Trail Estate Winery

About Trail Estate Winery

We let nature guide the winemaking process at our Prince Edward County winery. Winemaker Mackenzie Brisbois aims for honesty inside the bottle with minimal-to-no intervention—whether it be our Skin-Ferment Riesling, Orange Wine, Pét Nat Sparkling, soulfully complex Unfiltered Chardonnay, or barrel-aged reds. We use wild ferments and leave our wines whole and unfiltered without the use of enzymes or tannins.

Each wine tells the story of site and vintage with unabashed honesty and is never the same year-to-year (nor should it be). Our hope is that each wine is surprising, textural and soulful; not predictable.

Representative Biography

Mackenzie Brisbois, Winemaker

AA native of Prince Edward County, Mackenzie graduated from the University of Guelph’s Arts and Science program and Niagara College’s Winery and Viticulture Technician program. She then worked her way through various Chardonnay producing wineries in Ontario, British Columbia, New Zealand and South Africa. Having joined our team in 2015, Mackenzie has now crafted 5 different vintages of Chardonnay at Trail Estate, sourcing fruit from some of the best sites in both Niagara and Prince Edward County.
"The limestone soils of Prince Edward County are able to produce perfect Chardonnay that makes its way into bottle with only a slight amount of my guidance - it makes my job easy!"

Why We're Cool

Chardonnay is one of our classically produced wines at Trail Estate. We source fruit predominantly from our Estate Vineyard but have also worked with great sites in Niagara. This allows us to showcase the different regions and to create different styles of Chardonnay.
From our estate in Prince Edward County, the fruit shows great depth of flavour and a very strong acid backbone. The vineyard is made up of a very small amount of Hillier Clay Loam on top of many layers of limestone. The winters in Prince Edward County are a little bit cold for Chardonnay so we cover our vines in geotextile fabric over the winter. This warm blanket keeps them happy and fruitful for the next season! The summer weather year to year can vary from hot and dry to cool with moderate rainfall. The brix, acidity and pH tend to be fairly consistent year to year, but the flavour profile and weight of the wine changes with the different weather patterns.
At harvest the vines yield fruit that has technically beautiful numbers which allows us to craft this wine with very little intervention. The timing of all decisions is based on the taste and health of the fermenting wine. Grapes are hand picked and pressed, allowed to settle naturally as well as to ferment naturally. The wine starts fermenting in stainless steel and is then moved to barrel part way through fermentation. Large format French oak barrels are used with only a small percentage being new oak. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation spontaneously and is racked out of barrel after about 10 months. A very minimal amount of sulphur is used and the wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered.