How to build a winery from scratch
Four credit cards, three mortgages, two side hustles:
BEAMSVILLE, ONT.— The pristine wine bottles, neat rows of glistening glass weighing down the shelves, belie the precarious history of this vineyard. Its story was never this tidy.
But the labels — with names such as Start From Scratch, Everything at Stake, The Big Reach and Rose Coloured Glasses — accurately describe what it took for one young couple to build a small, thriving winery on the Niagara peninsula.
Christina and Andrew Brooks, two ex-waiters with no agricultural background, maxed out credit cards, started side businesses, twice faced bankruptcy and carried sleep-depriving mortgages, all to follow through on a far-fetched fantasy to become vineyard owners.
While their experience, starting as two 20-somethings with no significant savings, isn’t a blueprint for the risk-averse, they showed it is possible to live out a romantic dream when they purchased an abandoned four-hectare (10-acre) farm and grew it into Back 10 Cellars.
It hasn’t, however, been a life of sipping Chardonnay while lying in a hammock watching the grapes grow. No surprise that another of their products is called Blood Sweat and Years.
“There were times we’d claw and scratch to find some more bucks to keep everything going,” says Andrew. “It was a little nerve-racking.
“I joke all the time that I was 28 when we bought this rundown old farm. I’m 45 now, and in about 15 years from now, we’ll have the lifestyle that people think we’ve had the whole time.”
The Brookses are in the midst of their ninth harvest, earlier than usual. The story of how they made it this far began when both were serving tables — Andrew was also a trained sommelier — at high-end restaurants in Calgary. Already a couple, they were making decent money and having fun, but both wanted something more.
During a 1999 winemakers’ night at the River Café, where they both worked, they met Rick Small, a self-taught artisan who operated his own small winery in Walla Walla, Wash. It was an aha moment for the couple. They went from not realizing such an endeavour was possible to making it a goal.
Their friends were skeptical — “They all thought we’d gone mad,” says Christina — but the couple began living on one salary and saving the other. They
Christina and Andrew Brooks, two ex-waiters with no agricultural background, decided to chase an unlikely dream in Niagara. ‘We just kept passing the point of no return’