Casey Kulczyk | Niagara Winemaker | Westcott Vineyards

Winemaker · Westcott Vineyards · Jordan, Ontario

Winemaker
Casey Kulczyk

Cool-Climate Craftsman & Cellar Philosopher

Casey Kulczyk's path to becoming one of Niagara's most celebrated winemakers took him from a university lecture hall in Guelph to vineyards in New Zealand and California, through the cellars of two of Canada's most important wine projects, and finally home — to a hillside in Jordan, Ontario, where everything he learned is poured into every bottle.

↓   Read his story

Casey Kulczyk, Winemaker at Westcott Vineyards, holding a glass of white wine
Casey Kulczyk · Westcott Vineyards · Jordan, Ontario
The Journey
Guelph University → Niagara College Oenology → Flat Rock Cellars → Saint Clair Estate · NZ → Rhys Vineyards · California → Jackson-Triggs · Bachelder & Le Clos → Westcott Vineyards
Vine rows leading to the heritage house at Butlers' Grant Vineyard, Niagara
Butlers' Grant Vineyard · Twenty Mile Bench · Niagara

The Foundation

From Guelph to the Cellar Door

Casey Kulczyk's journey into wine began with curiosity rather than a master plan. A student at the University of Guelph, one of Canada's premier institutions for food and agricultural science, Casey discovered wine the way many great winemakers do: as something to enjoy with friends that gradually revealed unexpected depth and complexity. That curiosity quickly became something more serious.

Recognising that a passion for wine demanded real training, Casey enrolled at Niagara College, graduating from the Oenology and Viticulture program that has since become one of the most respected applied winemaking credentials in Canada. Grounded in the very region whose terroir he would one day help define, his education gave him both technical rigour and an early, intimate understanding of what Niagara's unique cool climate is capable of producing.

"They act as a canvas for the environment they come from."

— Casey Kulczyk on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Toronto Life

His first professional stop was Flat Rock Cellars, a Niagara benchmark for cool-climate winemaking and the ideal first chapter for a winemaker who would spend his career chasing the character of place in a glass. From there, he crossed the Pacific to New Zealand, joining Saint Clair Estate and widening his palate, his technique, and his understanding of what cool maritime climates do to Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir in ways the Northern Hemisphere cannot replicate.

The Defining Chapter

Rhys Vineyards &
Jeff Brinkman

Santa Cruz Mountains · California · First International Intern

Pinot Noir Chardonnay Nebbiolo Gravity-fed Cellar Spontaneous Ferment Foot Punch-Down Single-Vineyard Biodynamic Farming

From New Zealand, Casey made his way to the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, becoming the first international intern ever to work at Rhys Vineyards, one of the most revered Pinot Noir estates in the United States. It was here, working as assistant winemaker to Jeff Brinkman, that a small flame became a fire.

Rhys was built around a single, almost monastic principle: that the winery's only job is to get out of the vineyard's way. All fruit gravity-fed, fermentations spontaneous, the cellar designed to function as a conduit rather than a factory. For Casey, working beside Brinkman was an education in listening. In how fog, elevation, and ocean proximity compress the ripening window, how diurnal temperature swings write tension directly into the fruit, and how great wine begins long before harvest.

At Rhys, Casey also worked with Nebbiolo, the notoriously demanding Piedmontese grape that insists on cool climates and rewards only the most patient of winemakers. That early encounter with Nebbiolo planted a seed that would follow him home to Niagara years later.

"Because we are surrounded by a diverse ecosystem — organic farming, biodynamic preparation — we get all the yeast and nutrients we need for a healthy, natural fermentation."

— Jeff Brinkman, Winemaker, Rhys Vineyards

One of the most distinctive practices Casey absorbed at Rhys, and carried directly to Westcott, was the use of a large array of one-tonne oak fermenters, with punch-downs performed entirely by human legs and feet. Far from a romantic affectation, foot punch-downs are among the gentlest possible forms of cap management: human weight distributes pressure evenly across the must, avoiding the harsh extraction and oxidation that mechanical punch-downs can cause. It is a practice rarely seen outside the most committed natural cellars in the world, and it remains a signature of how Westcott handles its most precious Pinot Noir fruit to this day.

