Stanners Vineyard

I decided to visit the winery after tasting their 2014 Pinot Gris. With 24 hours of skin contact, the wine has a beautiful light copper colour and added complexity of flavor. If they have any left, I highly recommend trying this one out.
The winery and tasting room are a bare bones setup, reflecting their newness. They have some nibblies prepared by local artisans you can purchase as well, but the real reason for coming here is the wine. Where they have sufficient quantity, they produce some interesting estate Prince Edward County wines. Otherwise they supplement with Niagara fruit to fill their line. Their County Pinot Noir is light, reflecting the young vines it came from. In years to come this will take on additional weight and complexity, but for now it is a light, clean wine.
Come every year and see a winery evolve into greatness!

I visited this winery on July 17, 2015 while doing some wine tasting in the County. It was one of the highlights of my day!
Why, you may ask? Several reasons. The wine was excellent. I tried the 2012 Riesling, with grapes from the Lincoln Lakeshore area of the Niagara — definitely worth trying, if you stop into the winery.
I also want to give the 2013 Pinot Gris Cuivré, which, despite having all country grapes, is not VQA, a special comment. This is one of the most interesting examples of a pinot gris that I’ve tried in a very long time — the grapes were left unpressed for a day or two, so there’s a lot of really interesting fruit character with peach, grapefruit and even rhubarb (a fellow wine enthusiast at the tasting bar nailed the rhubarb — it was at the tip of my tongue). Why is it not VQA? Because it doesn’t fit the «typicity» standard that has been imposed by the VQA. I’m not going to turn this into an anti-​VQA rant, but TRY THIS WINE and then compare it to the other Pinot Gris offerings in the county. This is the only one that I bought and that I have bought of this grape in a very long time.
I enjoyed both the 2012 County Pinot Noir and the 2011 4 Mile Creek Pinot Noir. Try them both, and good luck walking out with just one — they’re both the same price ($ 30), which makes choosing nearly impossible. Why choose? Just buy both.
Their other red, the 2012 Cabernet Franc, was bright with lots of cherry and a bit of pepper. Great finish, also worthy of your tasting time!
Mary, the wife of the winemaker, was our hostess during this visit. She is witty, fun and knowledgeable. She very kindly offered to bring the wine I purchased to me in Toronto, where Stanners sells at the Trinity Bellwoods Farmers Market (also the Junction Market, I believe), free of charge — seeing as how i was taking the train home, it made things much easier! Mary also offered to bring a full case up if I bought too much while visiting the other wineries in the county — I didn’t take her up on the offer, but it was much appreciated and a sign of the excellent customer service.
All in all, a great visit and a highly recommended stop for anyone in the County.

We stopped at Stanners Vineyard on September 10, 2014, based on positive reviews on Unilocal!and we weren’t disappointed. Their Pinot Noir is very unusual — more French in nature than most North American Pinot Noirs. And their Cabernet Franc was quite tasty. So we bought a bottle of each. We most liked the fact that the owner hosted us and handled the wine tasting, and spent an extended time chatting with us about wine-​making generally as well as the challenges faced by vineyards and wineries in this region.

I was surprised to see a Unilocal review of one of my 2 favourite County wineries, so I decided to add my $ 30 worth. Why $ 30? It is because their Pinot Noir is superb value at $ 30. Stanners is a small family owned winery that makes some excellent wines. They spend their resources on their grapes rather than on an expensive looking winery designed to impress the masses. Their award winning Pinot Noir is what impresses me. I have bought their wine both at the winery and at a Toronto Farmers Market.

An excellent boutique winery that is still under the radar. Given the quality of their wines, Stanners Vineyard won’t stay a secret for much longer.
The tasting room in unpretentious and basic. But don’t let this fool you. Each of the four wines we sampled were excellent (a Chardonnay from Niagara, and a Pinot Noir and two Cabernet Francs from the County). The owners developed their winemaking skill when they lived in California (Bay Area). Wow, thank you California. The bonus? Their wines are extremely well priced given the quality.
Serious wine lovers will definitely appreciate this winery.