Tasting Note – This is not a one off. The young estate vines have produced lighter, but stylish viognier from three years now, with the 2023 vintages adding a bit more gravitas. This is bright and poised. Expect sweet spiced pear, tea, vanillin, acacia blossom – not intense but fine pointed, and very much on form for viognier.  It is medium weight, sweet-edged with a lick of acetic, very smooth, custardy, impressive flavour concentration. Excellent length

Backgrounder – Named Best Performing Small Winery at the 2026 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada, and 3^rd overall in Canada, Black Bank Hill’s rise to prominence has been swift.  It was only  opened in 2023 by Taylor Emerson, and winemaker (cousin) Jonathan McLean, a Brock University grad who worked several years in the Okanagan as an assistant winemaker at top wineries like Tantalus, Culmina, Mission Hill and Le Vieux Pin (the latter fuelling an interest in Rhone varieties).   The vineyard was planted 2017/2018 to several varieties, on clay soils just below the Escarpment east of Beamsville. “Viognier and syrah will likely be our flagships” Taylor said at the time, although other wines have gained traction since. This viognier is from two clones, barrel- fermented and aged 19 months in neutral oak. It was bottles unfined and unfiltered.

Accolades: Silver National Wine Awards of Canada 2026