Hand holding freshly harvested Pinot Noir grape clusters at Westcott Vineyards
Harvest · Pinot Noir fruit from the Niagara Escarpment

The Burgundy Chapter

Jackson-Triggs · Thomas Bachelder & Le Clos Jordanne

Returning to Niagara from California, Casey joined Jackson-Triggs and found himself in the company of a true giant of Canadian wine. Thomas Bachelder, known affectionately as "Niagara's Wine Gandalf," had spent decades studying the Côte d'Or in Burgundy before bringing those hard-won old-world techniques to bear on new-world terroir with stunning results. Working with Bachelder was, for Casey, a masterclass in the Burgundian tradition: the primacy of site, the importance of low yields, the discipline of letting the fruit, not the winemaker, determine the wine's character.

At Jackson-Triggs, Casey made two contributions that would leave a lasting mark on Niagara wine. First, he launched and built their traditional-method sparkling wine program from the ground up, a project that grew into one of the most successful sparkling operations in the region, drawing on the very same cool-climate fruit and attention to fermentation detail that he had absorbed at Rhys.

Second, he was part of the team working alongside Bachelder on the reemergence of Le Clos Jordanne, arguably the most consequential wine project in Canadian history. Originally founded as a Franco-Canadian collaboration to produce ultra-premium, single-vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Jordan Bench, Le Clos had been dormant since 2012. Its rebirth under Bachelder was a moment of genuine national significance for the industry, and Casey was there for it, absorbing firsthand the philosophy of Burgundian winemaking applied with absolute conviction to the limestone-laced soils of Niagara.

"Old world, Burgundian winemaking techniques employed on new world terroir — with minimal intervention — can produce exceptional wines."

— Thomas Bachelder, founding winemaker, Le Clos Jordanne

The time with Bachelder deepened everything Casey had learned at Rhys, connecting the dots between Santa Cruz Mountains minimalism and Burgundian terroir philosophy, both of which pointed in the same direction: step back, listen to the land, and make wine only a specific piece of earth could produce.

Casey Kulczyk standing behind a wine barrel at Westcott Vineyards
Home Farm Vineyard · Vinemount Ridge · Jordan, Ontario

Coming Home

Westcott Vineyards · Since 2018

In 2018 Casey joined Westcott Vineyards as head winemaker, arriving at the moment the winery was about to make its own boldest move, acquiring the 43-acre Butlers' Grant Vineyard on the Twenty Mile Bench and expanding into one of the most storied sites in the region. For Casey, it was a homecoming in the fullest sense: a Niagara native returning to the escarpment with a decade of world-class experience, ready to build something of his own.

The fit between Casey's philosophy and Westcott's vision was immediate and exact. Low yields, wild fermentation, restraint with new oak, extended maceration, unfiltered bottlings. The same convictions Brinkman and Bachelder had each, independently, reinforced were already at the core of what Carolyn and Grant had set out to make. What Casey brought was the depth of craft to execute that vision at the highest level.

Since joining, he has expanded the Westcott portfolio with new single-vineyard expressions, built out the sparkling program with traditionally-made wines hand-riddled and disgorged in small lots, and overseen a succession of vintages that have earned Platinum awards, Michelin-starred restaurant placements in the UK, and recognition as benchmark expressions of Niagara cool-climate winemaking. The one-tonne oak fermenters and foot punch-downs he learned at Rhys remain in the Westcott cellar, one of the most distinctive and committed practices in all of Canadian winemaking.

A Winemaker's North Star

Three Grapes. One Obsession.

Casey's passion is focused, deliberate, and fiercely specific. Cool climate is not just a condition; it's a philosophy. These three varieties, in the right hands and the right soils, produce wines that no warmer climate can replicate.

🍇
Pinot Noir
Burgundy → Santa Cruz → Niagara

The grape that first ignited Casey's curiosity at Rhys, where the Santa Cruz Mountains produced Pinots of extraordinary structure and minerality. At Westcott, the Vinemount Ridge delivers its own cool-climate interpretation: red fruit, earthy depth, and the vibrant acidity that comes only from vines that genuinely struggle to ripen. Casey treats every vintage of Pinot as a conversation with the vineyard rather than a recipe to be followed.

🍾
Chardonnay
Burgundy → Santa Cruz → Niagara

Casey's Chardonnay philosophy was shaped watching Brinkman coax wines of extraordinary tension and salinity from fog-shrouded Santa Cruz hillsides. At Westcott, he applies the same instinct: restraint with oak, respect for natural acidity, and a refusal to let winemaking obscure what the Escarpment delivers. The result is a Chardonnay that is lean, layered, and built to age.

🌿
Nebbiolo
Piedmont, Italy → Rhys, California → Niagara

Casey's passion for Nebbiolo began at Rhys Vineyards, where Brinkman was pushing into this most demanding of Italian varieties on California's cool mountain ridges. Working with Nebbiolo at that formative stage, watching it respond to the same low-intervention, terroir-first philosophy applied to Pinot, convinced Casey that the grape's future lay in cool climates willing to work on its terms, not the winemaker's. That conviction followed him to Niagara, where the Escarpment's cool nights and long autumns offer the same patient conditions Nebbiolo demands.

The Craft

A Philosophy Forged Across Three Continents

01
Let the Vineyard Lead

The lesson Brinkman taught at Rhys, and Bachelder reinforced through the Burgundian tradition of Le Clos Jordanne, is the same: winemaking decisions begin in the vineyard, not the cellar. Site selection, farming practice, and harvest timing carry more weight than any technique applied afterward. A great wine is grown before it is made.

02
The World is in the Glass

A career that crossed New Zealand, California, and Niagara's Burgundian frontier made Casey a natural networker. He maintains active relationships across the global wine community, travelling, tasting, and exchanging ideas with producers from the Côte d'Or to the Willamette Valley. He brings that curiosity back to the Westcott cellar every vintage, never losing sight of what makes Niagara singular.

03
Restraint as a Skill

The hardest discipline in winemaking is knowing when to do nothing. Wild yeasts in both primary and secondary fermentation, extended maceration, no new oak in the Pinots since 2019, hand-riddled sparkling. Casey's cellar work is a study in purposeful restraint. The wine will tell you what it needs, if you know how to listen. That's what he learned. That's what he practices.

Life Beyond the Cellar

Roots, Roasts & the Road

The same attention Casey brings to a barrel of Pinot Noir he brings to the rest of his life, with the same mix of craft, curiosity, and willingness to do things the slow way.

☕
The Coffee Business

Away from the winery, Casey and his wife have built a coffee business that speaks to the same values as his winemaking: sourcing with intention, process that respects the product, and a genuine belief that the best things take time. Coffee, like wine, rewards those willing to pay close attention to where it comes from and how it's handled.

✈️
Travelling the Wine World

Casey and his wife travel extensively, maintaining and deepening the relationships he has cultivated across the global wine community. Whether visiting producers in Burgundy, Piedmont, or the Pacific Northwest, Casey approaches each trip as both personal enrichment and professional development, bringing new perspectives back to the Westcott cellar with every journey.

🍁
Making Maple Syrup

There is something fitting about a winemaker drawn to maple syrup, another agricultural product where terroir, timing, and patience determine everything. Casey taps his trees each spring, managing the process with the same careful attentiveness he brings to harvest. It's slow, seasonal work. He wouldn't have it any other way.

🐓
Food, Farm & Chickens

A genuine love of food and a commitment to understanding where things come from has led Casey to raise his own chickens, a small-scale act of connection to the land that echoes his philosophy in the vineyard. Around the table with good wine, real food, and interesting people is where Casey is most at home. It is also, he would argue, where wine makes the most sense.

Passing It On

The Mentor in the Cellar

The relationship between Jeff Brinkman and a young assistant winemaker in a California cave shaped Casey's entire career. He has not forgotten what that kind of mentorship means, and he brings the same generosity to the next generation at Westcott.

Casey is a dedicated mentor to those learning the craft beside him, creating a cellar environment where questions are encouraged, responsibility is given early, and the philosophy of the winery is transmitted not just through instruction but through daily practice and honest conversation.

That approach found its most rewarding expression in his working relationship with Marilyn Kremec, Westcott's assistant winemaker and a winemaker whose future is as bright as anyone in Niagara.

Marilyn Kremec, Assistant Winemaker at Westcott Vineyards, giving a thumbs up beside a fermenter in the cellar

Assistant Winemaker · Westcott Vineyards

Marilyn Kremec
Oenologist & Emerging Cool-Climate Specialist

A recent graduate of Brock University's highly regarded Oenology and Viticulture program, which draws on the Niagara region's unique position as a living laboratory for cool-climate viticulture. Marilyn brought exceptional academic preparation and genuine passion for the craft to Westcott. Under Casey's mentorship, that foundation has been built into real cellar experience: from harvest decisions to barrel management to the quiet discipline of knowing when to wait. She is exactly the kind of winemaker that Niagara's next chapter will be written by.

Brock University Oenology Cool-Climate Specialist Niagara Trained

Westcott Vineyards · Jordan, Ontario

Taste a Career's Worth of Learning in Every Glass

From Guelph to New Zealand, California to the Burgundian cellars of Le Clos Jordanne — every vintage Casey makes carries everything he has learned, poured into wines that could only come from one place on earth.

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