Jessica Ramage | VP Sales & Retail | Westcott Vineyards

Vice-President of Sales & Retail Operations · Westcott Vineyards · Since 2016

VP Sales & Retail
Jessica Ramage

Saleswoman, Wine Scholar & Burgundy Devotee

Jessica Ramage came to Westcott the way the best people often do: because she fell in love with the wine first. A Chardonnay glass pointed her in the door, and once inside, she brought everything she had: a sharp analytical mind, deep wine knowledge, an athlete's competitive drive, and an unstoppable energy that runs every corner of this winery's guest experience.

↓   Read her story

Jessica Ramage, Vice-President of Sales & Retail Operations at Westcott Vineyards
Jessica Ramage · Westcott Vineyards · Jordan, Ontario
Credentials
McMaster MBA · WSET Level 3 · French Wine Scholar · Hawke's Bay Harvest · Burgundy Devotee
Jessica Ramage at Westcott Vineyards tasting room
Westcott Vineyards · Where the Chardonnay brought her

How She Got Here

She Came for a Chardonnay

Jessica walked in to Westcott as a guest, tasted the Chardonnay and knew she wanted to be part of the team behind it. That kind of genuine conviction, rooted in the wine itself, is exactly what Westcott is built on.

Before wine, Jessica was a numbers person. An MBA graduate from McMaster University, she entered the working world as a self-described "bean-counter," sharp, analytical, and built for the detail-oriented work of finance and business management. She was good at it. But wine country was calling.

Her first role in the industry was with Rancourt Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, an experience that sat at the intersection of wine, hospitality, and local food culture. There, she did everything except make the wine itself: front-of-house, events, operations, sales, and the full-range daily work of a busy wine country enterprise. It was, in retrospect, the ideal training ground for a life in wine, giving her the breadth that no single-focus winery role ever could.

"She started as a bean-counter. She became something rarer: someone who understands both the numbers and the wine in the glass."

— Carolyn Hurst, Co-Founder, Westcott Vineyards

When Jessica joined Westcott in 2016 as Vice-President of Sales & Retail Operations, she brought that full-spectrum experience with her, and with it, the passion for the wines that had brought her to the region in the first place.

Her True Passion

An Intense Love
of Burgundy

Côte d'Or · Côte de Beaune · Côte de Nuits

📜
WSET Level 3
Wine & Spirits Education Trust, the industry standard for serious wine professionals. A foundation in blind tasting, global varietals, and the theory behind great wine.
🇫🇷
French Wine Scholar
A specialist designation with deep focus on France's appellations, terroir, and classification systems, including the villages, premiers crus, and grands crus of Burgundy she loves most.

For Jessica, Burgundy is not just a region. It is an obsession, a philosophy, and the benchmark against which she measures every glass. Her WSET Level 3 and French Wine Scholar designation give her a formal, rigorous understanding of exactly why the great wines of the Côte d'Or are great: the interplay of limestone geology, cool continental climate, the specific expressions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at each site, and the Burgundian tradition of minimal intervention in the cellar.

That Burgundian lens is not incidental to her role at Westcott. It is central to it. The winery's home vineyards on the Vinemount Ridge share calcareous, limestone-influenced soils with the Côte d'Or. Casey's winemaking philosophy was shaped directly by Burgundian techniques absorbed through Rhys and Bachelder. When Jessica talks to guests, sommeliers, and restaurateurs about what makes Westcott wines distinctive, she draws on a deep, literate understanding of the tradition their wines are part of.

"If you want to understand what we're trying to do with our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the answer starts in Burgundy and ends in Jordan, Ontario."

Her travels, particularly her love of visiting wine regions, keep her education current and alive. Burgundy is a recurring destination. She speaks its language fluently, in every sense.

What She Does

Everything, Brilliantly

At Westcott, there is no single version of Jessica Ramage. She is the person on the sun-drenched summer patio making guests feel like they've arrived somewhere special, and the same person in the cellar with Casey, exploring what next year's blend might become.

🍾
Vice-President of Sales & Retail Operations
Westcott Vineyards · Since 2016

As Vice-President of Sales & Retail Operations, Jessica oversees how Westcott wines reach the world: from direct-to-consumer at the winery to trade accounts, restaurants, and wine clubs. Her MBA precision and genuine wine passion make her equally persuasive with a spreadsheet or a glass.

☀️
Patio & Guest Experience
Westcott's Seasonal Patio · Jordan, Ontario

During Westcott's exceptionally busy summer season, Jessica oversees a team of more than 20 staff delivering the full guest experience on the winery's celebrated seasonal patio. An athlete's instinct for being where the action needs her, and making it look effortless.

🧪
Blending & Winemaking Collaborator
Westcott Cellar · With Casey Kulczyk

Jessica works closely with Casey and the winemaking team in the cellar, exploring new blends, tasting barrel samples, and bringing her trained palate and Burgundian knowledge to the creative decisions that shape each vintage.

International Experience

Six Months in Hawke's Bay

Jessica spent six months working harvest in New Zealand's Hawke's Bay, a warm maritime region on the North Island known for its Bordeaux-style reds and Chardonnay. She managed fermentation cuves through the pressured weeks of vintage: monitoring temperatures, assessing progress, making the small decisions that determine whether a harvest becomes a great wine or an ordinary one.

The experience gave her an understanding of winemaking from the inside, in a different climate and with different varieties than she knew from Niagara. It made her a better communicator, a more literate taster, and a more confident collaborator in the Westcott cellar.

6
Months · Church Road Winery, Hawke's Bay
NZ
New Zealand · East Coast
🍇
Fermentation Cuve Management
3
Continents of Wine Experience

Off the Clock

The Person Behind the Pour

The qualities that make Jessica exceptional at her job, high energy, competitive instincts, genuine warmth, and a relentless need to be doing something, show up just as clearly in how she lives away from work.

🏈
The Jock

Don't be surprised to find Jessica tossing a football with the guys on the lawn between service shifts. A natural athlete with a competitive streak she wears unashamedly, sport is part of her identity. The same drive that makes her exceptional at managing a high-pressure summer season is the same drive that makes her the person most likely to be out there first when someone produces a ball. It delights guests and makes her team love her.

✈️
The Traveller

Jessica's love of wine is inseparable from her love of travel. The two have always fed each other. From the vineyards of Burgundy to the harvest floors of Hawke's Bay, she pursues wine in the field rather than on the page. The experiences she brings back from each trip make her one of the most genuinely informed and passionate voices Westcott has when it comes to putting its wines in context.

☃️
Hates Canadian Winters

Jessica is many things, but a winter person is not one of them. Once the Niagara cold sets in and the patio folds away for the season, her thoughts turn, with some urgency, southward. The grey skies and frozen ground of a Canadian winter are, to her, a minor annual grievance to be endured until the sun comes back and the vines begin to wake.

🌊
The Cayman Pull

The antidote to the Canadian winter is simple: the Cayman Islands, where her soulmate and sister lives. Warm water, white beaches, and the best company she knows. It is a standing reminder that the person who works so hard and so happily at Westcott every summer also knows exactly where she wants to be when the vines are dormant and the world slows down. She always comes back with her batteries fully charged.

When Niagara Winter Bites

She Heads for the Caymans

There is a version of Jessica Ramage who thrives in the full-throttle energy of a Westcott summer: twenty staff, a packed patio, barrel samples with Casey, and a football spiralling across the lawn between rushes. And there is another version, equally herself, sitting on a warm Cayman beach beside her sister, a glass of something Burgundian close at hand, letting the ocean do its work. Both are real. Both are essential. And every spring, she comes back to Niagara ready to do it all again.

Jessica Ramage paddlebaords in Grand Cayman.

Her Other Home

Grand Cayman
Warm water, white beaches & her sister

The Cayman Islands are where Jessica recharges every winter. Her sister lives there, making it equal parts family reunion and personal reset. It is a standing reminder that the person who works so hard and so happily at Westcott every summer also knows exactly where she wants to be when the vines are dormant and the world slows down.

Westcott Vineyards · Jordan, Ontario

Come and Meet Jessica in the Tasting Room

You can find Jessica in our tasting room and seasonal patio. Come taste what brought her here, and let her tell you the story.

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