“Collaboration is about discovery.”
Mason Collab Series Wines
Part of our mission at Mason Vineyard is to work collaboratively with peer Winemakers, both new and established, because this strengthens our region and each other.
When two Winemakers work together to make one wine, they share knowledge and inspiration resulting in exciting new approaches and discoveries. And it’s also fun.
The expression of our commitment to this mission is our Mason Collab Series: wines created out of a passion for working together with peer winemakers as well as a love for exploring other estate terroir throughout our region and beyond.
These collaborations are part of our soul and a vent for the creative energy that tends to build up while undertaking the arduous tasks that are a part of the everyday life around a hand-managed vineyard.
They’re an opportunity to stay challenged, try new techniques and share the frustration, exhaustion, and exhilaration that it takes to get a wine to bottle.
The collaborations don’t have a schedule, nor do they all come to fruition. This means that when they end up allocated here, they are truly special and worthy of getting to know.
One of the cool things about this Collab Series is that the wines are created from grapes sourced from other vineyards and the production, tanking and cellaring is at other wineries.
It’s within these variables that so much of the experimentation and creativity is put into play. These wines are stories of the vintage, expressions of the personality of each specific site, as well as the people that we collaborate with.
We hope you enjoy them while discovering the stories of the people involved.
Collab Series — Current Release Wines
Find a list of our historical Collab Wines here.
Note: Wine available for shipping in Canada only. Out of Province shoppers, shoot us an email at wines@masonvineyard.com
2022 Mason + The Protégés — Rosé
Winemakers: Kelly Mason + Kaleigh Andrews, Curtis Karner, Juan Llobet Arany, Dave Brennan, Andrea Garcia Espina
Varietals: Cabernet Franc
Vineyard: Mason Vineyard
Viticultural Area: Twenty Mile Bench
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Pick Date : October 28th, 2022
pH : 3.51
TA : 5.24
Alcohol : 12.4%
Sugar : 1.88g/L
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WINEMAKER JOURNAL:
As a fast back up – interns, in general, have finished a program of study in wine and then go out to gain hands-on experience at various wineries around the world to put theory into practice and discover their own personal winemaking philosophies, learn about vineyards, and meet others who share that same interest. The goal is to get as many harvests under your belt as possible and then settle in at a winery where there is a good fit to get to Assistant Winemaker and so on.
Brooke and I had the opportunity in 2022 to have the Navy Seals of interns – Kaleigh Andrews, Curtis Karner, and Juan Llobet Arany were returning for their second year, Dave Brennan for his third and Andrea Garcia Espina for her first harvest with us (she had one previous at Stratus). This team knows the equipment, the vineyard blocks, the winemaking philosophy, demands of the job and will hustle. Oh yeah, and I should mention, they have some of the best attitudes.
The Navy Seal Intern Team made this rosé. It was time that they wrote their own work orders, analyzed the labs, had winemaking discussions as a team and had to think a bit about the business of wine. For me, to sit back and watch their thought process and approach was rewarding.
When you have a group of five aspiring winemakers and they have carte blanche* to make a wine – they want to try everything! And they did. What they also did, was make a fantastic Rosé and I hope it helped prepare them for their next jobs out there. *almost carte blanche, I drew the line at no residual sugar
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SOURCE VINEYARD:
Mason Vineyard, Twenty Mile Bench.
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NOTES:
In winemaking, rosé can be made with so many different approaches – there is the saignée method, you can put the grapes directly to the press, you can even blend different musts and sometimes, the kitchen sink method of blending bits and pieces of finished wines. We were all curious to learn, so this rosé was partially put to press under a long slow cycle that does not go above 1.2 bar and it was also put to tank as whole berries for a saignée.
Aged in stainless, the two lots were kept separate and blended together before bottling. The tasting notes summarize well the structure of this rosé – it will pair beautifully with food. I did not want to part with too much of my Cabernet Franc grapes to rosé, so this too is a small lot and will go fast – plus there are 7 winemakers (when you add in Brooke and myself) that all want some too.
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TASTING NOTE:
Beautiful and gemlike in the glass. Pale salmon hue with a slight hint of copper. Restrained nose of strawberry and ripe melon with subtle notes of thyme and dried tomato leaf.
Dry on the palate with crisp acidity, good weight and a long finish. Flavours correspond nicely to the nose but with earthy, mineral tones that add further complexity and interest. Very well balanced from start to finish.
This wine exhibits plenty of fruit, but it is all part of a much bigger picture: simultaneously fruity, savory, mineral and earthy. Not just a simple summer tipple, this is a proper wine that is versatile enough to pair well with a wide array of dishes (I can’t help but think of grilled vegetables, pork or salmon slathered in herbs, lemon and olive oil), or it can be happily sipped alone in quiet contemplation…or in the company of others for boisterous revelry. (Choose your own adventure!)
PRICE: $25 / Bottle
2020 Mason + Bachelder Chardonnay
Winemakers: Kelly Mason + Thomas Bachelder
Varietals: Chardonnay
Vineyard: Grimsby Hillside
Viticultural Area: Lincoln Lakeshore
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Pick Date : M 09/30/2020 & TB 09/09/20
pH : 3.71
TA : 5.44
Alcohol : 13.5%
Sugar : 0g/L
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WINEMAKER JOURNAL:
Thomas Bachelder — Kelly Mason and Thomas Bachelder's stories are intertwined...yes, they worked together doing the heavy lifting to get Domaine Queylus off the ground, collaborating on keeping the vineyard organically-run and making wines both subtle, deft, and pure. We are connected by very similar palates, a similar passion for life, about one starting a sentence and the other finishing it (or a wine). There is a shared love of local terroir; of the wines of Pinot and Chardonnay, and the inexplicable love of doing your own terroir project. With both Mason Vineyard and Bachelder, together, they had the infrastructure to pull a crazy wine collaboration wine off!
When Kelly and Thomas met by chance in the Grimsby Hillside vineyard, they realised that both of them were sourcing fruit from the same block... and so the thought of a collaboration popped to mind. They tasted and tested, talked and tasted, and that seed of an idea came together in a duet, not just of two winemakers, but of two wines from different parts of the same Grimsby Hillside vineyard, in an unjustly-unknown part of Niagara. Collaboration is hopefully about bringing out the best in everyone, we hope that, when you pour that first crucial glass, you will agree that this is one of Niagara's great undiscovered terroirs.
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SOURCE VINEYARD:
Grimsby Hillside, Frontier Block and Red Clay Barn Block
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NOTES:
This wine is a blend of Mason's Frontier Chardonnay (86%, clone 76) with Bachelder's Red Clay Barn Block (14%, field blend of 76, 95, 809). From this great site in Grimsby came two collaboration wines, our 100% Frontier Block and this wine, the Blended Blocks. Thomas and I played around with different blends to create a unique wine where the addition of the Red Clay Barn Block would add a different tasting experience and new layers to the Frontier block. We are showing with this wine how Chardonnay can express a site. Try the two Collab wines together, see the difference for yourself, it only took 14 iterations and two blending sessions.
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TASTING NOTE:
The nose is spicy, with a baked pie crust note and a mid-palate of Crème Brulé and lemon curd. The midpalate is round and weighty, and the finish tightens the wine back up thanks to the acidity and has a subtle note of chamomile tea.
PRICE: $48 / Bottle
“A wine should express the land where it’s made.”