BRAND OF BROTHERS
Henry of Pelham’s Speck family celebrates 30 years in wine business
Canada Day weekend brings more cause for festivity for the Speck family, which is celebrating its 30th year of winemaking in Niagara. Brothers Paul, Matthew and Daniel, who established the business from the ground up, planting the earliest European vines on the property by hand, are marking the milestone with a special event at the winery and featured wine release at Vintages outlets across the province.
Matthew Speck, who oversees grape growing for the family winery, explains that they thought July 1 was a good day to celebrate their success. Traditionally, the winery has used the occasion to launch the new vintage of its popular red wine, Baco Noir, with the annual Back to Baco weekend. Looking back, he lightheartedly says he and his brothers are as surprised as anyone to still be making wine in west St. Catharines.
“Who knew how this thing was going to pan out?” he says. “It wasn’t some super well-executed plan at all. It would be a minor miracle if we made it to Year 3 back in those days.”
The Toronto native recalls how farmers in the neighbourhood were pulling out vineyards just as they were planting their vines. The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement had many doubting the viability of the domestic wine industry. The Specks and other visionaries believed there would be a market for premium wines made in the region.
Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery had been a dream of his father, Paul Speck Sr., who died in 1993 and left the business to his sons.
Matthew Speck, who started working full time after finishing his university studies in 1992, recalls a steady stream of six- and seven-day work weeks in the beginning. He took one vacation in the first seven years.
The brothers hired a full-time winemaker to run the cellar and shared sales and marketing responsibilities along with the other day-to-day tasks.
“It’s not easy getting a winery up and running,” he says. “We didn’t know coming in what we would like or not like. As the business started to grow, we learned the things we liked to do.”
Paul would come to focus his efforts on the operational side of the business, Matt took control of the vineyards and Daniel, who started full time in 1996, embraced the sales and marketing efforts.
Beyond the excitement surrounding the anniversary, Speck points to plans for construction of a new cellar and the addition of winemaker Lawrence Buhler, a graduate of Brock University’s oenology and viticulture program who worked at Peller Estates Winery and Colio Estates Winery in Ontario and Encore Vineyards in the Okanagan as moves to build for the future.