Leaning Post: Mapping Out the Road to Success
Recently I interviewed Nadia and Ilya Senchuk of Leaning Post to discuss all corners of the Niagara wine industry as we know it today. Most importantly, navigating their dream as a winery that began in 2009 that quickly gained industry buzz from wine professionals, and in turn a hard focus from eager consumers that closely followed. Leaning Post is a success story that truly began from the ground up. Ilya recalls selling their first bottles to a restaurant off of a table saw for which he was making the winery bar with. It’s easy to assume that great wine will simply equal an eventual rise to the top, but over the years Nadia and Ilya have seemed to concoct the perfect recipe of high-quality wine with other intangible factors that are consistent cogs in a clockwork of triumph for Leaning Post.
I had to take a deeper dive in to their winery journey to break down the path of their continuously growing popularity.
Passion and Inclusivity
If you’ve ever met Nadia and Ilya Senchuk of Leaning Post Wines, one of the first things you may notice is their incredibly warm and down-to-earth personas. Without pretention, or any detection of wine snobbery, Nadia and Ilya welcome the public to their winery with nothing less than a smile and humble kindness ready to share their passion through wine. Their 14 year road to success, and coming up on ten years being open to the public, it comes as no surprise when when you depict the benchmarks hit along the way to achieve the love and recognition of wine consumers and wine pros alike.
The genuineness of Nadia and Ilya is one I find practically unmatched in this industry, and I firmly believe is a major contributing factor to their adoration by consumers. One instance that can’t go unmentioned was their relentless pursuit of raising awareness and funds for Ukraine relief during the pandemic. In what was already an extremely trying time for everyone, including wineries within Niagara, Leaning Post, who are proudly Ukrainian, were not only collecting truckloads of goods for people affected by the crisis, but they were also donating significant funds of bottle sales towards Ukrainians in need.
The passion that Nadia and Ilya exude towards things they believe in spans across their entire business approach, and reaches to their inclusive serving experience. “When people are here it’s the feel, it’s the service component. That’s hugely important, having good people who are passionate about wine, who are knowledgeable about wine, and making people feel welcome and non-intimidated. We want people to feel like they’ve gotten value upon being here, from the experience and the wine. Our goal is to make people feel that value from both sides,” says Nadia. Ilya adds, “We really care about wine education. Nadia is a certified somm, Victor is a certified somm…so that really matters, and the flip side we really want people [working here] who love wine and geek out about wine and can spread that love in a non-intimidating way. We want staff to make a very complicated concept easily accessible to those who walk in to the tasting room. We don’t want to dumb down the wine, we just want to make it an accessible experience.”
“Nadia and Ilya have seemed to concoct the perfect recipe of high-quality wine with other intangible factors that are consistent cogs in a clockwork of triumph for Leaning Post.”
Ambition and Accessibility
The couple began their journey with Leaning Post Wines starting out as a virtual winery in 2009. From there, Ilya and Nadia bought the farm in the Lincoln Lakeshore sub-appellation of Niagara which their winery now sits in 2011. Why did they buy this farm? They thought it would work well as a site to grow grapes, and as it turns out, they were absolutely right. The estate Senchuk Vineyard has proved to provide excellent crops that produce high-quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay - both receiving rave reviews from local and international wine critics.
“The 2019 Senchuk Vineyard Pinot Noir is one of my favourites, I’m very proud of that wine. It really shows the potential of what our farm can produce in the way that I was hoping it would, and it’s receieved big critical acclaim not just here in Ontario, but all over the U.K. as well. It’s very gratifying to buy in to an area that I thought would be good, but hadn’t been proven yet.” Says Ilya.
“Wet stone, winterberry, mushroom and blueberry compote aromas give an intriguing introduction to this earthy Pinot Noir from the Lincoln Lakeshore sub-appellation. Energetic acidity and upfront minerality spiral through black raspberry, basil, and dried fig, caressed by rounded and sturdy tannins. A lengthy, and savoury finish. This exceptional wine begs to see a decade in the bottle. This is a must for your cellar!” Leah Spooner, tasted 2021.
