Ferox Estate Winery

About Ferox Estate Winery

Following in his grandfather’s footsteps as a sixth-generation winemaker, Fabian Reis established the Ferox brand to produce wines that are distinct and elegant, combining knowledge, innovation and tradition. With superior quality that begins in our sustainable vineyards and follows through to the bottle, we began in 2015 with the production of 3 barrels of our Merlot-Cabernet. As we push the boundaries of innovation, a commitment to producing clean and complex wine endures.

In 2018 the Reis family purchased Rancourt Winery in Niagara on the Lake. An established vineyard with some of Niagara’s oldest vines, Ferox took a giant leap forward as 2019 marked the first year in which all our wines were estate grown and produced; an integral piece of the Ferox philosophy. We believe excellent wines begin in the vineyard, which led to another key milestone in 2021, where we were certified sustainable in both vineyard management and wine production.

The future holds great excitement for the team at Ferox, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferox will continue on its mission to produce wines of the highest quality, establishing a name for itself, and for the Niagara wine region with international renown.

Representative Biography

Fabian Reis, Winemaker & Viticulturist

Fabian Reis was born into a traditional vintner family in Stuttgart, Germany. He is the sixth-generation winemaker and his family winemaking background dates back to 1893. He moved to Niagara on the Lake, Canada in 1995. He returned to Germany for over 5 years to study his winemaking roots from 2006-2011 and attended one of Germany’s prestigious winemaking schools, working alongside wineries that are ranked Europe’s best.
Since returning to Niagara, Fabian decided to take a chance and leave the shadows of his long-established winemaking customs and set forth to produce his own style of wines alongside sommelier wife Stephanie. These premium wines will fiercely push the wine industry boundaries to the next level with wine quality and vineyard practices.

Why We're Cool

The vineyards of Ferox Estate Winery are located for the most part in the Niagara Lakeshore Appellation, with an altitude around 80 meters and a latitude of 43.2 N. The environmental feature that most characterizes our “cool” microclimate is certainly the proximity to a large body of water; Lake Ontario.
The cool breezes and the morning fog contribute to lower the temperatures in the hot summer days, and release the heat accumulated during the warm summer in the much cooler fall days. This effect modulates the ripening process over the growing season, granting protection from drastic changes in temperature, and spring frost, slowing down ripening and retaining acidity. These levels of natural acidity, contribute to the complexity, and longevity of the wines.
The sandy soils of the property create the perfect conditions for the growth of low cropped and naturally highly concentrated grapes of extremely high quality. This, combined with meticulous farming and precise harvest dates results in wines that are elegant and sophisticated, with citrus, lemon and green apple characteristics.

At Ferox, Chardonnays are made in several different styles. Our Chardonnay is either picked by hand or by machine after several passes of bunch thinning, to ensure that only healthy clusters are harvested. In the cellar, Chardonnay is gently pressed and immediately the juice is separated according to quality and phenolic composition. After a slow cold settling, the must is racked, inoculated with selected yeasts and fermented at cool temperatures to maintain freshness and fruitiness. The wines are then aged in vessels of different material, the aging process may include a period spent in French oak barrels. Typically, because of the high total acidity resulting from our early picking dates, all of the Chardonnays at Ferox go through malolactic conversion.
This process, together with extended lees contact and battonage, softens the wines, adds complexity and enriches the texture.