Wending Home’s Rearview Mirror on 2025, and Our Scope on 2026
By Ron Giesbrecht
Ying and I would like to take a moment and let you, our friends, know how much we have enjoyed being a part of your wine journeys this past year. Thank You! It’s been a momentous year for Wending Home, with new faces, old friendly faces, events, awards, new wines, fun experiences and a fabulous 2025 harvest, our biggest and best yet.
2025 started with some pond skating, a Canadian right of passage that we were able to share on our pond for the first time. My long hiatus from and return to pond skating was accompanied by a good butt-bruising when I took a few tumbles while trying to revive my long dead hockey skills. We’ll see what the weather brings us this winter and try and get word out if the skating on our pond looks good. We would love to bring our friends together for a skating party and serve something warmy for your tummy, … alongside a nice glass of wine. We enjoy winter unless it gets too cold for our vines, standing out there in the cold, poor things.
Steve from “Gather Niagara Catering” came together with us and brought everyone in from the cold with gourmet grilled cheese and homemade soup, while Ying started to host weekly Tai Chi sessions to help us all work off the winter layer of blubber and keep us flexible.
Coming soon after that in February was a two-pronged celebration, firstly, the ‘Love of Wine’ event celebrating Valentine’s Day, was paired with a new release of our 2021 ‘Up Above’ Cuesta Vineyard Pinot Noir and a new effort spearheaded (Q-pid’s arrow-headed?) by our own Debra Haycox. We have made a heart shaped vine wreath on our store wall, to allow anyone to make donations to the Niagara SPCA, and with a donation, can hang a fond memento of your fur babies on the wreath (shown here with our Wending dog Q, or “Q-pid” in this photo). All donations are 100% forwarded to
the Niagara SPCA. The second prong of this February celebration, or should I say the forked tongue of this celebration, came in the form of a snake! The 2025 Chinese New Year’s zodiac symbol is a snake, and we celebrate that just as we celebrate the western New Year on January 1st. This year, the 2026 animal symbol is a horse, and the new year celebrations take place Tue, Feb 17, until Tue, Mar 3, 2026. I’m sure that we will be doing something special again. You’re welcome to ride in on your own horse.
In April Derek and Kyoko of “Let’s Roll Together” brought in groups at the winery for 2 evenings of sushi rolling. Where you learned the techniques and had all the fresh ingredients at had while Kyoko taught and demonstrated. No surprise that we paired delicious wines with our sushi. The popularity of these evenings and the brilliant quality of the sushi will make this a definite priority for us to try and set up for 2026.
Also in April, but at other times of the year as well, you can find us at shows, malls, and other gatherings where wine lovers and foodies get together. Here are Ying and Bonnie at the Restaurants Canada show in Toronto. While it is a lot of work, we meet great people and there are lovers of wine that are routinely impressed with our wines. In 2025 this show allowed us to meet buyers from Costco and now you will find our wine on some of their shelves.b
One of the perks of being a Wending Home wine club member, is that we hold regular events just for the wine club. Some are educational, but all have elements of deliciousness, raucous laughter, and a behind the scenes look at the ways in which a small premium winery gets things done. We value family, fun, and friendship a lot more than fancy, flashy, or flamboyant. Shown above are some of this year’s wine club sessions. Our session on barrel making (left) … and unmaking (think Jenga with oak barrels). Also a special barrel tasting of wines in the process of elevage (centre), and a blending session where members made their own blended wines (right), matching wits and palates with me. That was a hoot. Our sales manager Bonnie always figures into the flavour of our events. She brings a lot of her kind, good nature and her creative ideas into the events, but in particular to and with our club members that have become our second family.
As the weather warmed in May, we had more good cheer as we saluted the Canadian recognition of Asian Heritage month with Ying and her family. For 5 weeks we provided installments relating to her Chinese background, her family, culture, and her wending path to Wending Home. Coinciding with this were 2 notable milestones, our 5th Anniversary as Wending Home Estate Vineyards & Winery, and our first ever releases into LCBO Vintages with our 2021 Syrah-Merlot and our 2020 Pinot Gris. We have had several further releases through the Vintages branch of the LCBO and have more of these scheduled for 2026. We are happy to partner with the LCBO as these releases allow Wending Home wines to reach more people, and make new friends, even if they are some distance from our winery store.
In May we also participated in a great Niagara tradition, founded by a few friends that taste wine together and call themselves the Port Dalhousie Underground (or PDU). This is of course, the celebration of Cuvee, when wineries from around Ontario gather for a lavish and very well attended gala evening featuring many of the top local restaurants together with many Ontario wineries bringing their very best wines. Now hosted by Brock University, this event has been going strong since 1988 (and I was there then as this year with my wife Kathy!).
