Domaine Queylus, 2018 Mason Vineyard Cabernet Franc, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Ontario, Canada
Cab Franc du Jour #43
Domaine Queylus was established in 2010 and is one of the great boutique wineries in the Niagara Peninsula. Kelly Mason joined as assistant winemaker in 2013 and became head winemaker in 2018. Originally from Montreal, Kelly studied winemaking in Ontario before beginning her career at Saintsbury Winery in Carneros. In addition to her work at Queylus, she also makes the wines at Honsberger Estate in Jordan and The Farm, a small Chardonnay and Pinot Noir project. She is one of the most talented winemakers working in Ontario today.
Today’s wine, however, comes not from Queylus but from Kelly’s own vineyard, purchased in 2012. The 2-acre parcel of Cabernet Franc was planted in the mid-1980s, and Kelly spent the first three years restructuring it. The vineyard had previously been trained on a four-arm Kniffin system, a method oriented toward quantity and high yields rather than quality. Over those three years she converted the vineyard to a double Guyot system. Today she does all of her own pruning, treating each vine individually to assess canopy vigour and yield, working toward balance and optimal ripeness across the block.
The Vineyard & Winemaking
The vineyard sits at around 135m above sea level on a gentle north-facing slope, which is important for air movement and frost prevention in the spring. The bedrock of the Niagara Peninsula is a layered sequence of red shale, sandstone, and dolomite formed over millions of years, and at this particular site the bedrock is dolomite. Above it, the topsoil is Chinguacousy clay, a specific glacially-derived soil series that is a mix of clay and silty-clay with till deposits containing fragments of the underlying bedrock rocks.
The fruit is hand-harvested and hand-sorted before fermenting as whole berries with indigenous yeast, followed by a long élevage in barrel.
Wine Details
Producer: Domaine Queylus
Region: Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, Canada
Appellation: VQA Twenty Mile Bench
Vineyard: Mason Vineyard
Soils: Chinguacousy clay over dolostone bedrock
Alcohol: 13%