Victoria Gilbert

Special to The Lake Report

The sun rises early above the rolling green hillsides of western Poland where a young Andrzej Lipinski would quietly leave his humble home in Zielona Góra (green mountain) at 3 a.m. to fish.

Vineyards had once dotted the lush countryside and, 40 years ago, when Lipinski was a boy, the socialist government had burned many of them – but the history of winemaking in that part of Poland had already been established.

“There was a wine and grape event every year in September,” Lipinski recalls as we taste wine at his Niagara winery, Big Head.

“During the time of the socialists they were (the government) buying bulk wine and bottling in the city. But in that area the wine industry was there for centuries,” says Lipinski. “You only think of perogies when you think of my country but they do many things in Poland.”

Times were tough during the socialist years (1945-1989) and Lipinski, the youngest of six siblings, learned to work hard at an early age. “My friends were playing soccer, but I had to always help my father,” he recounts.

His father was a mechanic and Lipinski followed in his footsteps. But after immigrating to Canada in 1989, he worked at anything he could including construction, which led to a job renovating a burned down building at Vineland Estates in 1993. “You immigrate and you do whatever job is available,” says Lipinksi.

He continued working at the winery and had the opportunity to learn the trade hands-on and taste many local wines. Lipinski believed maybe he could do better and began experimenting.

His hard work paid off and, by 1996, Lipinski was assistant winemaker at Vineland Estates. The first wine he made was a 1998 Reserve Chardonnay with Vineland Estates, which won a Double Gold at Vinitaly.

Lipinski got his licence for Big Head Winery on Hunter Road  in 2015 and has increased his production tenfold from the time of his first vintage, winning many wine awards.

Next spring Lipinski is opening another winery with 38 acres of vineyard. Called Eukarya (tree of life in Latin), its wines will be all natural and organic, which is important to Lipinski.

“I’m drinking my own wines, why would I want to put all that garbage in there, all those chemicals?” he says.

Lipinski currently produces 37 styles of wines at Big Head with a focus on low intervention wines, meaning he doesn’t add yeast, which can alter the taste of the fruit and cause fermentation to happen much quicker.

“For me, I don’t want to influence too much. Our wines ferment months, sometimes two years to ferment. If I were to use commercial yeast, three, four weeks fermentation, finished.”

With his RAW series of wines, Lipinski ferments whole clusters of grapes in concrete tanks and terracotta pots and uses a method call carbonic fermentation in which the fermentation occurs inside each berry. “With these wines, we just want to show the fruit. We’re going back to the roots of winemaking.”

While one might guess the name Big Head is due to Lipinski’s deep pride in his country or in himself, it in fact comes from having a cranium so large as a child, “my mom would buy clothing and my head couldn’t fit through the hole in the sweater.”

When his son Jakub was called “big head” at primary school in Canada, the name stuck. “He’s 6 foot 4 now. Most Polish (people) do grow into their heads,” says Lipinski of his son, who works as the head of operations at Big Head.

“My family is very proud. My friends, too. People visit from Poland, they come to visit and they know about me. They have heard about me in Poland.”

Big Head wines are currently available in Europe, in England and France, but Lipinski may one day sell his wines to his own country.

“We have Copernicus, Madame Curie, yes? I always say, who was the best pope? Of course, the Polish pope! So why can’t Polish (people) make wine if the pope can be Polish?”

Lipinski’s wines are as affable and distinctive as he is; taste them once and there’s a good chance you’ll be able to taste them blind.

NOTL resident Victoria Gilbert has been telling the stories of wine people in Canada and abroad through print and video for many years.