The countdown continues of my Top 10 Niagara wineries to visit. (You can see the whole list at the bottom of this post.)

No. 5, as the title suggests, is Southbrook Vineyards. Southbrook is probably as environmentally friendly a winery as you’ll find in Ontario. As of 2010, the entire 150-acre property has been certified organic and biodynamic. They’ve even partnered with Lincfarm@southbrook to offer grass-fed lamb and beef, along with forest-raised pork and free-range eggs.

The construction of their distinctive LEED-certified winery and pavilion—I’m not sure if it’s more accurate to say you can’t miss it from Niagara Stone Road, or that you can miss it, given its incredibly low profile—called for a high level of local and recycled materials. They enjoy 95% natural daylight in all work areas to help reduce electricity, while an array of solar panels ensures that Southbrook generates more energy than it uses.

A growing market, literally, has been Southbrook’s natural wines category. Chief winemaker Ann Sperling and winery owner Bill Redelmeier helped write the regulations for the Vintners Quality Alliance of Ontario (VQA) a few years ago for skin-contact whites (a.k.a. ‘orange wine’).

“It has certainly been huge for Southbrook,” Redelmeier admits. “We have basically doubled our production every year since we first made it in 2014.”

Personally, I’m still finding ‘orange wine’ an acquired taste…and one that I haven’t quite acquired yet.

All of Southbrook’s wines are vegan-friendly. Part of their organic/biodynamic winemaking means they rely on indigenous yeast (naturally present on grape skins) for fermentation of their red wines.

And don’t be put off by the cloudy nature of many of their wines—it just means they haven’t used fining agents in the winemaking (that’s the process of removing ‘unwanted’ particulates from a wine to clarify it). A clear vs. cloudy glass of wine is generally what most people prefer, visually speaking, although some winemakers, Sperling included, feel it removes some of the natural, healthy and flavourful components from a wine.

I’m a fan of Southbrook’s Triomphe and high-end Poetica lines. Although prices are a fraction higher here than average in Niagara, there are several factors to consider, including extended development time for each wine before they release it, not to mention the overall quality of the finished product.

And if you get the chance to meet owner Bill Redelmeier, that will be worth the trip alone. Bill is engaging, honest, well-travelled and well-educated, and he goes way out of his way to support Ontario companies and the Ontario wine industry at large.

You might even see him making wine deliveries to your door if you order direct from the winery.

And Bill puts out a great weekly newsletter, which you’ll want to sign up for. It’s not just immensely educational with respect to what’s going on in the Ontario wine industry, but also includes special deals the winery is running.

But it’s better to visit in person to really appreciate all the earth-friendly things they’re doing here. Southbrook’s new motto, after all, is “Better vines, better wines, better world,” and they call themselves “Canada’s most thoughtful winery.”

And it’s really hard to argue.

Check out all of Niagara’s Top 10 Wineries:

#1: Domaine Queylus

#2. Creekside

#3. Tawse

#4. Kacaba

#5. Southbrook

#6. Vineland

#7. Colaneri

#8. Ravine

#9. Back 10

#10. Malivoire