Hillier’s Closson Road is full of wineries on “the beautiful Hillier clay loam,” as Micheline Kuepfer of Broken Stone Winery puts it.

“Lots of fragmented limestone,” she says, of the soil that gives her winery its name. “Pinot Noir and Chardonnay do very well in it.” So well, in fact that Ms. Kuepfer and her husband Tim just won at “The Judgment of Kingston,” a blind wine tasting in which the judges and audience compared County wines to the competition from Oregon. 

Broken Stone’s County Grown Pinot Noir 2023 was declared the best.

“Early November’s a tough time to do it,” explains Tim, “we’re just doing our wine making, trying to bury the vineyard, it’s harvest. We were driving there and I was thinking of everything else I need to do. But I love it. It’s fun.”

It’s also instructive. “The Oregon wines seem to have been backsweetened a little bit. I got a hint of residual sugar. Ours tasted right, but we have that minerality, that crispness. There is definitely a ‘Countiness’ flowing through all of the County wines that comes from the limestone and the climate,” says Tim.

And there’s also the idea of “climat,” adds Micheline, whose French Canadian background comes in handy when talking about wine, “sort of the terroir plus the people: the human aspect of it, the people who are making the wine, the people who are tending the vineyards.”

That includes the people who come to taste the wines. Since planting their first acre and a half of Pinot Noir in 2009, and opening a tasting room in 2013, the Kuepfers have noticed a shift in visitors, from “hard core” wine lovers to “agritourists,” who come for a full experience of the region. 

Wassail, as a shoulder-season event, draws a local clientele. If it once featured buses moving from winery to winery, these days it is more about those nearby coming independently to make merry as the cold sets in.

“We’ve been doing it every year. Once we put the vines to rest, we like to celebrate it, kind of toast the vineyards,” says Micheline.

Singers’ Treat: those who sing treated to a taste — or two

Micheline’s Quebecois memories of Christmastime make tortiere a specialty on their menu. 

“The smell of meat pies just brings back a lot of great holiday memories. 

People gathering, a beautiful time to share food and wine. Since our first Wassail we’ve always provided little tourtieres. The main thing is that it goes very well with our Pinot Noir, and with mulled wine.

“We also have two new wine releases. We have a special vineyard in the back, I call it the Sparkling Vineyard. We planted Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay together there. We do a traditional sparkling wine using these and it sits on the lees — in the bottle — for three years, and it is ready just in time for Wassail.”

This wine (there is also a sparkling red variety) is called “Amour” — an appropriate title for the labour of love the winery represents. Both Tim and Micheline joke that their name can be flipped to say “Stone Broke.” But there is obvious pleasure in their description of the life of a vintner. At its heart it is social, and the warmth of the Wassail welcome is a reward in itself. 

“That’s what it’s all about,” says Tim.