From an Abandoned Vineyard to Fine Wines
Leaning Post leans into quality.
An Ontario winery gaining national and international attention is the result of its owners’ perseverance where others might have given up. Leaning Post Wines, in Niagara Peninsula’s Lincoln Lakeshore subappellation, is consistently ranked among Niagara’s best wineries, and its small-lot wines are gaining high scores at home and abroad.
Leaning Post’s owners, Ilya and Nadia Senchuk, started with no background in wine. Ilya quips, “Both Nadia and I are from the ‘grape-growing mecca’ of Winnipeg! So we are not from grape-growing or winemaking families at all.” But they migrated to Ontario, where Ilya earned a degree in viticulture and winemaking at Brock University and made wine at Niagara wineries for 10 years. Nadia, who has an MBA, was VP of operations at a local manufacturing company.
In 2009 they began to talk about opening their own winery, but they were unsuccessful in their first three attempts to buy land. Instead, they made a small amount of riesling and pinot noir as a virtual winery that year. Two years later, they bought 11 acres of land with an abandoned vineyard, a house, and a rundown barn. Or, as Ilya puts it, “we moved to an abandoned vineyard, with a shell of an old barn and a house that was rented out as a triplex, in a snowstorm, with a 10-month-old.”
It took them two years to rehabilitate the existing vineyard (now the estate Senchuk Vineyard), which they describe as “a hidden gem” that gives them superb chardonnay and pinot noir grapes. They planted more of the same varieties in the vineyard in 2013, and in 2020 they added gamay and dolcetto vines. They source other varieties, such as riesling and cabernet franc, from vineyards elsewhere in Niagara Peninsula.
Ilya Senchuk is clear about the style he aims for in his wines, no matter the variety.
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“We always want our wine to have an amazing balance of fruit and nonfruit aromas and flavours, have good density and weight, but never be heavy or clunky. Good complexity with good acidity, balanced tannins, and moderate alcohol are all a must.”
Those imperatives show across their portfolio. Leaning Post Keczan Vineyard Syrah 2020 is compelling with its focused red and dark fruit and top notes of pepper, together with fresh acidity and sleek tannins. Leaning Post Senchuk Vineyard Pinot Noir 2020 is a stunning wine, with layered, focused fruit and perfectly calibrated acidity. On the white side, Leaning Post Wismer Foxcroft Vineyard Riesling 2019 is just off-dry enough to be impressively versatile with food, as it features layered fruit paired with bright, clean acidity.
The winery focuses on single-vineyard wines, but Ilya Senchuk has also bottled separate clones—slight variations—of some varieties. His single-vineyard chardonnays and pinot noirs combine more than one clone, each contributing something specific to the wine. But he says that “although I can explain what each clone brings, I thought it would be more interesting to show it by bottling small quantities of the clones individually.”
The successes of Leaning Post Wines are testament to the determination and sheer hard work of Ilya and Nadia Senchuk to turn a rundown property into a winery producing fine wines. They didn’t make a bag of money elsewhere before building a winery, and they recognize the help and support they had along the way. They embodied it in the name they chose for their winery: “The leaning post is the end-post of each row of grapes, and it holds up the framework and weight of all the vines, but it is still connected to the ground. So just as the grape vines can’t do it on their own but need the support of posts and wires, we needed the support of family, friends, and financial institutions to make our dream a reality.” The support has been well rewarded.
Some Leaning Post wines
Leaning Post Grimsby Hillside Vineyard Chardonnay 2021 (Lincoln Lakeshore)
Leaning Post Grimsby Hillside Vineyard Pinot Noir 2020 (Lincoln Lakeshore)
Leaning Post Keczan Vineyard Syrah 2020 (Lincoln Lakeshore)
Leaning Post Senchuk Vineyard Chardonnay 2021 (Lincoln Lakeshore)
Leaning Post Senchuk Vineyard Pinot Noir 2020 (Lincoln Lakeshore)
Leaning Post Wismer Foxcroft Vineyard Riesling 2019 (Twenty Mile Bench)
