the sorting table checking on everything. The Pinot Noir is all destemmed, with whole berries going to tank. In tank, there’s a cold soak at around 0 C until she thinks it’s right. Then she heats to get the wild ferment starting. This is the biggest risk period. She adds just 3-6 ppm of SO2 during cold soak, so there’s no protection as the must warms up. She does a pump over without oxygen to homegenize temperature. She uses GoFerm, an organic nutrient, and leaves it in tank for 24-28 days with some post-ferment maceration.
Mason Vineyard The Matriarch Pinot Noir 2020 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
12.5% alcohol. This is really fine. Aromatic with a hint of spiciness as well as fine floral cherry and raspberry fruit. In the mouth there’s fine grained tanning sitting under beautifully focused sour cherry, raspberry and strawberry fruit. Has elegance as well as weight. So finely grained. Beautiful texture and purity. 96/100
Mason Vineyard The Matriarch Pinot Noir 2022 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
12.5% alcohol. This is really pretty with very sweet cherry fruit and some raspberry, with fine herbal hints and a touch of iodine and almond. The palate has beautiful elegance and texture: it’s sleek and polished, but fresh and well balanced. So appealing with beautiful balance, and there’s also the structure to suggest it might develop well. 95/100
Mason Vineyard The Landed Cabernet Franc 2018 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
Two barrels, three years in neutral oak. No crushing, whole berries. This has sweet black cherry and blackcurrant fruit with some lovely evolution. Seamless with some lovely spice and earth hints, as well as a bit of bloodiness. The sweetness of the fruit is enhanced by some sweet acidity: a bit of lift, but well within the bounds of acceptability. Such a beautiful wine that catches the essence of Cabernet Franc. Power but elegance. 95/100
Mason Vineyard The Landed Cabernet Franc 2022 Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara
13.5% alcohol. Two years in barrel, with one new barrel. This is fine and pure with lovely cherry and raspberry fruit. Refined with a silkiness to the fruit and some nice precision, showing elegant blackcurrant and berry fruits with great acidity. Such beautiful wine with nice tannins and acidity. Such precision, with the structure for ageing. 95/100
