Wine lovers in Niagara-on-the-Lake will have a chance to taste small batch wines from several “virtual” wine brands at two pop-ups at Marynissen Estates Winery in April.

The wines are all passion projects, products of collaboration among a group of people who work in the wine industry in various roles, but come together with a shared drive to create their own wines to showcase various unique expressions of Niagara’s grape harvest. 

The collective is called Collab Wine & Beverage and it has 10 separate brands. It allows individuals to make their own wines without the usual barriers to entry.

“If you’re building a winery, there’s the capital expenditure of the land, the building and production facilities, then there’s licensing and it’s a three-year journey just to be able to sell, and then a minimum of five years before you could expect to even break even. So this gives people a foot in the door to start making wine and marketing it,” explains Collab co-founder Mitchell McCurdy.  

People pay to rent space and equipment to create their wines at Marynissen Winery, under its manufacturing licence, then sales are through the online store, drinkcollab.ca.

The operating costs for the website are shared between the individual brands. McCurdy is the head winemaker at Marynissen, but he also has his own brand of wine, Ev’s Eclectics, he makes through Collab. He also makes perry, which is like a cider, but made with pears instead of apples.

“I get a lot of fulfillment in making the things I want to make and then testing them in the real world scenario to see if they sell,” he says. 

According to McCurdy, the result of this model is that “you get very true wines. The expression of art is doing the things that you want to do, and people will like it or they won’t. And these wines are all things that people truly want to do. And there’s not really any middle ground. It’s very much a creative pursuit. So you get very interesting wines.”

People in the collective define their individual brands and contribute according to their skills. Some have sales and marketing skills, some have winemaking expertise, others are growers. So they all help each other.

One of the brands, Liebling, is a family endeavour. It was created by two of Matthias Oppenlaender’s daughters, Jessica and Alison, in homage to his efforts and success as a grape grower for more than 40 years in Niagara. The wines are a collaboration between Jessica and the winemakers at Collab, featuring fruit carefully tended and chosen from single vineyards. 

Julie Enns was inspired to create her own brand, Battersea, by her love of Chardonnay. Enns is the brand manager at Marynissen and crossed paths with the Collab crew when she started there in 2021. By 2022 she had produced her first 50 cases.

“I don’t claim to be a winemaker,” Enns says, “I put the Collab winemaker’s name on the back label of my bottles, but I’m tasting and selecting barrels with them, and I can say, more of this, less of that.”

Enns was aiming for what she calls a “guilty pleasure” Chardonnay, with some toasty oak and balanced acidity. So the winemakers make the wine, but she sets the direction and participates in the decision making throughout the process.  

McCurdy is one of four original founding members who launched Collab in March of 2020, following models they knew about elsewhere. 

“This isn’t the first time a crush pad has existed. There is one out in the Okanagan in B.C. and down in Oregon. I use the analogy of one of those co-working spaces, where you rent space, and you don’t have to pay for the full facility, and you can do your own thing inside that space,” McCurdy explains.

“That’s kind of the idea of all those crush pads. And then it’s exciting for consumers, because they get a little bit more of the funky things, like unusual grapes, such as Marsanne, or creative winemaking styles or harvesting techniques.”

When they started Collab, there wasn’t anything like it in the area, then Custom Crush Studio opened in 2022, in Vineland. Eleven independent wineries craft and sell their small batch wines there, sharing the production facility and tasting room. Consumers can visit and try wines from all 11 boutique wineries under one roof.  

Collab hosts pop-up tastings at various times throughout the year at Marynissen. The next date is April 12, from 12 to 4 p.m. 

McCurdy says the wines are unique, and “the people behind them are the exciting part.” 

Tasting Notes:

Here are tasting notes for just a few of the wines made under the Collab umbrella.

Liebling Wines Sauvignon Blanc, 2023. VQA Andrews Vineyard, Four Mile Creek. $22

Pale lemon, with aromas of lemon and gooseberry. Vibrant acidity carries intense flavours of lemongrass, lime, grapefruit and gooseberry, with complex layers of grassiness, green herbs and a hint of minerality. Dry.  

Battersea Chardonnay, 2022. VQA Niagara Peninsula. $22

Golden straw in colour, with toasty buttery notes on the nose along with a hint of butterscotch. Dry, with bright acidity on the palate and ripe golden delicious apple notes well balanced with vanilla, brioche and oak. Full-bodied, creamy mouthfeel with a lovely finish.

Sempre Mio 2023 Marsanne. VQA Lincoln Lakeshore. $33

Golden straw in the glass, with rich ripe fruit on the nose. Dry and full bodied, luxurious mouthfeel with velvety tannins and intense flavours of golden apple, buttered toast, vanilla and oak. Well balanced, with a long finish.

Ev’s Eclectics 2022 Rosé. VQA Niagara Peninsula. $19.95

Deep pink to salmon in colour, with strawberry, cherry and licorice aromas. Bursting with fruit flavours, rhubarb cherry, strawberry, watermelon and a hint of fennel. Full-bodied with well-balanced acidity for a round mouthfeel, and some earthiness on the finish. 

Maenad Wine Co. 2022 Cabernet Franc. VQA Four Mile Creek. $36.95

Deep purple, and aromatic, lots of bright fruit on the nose. Dry, with firm tannin, good body and intensity. Juicy ripe fruit flavours of plum, black cherry, raspberry and rhubarb provide layers of complexity on a backbone of good acidity, with cedar chest and earthy notes to finish.