Home Industry News Releases Veteran Winemaker – David Sheppard, Joins Flat Rock Cellars Team

Veteran Winemaker – David Sheppard, Joins Flat Rock Cellars Team

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July 11, 2017 – Ed Madronich, President of Flat Rock Cellars is pleased to announce the appointment of David Sheppard as Winemaker. “We are so excited to have Dave at Flat Rock Cellars!” says Madronich. He adds, “We always strive to up our game each vintage and Dave bringing his 35 years experience in making fine Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling to Flat Rock Cellars will certainly do that.”

Dave got his start in the Mittelrhein region of Germany in 1980 when he worked for a small family-run winery and gained all sorts of experience including making Riesling. After that he worked for 21 years at Inniskillin in Niagara-on-the-Lake under the tutelage of renowned Canadian wine pioneer Karl Kaiser. During that time Dave had the good fortune of working in Burgundy at Clos de Epeneaux in Pommard and Maison Louis Latour in Aloxe-Corton. These opportunities helped Dave expand his winemaking knowledge and his skill set as well as focus on two of Ontario’s key grape varieties – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. In 2003 Dave joined Coyote’s Run as founding winemaker where he gained notoriety for the wines he made there.

By joining Flat Rock Cellars Dave will bring his highly-honed winemaking skills to the Bench where he will create the carefully-crafted, quality wines that people have come to expect from Flat Rock. The move is also a reunion of sorts as Dave and Ed team up for the second time after having spent several years together on the Inniskillin Wines team. “I am really excited to have joined Flat Rock Cellars, it seems a natural evolution in my career and I cannot wait to get started making wine as I have some pretty fabulous vineyards to work with!”, states Sheppard. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to craft some of the best wines in Ontario.”, he adds.

Happy to be working with Dave again after all these years, Ed Madronich expects that the sky’s the limit for Flat Rock Cellars wines and can’t wait for the 2017 harvest to get underway.

About Flat Rock Cellars

Flat Rock Cellars is an architecturally unique, five-level gravity flow winery surrounded by 80 acres of vineyards, located on the Twenty Mile Bench in Jordan, Ontario; specializing in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling. Flat Rock Cellars was established based on a commitment and the inextinguishable passion of its founders. The winery is guided by the mastery of modern techniques where viticulture and winemaking come together with architecture and hospitality to create an experience as memorable as it is enjoyable.

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