Tasting Note This has been designed to provide decades of ageing, so it feels more substantial and structured than any of its Niagara peers from this same vintage. It pours deep, still youthful ruby. The nose is very generous, rich and creamy with mulberry/cassis jam, tobacco leaf, subtle herbs, licorice and wood spice. It is as full bodied as you will get from Niagara, dense and well balanced with firm, deeply embedded, grippy tannin. But all in proportion with the overall extract, density and wash of flavour. Excellent to outstanding length. I first tasted this wine in 2024 and re-visited in December 2025, over a 24-hour period of being open without anti-oxidation measures. It held beautifully. Sock this away until at least 2030. It will be a generational wine. Last tasted December 2025.
Backgrounder I am not going to often quote winemakers in this space, but what winemaker JL Groux has to say about this wine is important to the theme. He was born in the Loire Valley of France and trained in Bordeaux, and made some of the first serious Bordeaux reds in Niagara at Trius in the mid-1990s. He is meticulous and thoughtful about everything, which is why he was hired by Status when it opened in 2005 to produce Bordeaux-inspired blends. This comment speaks. “The 20-year journey of discovery in our estate vineyard has given us intimate knowledge of each block — each dip and ridge, our mosaic of soils, even each vine. We’ve learned the microsites, and we understand each one’s synergy with the year’s climate.” A knowledge he has passed on to Dean Stoyka, who seems equally driven by detail and restless experimentation. Stratus hatches more new and derivative wines than any winery in Canada. But its core is Bordeaux red blends. This employs of all five Bordeaux varieties led by cabernet sauvignon but percentages are not published. It spent almost two years in French oak, 20% new.
