A vineyard is planted at the end of the Black Walnut Trail

(Our vineyards as seen from the Short Hills Provincial Park.)

My name is Daniel Speck and with my brothers Paul and Matt we are the proprietors behind Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery. My immediate family has been on a 25-year journey to create hand- crafted wines of quality and authenticity. But in some nascent way the journey really began 200 years ago when our Loyalist forebears, refugees, looked north for a new home at the end of the Walnut Trail and landed in the Niagara Peninsula's Short Hills Bench. The purpose of this blog is to introduce you to our family and to tell you the stories behind our land, our winery and our wines.

(The Mennonite-built wagon in front of the winery.)

Our father’s ancestors were Loyalists who moved north during the American Revolution. When Nicholas Smith and his family settled under the Black Walnut trees of Niagara’s Short Hills Bench in the late 1780’s, he and his 14 children became the first to farm our land. Henry Smith was one of the sons and he became an innkeeper who collected a toll on Pelham Road which crossed his property. By coincidence, around the time the land was settled, the Prime Minister of England was a Sir Henry Pelham (no relation). With tongue in cheek, when Henry Smith licensed the tavern at his inn, he chose the moniker Henry of Pelham and the nickname stuck. Because Henry was the first person to plant vineyards on our land, we have honoured him ever since with the naming of the winery. We have also paid tribute to his wife Catharine, the family matriarch, by naming our sparkling wines after her.

(Our parents, Paul and Bobbi Speck.)

Paul Stanley Speck, our dad, was born during the Depression in 1931. He was the youngest in a family of ten kids, son of the St. Catharines dog-catcher. The Short Hills Bench was not as well known for fine wine then as it is today. Dad’s family was brutally poor and all of the kids worked. He was a truck driver at the age of15 (was that legal?) but managed to finish high school. Dad, who became a voracious reader, used to say “By the age of 19 the only book I’d ever read
was Peter Rabbit.”

St. Catharines was a tough place then with little opportunity. And so during the war his brothers found their way out into the world through the military. For my dad it was the priesthood, which was also his path to an education.

(Grampa Ernie, the St. Catharines dog catcher.)

He became a teacher and studied at the University of Toronto and Cornell, then at Fordham before meeting my mother who is from Manhattan. My mum, Bobbi, is the youngest child born to Ted Schroetter and “Tony” Inciardi (my middle name is Anthony, in Grandma’s honour). Mum’s grandparents were Hungarian and Italian immigrants who were entrepreneurs and artisans in turn of the century Manhattan. Mum became a book editor.

In the 1960's the priesthood and my father parted ways. My parents married in the mid 1960’s, moved to Toronto and in 1966 my oldest brother Paul was born. Matthew followed three years later and then I was born in 1974. My parents had started a small private high school in our house on Brunswick Ave. in Toronto’s Annex, but with three young boys competing for space the school was moved into its own home on Madison Ave. My parents ran it there for 20 years.

(The original vineyard team: the Speck bros., cousin DJ and a good friend. The family members all share Inciardi genes.)
In the 1980’s, as some Smith cousins were selling off the different parcels of land my parents felt strongly about keeping what they could in family hands. They put several pieces of land back together and started the next family project. It wasn't too long before Paul, Matt and I were sent on regular forced weekend and summer marches to “camp farm” in Niagara where we planted the vineyards.

In Niagara the three of us lived a Lord of the Flies existence in the then decrepit old inn that Henry had built in 1842. Paul was 16, Matt 13 and I was 8.

There was no fresh water, there were holes in the walls and ceilings and wild animals were kept at bay by our cocker spaniels Bronte and Boswell. At night, through the spaces in the floorboards under my bed, I could hear the sound of something being dragged along the stone floor in the wet, damp cellar. I still don't know what that was.

(The Inciardi men, forebears. Note the strong family resemblance...)

During the day we tore up the original vineyards planted by Henry a century and a half before, we chased the sheep off of the farm and shovel-planted the initial 65 acres over a few summers with our friends (then later we planted a hundred more). Our neighbour Billy Holder supplied us with a chest freezer full of chops, steaks and burgers (no one knew what to do with the roasts but we managed to eat them anyway). For dessert I’d eat Cream of Wheat smothered in butter and maple syrup. The fridge was always full of cheap beer and freezies. We cruised the vineyards on quads, trikes and bikes. Matt saved and bought a dune buggy. It was like a page from “Where the Wild Things Are” and except for the grueling work it was an adolescent’s paradise.

We did work. And learn. A prudent vineyardist takes four years before cropping young vines but in that time he must still farm the land. As autumn and school approached each year we would return to the civility of home but always kept an eye on the farm. Soon Paul was at university followed by Matt while I, being the youngest, finished up at my parents' school. Like Paul and Matt I eventually went to St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where each of us studied philosophy and science. At that time my father became ill and Paul agreed to come back home upon graduation to spend a year getting the winery off of the ground. One year became two, three and then Matt made the same bargain as Paul and the years went by for him too. Our father passed away while I was at St. John’s but he lived to see the winery’s first profitable year. With the young winery seeing its first critical acclaim my brothers steered the ship until I also returned home and joined them in the family business – but only for a year... More than ten years have gone by since I returned to Niagara and today we continue to work together managing different aspects of the winery.

(The westernmost extremity of the Short Hills Bench.)
We have each worked in the different parts of our craft, spending many years in the vineyards and winery and have traveled many miles on the road selling what we grow. Like people's lives, wines too are the assemblage of many parts. Even if those parts come from the same vineyard the different aspects bring uniqueness to what is finally composed: The west side of the field is trained one way; the east side another. This fruit sees oak; that fruit does not. And so on.

A great part of winemaking is the people behind the juice and the choices they make in the final composition. This is where all three of us come together with our winemaker since 1990, Ron Giesbrecht, and his longtime assistant Sandrine Epp. These collaborative tastings are critical to shaping our house style.

This house style is also informed by you. We would like to know more about how our wines have come into your life and any thoughts you may have about Henry of Pelham, so please contact us. With a glass of Cuvée Catharine Brut in hand – cheers!

Daniel