Bachelder

Thomas Bachelder is one of Canada’s most revered winemakers, a terroir obsessive on a mission to put Niagara on the world’s fine-wine map. After years in Burgundy and Oregon, and a celebrated spell founding Le Clos Jordanne, he struck out under his own name in 2009.

His project spans three cool-climate homes for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Niagara, Oregon and Burgundy, made with the same Burgundian philosophy: native ferments, a light hand and long, patient time in barrel, letting each site speak for itself.

In Niagara he works grower by grower, vineyard by vineyard, mapping the limestone benches of the peninsula one parcel at a time. Names like Wismer-Parke and Wismer-Foxcroft have become landmarks in their own right, prized sites on the Twenty Mile Bench.

The wines, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and increasingly Gamay, are pure, mineral and quietly Burgundian, yet unmistakably of their place. Some of the most exciting wine coming out of Canada today.