But it’s not just their top-tier wines reaping rewards. Leaning Post has managed to produce high-quality, loveable wine across their entire portfolio at a range of approachable and affordable price points. “We are giving people quality and value at $22 per bottle to $70” states Ilya.
Vision and Innovation
As a winemaker, Ilya has it in mind to find the best terroirs of Niagara through lesser known sub-appellations and expressing them in the purest way possible. Leaning Post is a pioneering winery in the area for pushing single-vineyard, high quality wines through site expression. Upon opening, there were only 3-4 wines being made in Niagara using the Lincoln Lakeshore appellation. Leaning Post has certainly impacted the landscape of Niagara wine as you can see today, Lincoln Lakeshore gets about 50-60 wines made under it’s sub-appellation title.
“...isn’t it amazing? You put those pieces together in the right quantity at the right percentage, (which changes every year by the way) which is just another magical quality of wine!””
“We are just starting to have an impact on people’s perception of Niagara wine. At the ten-year mark, people are just starting to see some identity and consistency for Niagara, and that does seem quick compared to the history of the area,” says Ilya.
Nadia and Ilya discuss the importance of appellation and sub-appellation wines and their growth in Niagara and how that directly incorporates in to their winery practices. Leaning Post was already ahead of the game with their vision for creating their sub-appellation and single vineyard wines before it became a trend for consumers. Nadia, who also sits on the VQA board, states “55% of wines created in Ontario last year were VQA, and 45% are appellation wines.”
Ilya mentions “When I first released our first Lowry Vineyard Pinot from the ‘09 vintage, I didn’t release it until 2011, which were among the first wines from here, the year before we had a tasting room. Nobody at that time was looking for light-coloured, low-alcohol, high acid reds. I was just making wines that I really believed in and loved and thought worked well with our region. That’s what our region grows, so we can accept that or not, and trends are going more cool-climate, less extract-y.” He goes on to add, “I think in general in the past few years people have been eating lighter too and are looking for those wines to match…Suddenly everyone wants cool-climate wines. People want more balanced wines. It turns out, not everyone wants oak bombs. Four loud notes in a wine doesn’t equal complexity, it just equals loud.”
The innovation that Leaning Post winery began with, would directly propel them into a prime position for the future wine market drive.
During the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration, Leaning Post offered a pouring of a side-by-side of two different Chardonnay clones. Both Chardonnay received the same treatment in the vineyard and winemaking process, giving attendees the chance to taste the significance that even a clone variety can make to a wine. An ultimate experience for wine geeks that is entirely unique.
“I think people are underestimating the power of clones. Clones from the same grape variety are quite different from each other,” says Ilya. “Especially nowadays that we have access to different clones commercially, it’s one of the ways wineries can naturally send a wine in a particular direction just by what we plant in the ground. I wanted to show that and the only way to do that besides a one-off tank or barrel sample, is to bottle those clones separately and release them from the same vintage at the same time. Our Senchuk Vineyard is the most complex of those wines, but unless you taste those different pieces independently you wouldn’t understand why we did what we did to make that wine or even know about it. This way, we can say - here’s the Clone 96, this is what it gives, and here’s the Clone 548, this is what it gives. And, isn’t it amazing? You put those pieces together in the right quantity at the right percentage, (which changes every year by the way) which is just another magical quality of wine!”
So, what does the recent vintage look like for Leaning Post? I asked them their thoughts on the 2023 vintage.
“With Niagara’s climate being drastically different year to year, I’m trying to focus less on the consistency of wine styles that the market is looking for, and more on the quality of wines each year. 2023 started out a little wetter than I would’ve liked but it’s turned in to a dry vintage,” says Ilya.
“Even in challenging vintages, it separates the weak and the strong; you just have to work harder and make the right decisions in the winery,” points out Nadia. Ilya adds, “We have lots of lovely grapes out there, tonnages are good, so I think we are in a good spot, all we can hope for is another few good weeks before harvest and we will have a pretty damn good vintage!”