Results from the 2026 Nationals – Best Performing Small Winery

Black Bank Hill Wins Best Performing Small Winery of 2026

By David Lawrason (Co-Chair and Co-Founder)

The WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada is very pleased to announce that Black Bank Hill, located in the Lincoln Lakeshore appellation of the Niagara Peninsula, has captured the coveted Best Performing Small Winery, awarded to the top-scoring winery producing 10,000 cases or less. Having opened only in 2021, it may be the most rapid rise to this pinnacle we have ever witnessed.

Black Bank Hill produced 2500 cases of wine in 2025 and entered nine wines in the 2026 Wine Align National Wine Awards, winning eight medals (no bronze). More importantly, its top five medals included one Platinum and four Golds. Rankings are determined by each winery’s top five scoring entries, combined with the weighted value of their medals. The medal’s weighted value reflects its relative scarcity across the competition; the fewer medals awarded overall, the greater each medal’s value in the final calculation. Based on the above, Black Bank Hill finished first among all wineries that produced 10,000 cases or less. Remarkably, it also finished third overall in the country among wineries of any size.

Black Bank Hill Winery

Says founder and owner Taylor Emerson, “This meaningful recognition truly motivates us to keep moving along our path and confirms the experience we have been sharing with our members and customers. It is a very pleasant tailwind to receive this support, but the journey is far from complete as we take the learnings and experiences of each vintage and roll them into improving next year’s wines.

It is my tenth year developing Black Bank Hill, and the vision for it has not changed from day one: a simple, overarching pursuit of wine quality by focusing on a single vineyard and producing wines solely from grapes we grow with great care. The goal of these core principles is to deliver wines of high quality consistently across vintages and varietals, but also wines that are unique and distinct to the site”

The vineyard was planted in 2017/2018 to several varieties – chardonnay, gewurztraminer, viognier, and chenin blanc among whites; pinot noir, cabernet franc, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and syrah among reds. While the vineyard and winery were being established during COVID, Taylor purchased fruit from Wismer Vineyard in Twenty Mile Bench and made wines under the tutelage of Cloudsley Cellars in Vineland. In 2020, he made the first less expensive “Runway Red” from his own fruit, as well as a syrah. Other varietal wines started to roll out from 2021 and 2022, with his cousin Jonathan McLean imported as viticulturalist in 2021.

Jonathan is an Ontario-born, Brock University CCOVI grad who worked several years in the Okanagan as an assistant winemaker, including stints at Tantalus, Culmina, Mission Hill and Le Vieux Pin. When he got the call from cousin Taylor, he was instantly intrigued by the site that lies on clay and gravel soils on Saan Road, literally at the foot of the Beamsville Bench, 100 metres north of Hwy 8. It is also a stretch occupied by Redstone Winery and the mature Keczan Vineyard, growing syrah and Bordeaux red varieties.

“My foundation is built on experience gained alongside some of Canada’s best winemakers,” Jonathan explains. “Mentors like Séverine Pinte (a syrah specialist at Le Vieux Pin in B.C.) helped me channel my passion with purpose, allowing me to find my voice.”

“As Black Bank Hill’s viticulturist, I begin crafting our wines long before the grapes are harvested. My relationship with the vineyard is guided by the Hodinöhsö:ni principle that everything is connected, and my role is to act as its balancer”. Hodinöhsö:ni is the indigenous name for the centuries-old Iroquois Federation that over-arches the Six Nations of upper New York State and Ontario.

“That philosophy extends into the cellar, where our wines are made naturally, without additions of any kind,” he continued. “At Black Bank Hill, we do not compromise. Every decision is made for the benefit of the environment, the vines, and ultimately, the wines”

All five top medalists received average panel ratings over 91 points. The top three highest-scoring wines were all Bordeaux reds, with a Platinum for Black Bank Hill 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon (a rarity in Niagara cab sauv). And Golds for Black Bank Hill 2023 Cabernet Franc and Black Bank Hill 2023 Égalité, a Bordeaux red blend. At WineAlign, we began to get a sense of the quality of the reds from this site when the Cabernet Franc Reserve 2022 took Platinum last year.

Black Bank Hill 2023 Chardonnay and Black Bank Hill 2023 Pinot Noir also took gold, with a pair of 2023 syrahs, L’Hirondelle and La Crécerelle, close behind with Silver medals. Silver also went to Black Bank Hill 2023 Viognier.

The cousins are running production themselves, with marketing and admin support by Niagara industry veteran Meg McGrath. When I first visited the winery in December 2023, I was struck by their ambition and work ethic. And the almost parental enthusiasm as they talked about getting to know their vineyard. It bubbled most when talking about their syrah and viognier. “These will likely be our flagships,” Taylor said at the time, perhaps not knowing that four years later Black Bank Hill would be hosting a sold-out consumer event called Shades of Syrah that involved six Niagara wineries focused on this rising star.