Tawse Winery & Distillery
Tawse is a family-owned estate winery situated on the lower slopes of the Niagara Escarpment. At Tawse we unite traditional winemaking techniques with state-of-the-art technology to create wines of exceptional elegance, depth and character.
Our fruit is harvested from old-growth, low-yield vines and gently handled using natural gravity flow and geothermic energy. We apply rigorous organic methods to every aspect of our wine production and Ecocert seals now appear on all Tawse vintages made from our organic vineyards.
Tawse was named ‘Canadian Winery of the Year’ by Canadian Wine Access Magazine in 2010, 2011 and 2012! This is the first time an Ontario winery has won this distinction three years in a row, with a record setting 9 gold medals. Our winemaker Paul Pender was named Winemaker of the Year in 2011 at the Ontario Wine Awards.
We invite you to visit our winery, discover our portfolio of fine wines, and meet the people who have helped us earn the reputation as one of Canada’s most acclaimed wineries.
At Tawse, winemaking begins in the vineyards. We use organic farming techniques to ensure the health of our vines and the vitality of our soils. Much of our fruit is sourced from old growth, low yield vines, giving our wines great depth, richness and character. Our grapes are harvested at optimal ripeness, with many of our vineyards being hand-picked and the grapes then either hand-sorted or put through out state of the art Optical Sorter. The first sorting, however, is done right in the field, so trimmings are returned to the land before processing. Our reds are de-stemmed before pressing and our whites are gently whole cluster pressed to avoid the bitter characteristics from the stems, skins and seeds.
Once the fruit arrives at the winery, we use a six level gravity flow processing system based on the natural slope and contours of our property. The use of gravity as opposed to pumps allows the wine to move gently from pressing to bottling with minimum manipulation. Our wine is aged in three cellars covered by 6 to 8 feet of earth, which keeps the ambient temperature between 10 and 16 degrees Celsius, with a natural humidity of around 85%. This relatively stable temperature and high humidity allows our wines to age gracefully in barrel with a minimum amount of evaporation over the 18-month cellaring period.
Our modern geo-thermal energy system is a key component of our desire to be one with the environment as it has reduced our use of traditional forms of energy by 80%. We also have a Wetland Biofilter that facilitates the complete re-use of all our sanitary and winery process water.
Author: Dirk Jahn
