Martin Malivoire never planned to have a winery.

His idea was to grow grapes and live on a vineyard in Niagara. Maybe make a little wine...just to understand how to do it and do it well.

Yet for more than 20 years now, his winery on the Beamsville Bench has become a base for innovation, creativity and sustainability – with an aim to produce wines that are uniquely and proudly Canadian. Wines that could only be grown here, in Niagara.  Wines that don’t try to be from any place else. You could call  them wines that exude a sense of "Somewhereness."

As a director of motion picture special effects, Martin’s pre-winery career encompassed everything from television’s “Wayne and Shuster Comedy Hour” to such Hollywood big-screen attractions as “Resident Evil”, “A Christmas Story” and “Hairspray”. After thirty years, Martin decided the time for a change had come.

The results came rapidly with the purchase in 1995 of what is now known as the Moira Vineyard, followed by the acquisition of the larger property where the winery now stands. Original plantings of Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Gamay and Pinot Noir were supplemented in the following years by additional vinifera varieties. Today, thanks to burgeoning demand, Malivoire operates at the top of its capacity, producing twenty-four thousand cases of wine per year.