We also brought the Cuvee spirit back to our winery on that weekend and combined with VP Eats food truck. Rodel and Michelle started VP Eats in 2025, and we were one of their first collaborative partners. Their Asian fusion foods are out of this world delicious, reasonably priced, and deliver super side-by-side food and wine combinations with Wending’s wines. We saw VP Eats several more times through the summer with live music to help wile away the sultry summer Sunday afternoons. As we saw the VP Eats truck driving up, we could smell great things rolling towards us. We hope to do a few more things with Rodel and Michelle of VP Eats again in 2026.
This summer at Wending Home was alive with fun events. We had a wine club Pickerel Fry when I did my best to try and bring my Dad’s shore lunch pickerel recipe to our wine club, right down to the cast iron pan on the blazing Coleman camp stove.
Then we went a bit more upscale when we hosted an LCBO product consultants’ group and partnered (again) with the inspired food from The Smokin Buddha. Kyla, Kevin and Mike are so great to work with and their world-travelers menu is inspired by actual travelling and living in the far-flung places that replay in the dishes that Kevin creates. Our biggest ‘stepping out’ kind of event was definitely when i4C was happening in July. i4C = International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration. We hosted a luncheon tagged as ‘Run with Wending’. Eventually we gathered more momentum with the participation of three other wineries: Dan Sullivan, Rosehall Run (hence the naming), Thomas Bachelder, Bachelder, and Stephane Schaeffer, Maison Moillard from Bourgogne, France. And the icing on the cake was that a Michelin rated local restaurant partnered with us to host the event at our winery on what had to have been the most perfect day of the summer! That restaurant was Fat Rabbit. The pairings with a raft of different Chardonnay wines from all these producers was incredible!
July also saw a really big change for me in the cellars of the winery. I went from doing most of the cellar work myself, to sharing that with our new Assistant Winemaker, Adi Bristol. Adi comes to us through the Niagara College Winery and Viticulture program that has brought so many great winemakers, viticulturalists, and wine business people into the industry – and where I taught for 9 years. We are so happy to welcome Adi into our little winery family.
The most critical part of any winery’s year is the harvest season. I can say, that after 40 years of harvests in Ontario’s vineyards, 2025 will rank among the very best! The warmth, the dryness – with timely rain, the drawn out length of the season and the balanced but low crop levels provided exceptional quality across the board. We even brought in a little extra help from another Niagara College Wine and Vit grad, Rebecca Carrick. The three of us with the help of our fabulous vineyard manager, Sonny Nguyen, made wines that will be enjoyed for years to come.
Many musical interludes filled our summer and fall as we invited some talented and entertaining musicians to share their voices and talents with us. Our social planner and sales manager, Bonnie Milana, was always thinking of fun activities to add enjoyment for our guests. I can’t wait to see what she has up her sleeve for 2026!
It is great when old friends drop in at the winery, … asking me when I am going to retire. Great to see you George!
In Fall we had a few events too. Ying took over the kitchen with a cooking demonstration for our wine club members. And in November we had our second annual ‘Get Wrapped Up’ event together with other Niagara Benchlands wineries. We hosted hundreds of guests over the 2-weekend event and most were new to Wending Home. That really tickles our fancy because we love being ‘discovered’ as a hidden gem.
A new idea for a gathering that includes wine? The Sip, Savour, and Story session with award-winning author Melanie Stevenson. I think that this idea has a ‘next time’ in mind. We’ll keep you posted.
As we rounded the corner, back into winter we had our Black Friday sale and hosted several visits with ‘The Cheese Guys’, the team of Mark and Johanna brought demonstration and gooey goodness with Raclette and with Fondue. These dishes, paired with some matched wines were a fab way to round out our events for the 2025 year.
As we rounded the corner, back into winter we had our Black Friday sale and hosted several visits with ‘The Cheese Guys’, the team of Mark and Johanna brought demonstration and gooey goodness with Raclette and with Fondue. These dishes, paired with some matched wines were a fab way to round out our events for the 2025 year.
You ‘all Come Back Now … Hear?!
Ring in the New Year with this great deal!
This limited 2×2 pack features two bottles of our 2020 Riesling and two bottles of our soon to be released 2021 vintage. We are getting low on our award-winning Lieutenant Governor’s Award, 2020 Riesling; this is a chance to compare and enjoy both releases side by side. Specially priced at $80 (or $75 for Wine Club members); this offer is available for a short time only, available in-store and online.
