Our name is a whole migration in three beats. It started as O'Hara in Ireland. When the famine came, the family moved to Scotland and it became O'Hare. And when my grandfather and his brother came across to Canada, the O was dropped, and we became Hare. My aunt was our family historian, and she traced us back to 1634. My grandfather was named John. I am named after him. I'm usually on the floor here, so come say hi.
On my father's side, we are Scottish. When we were kids, we would visit my grandmother and my Great-Auntie Ella, and the first thing we did was bolt for the back pantry, because we knew there would be shortbread and ginger snaps waiting. That memory is why we make Grandma Hare's Scottish Shortbread today, from the same family recipe (only four delicious ingredients). Every dollar of proceeds from shortbread cookies goes to Gillian's Place, a local women's shelter. That is not a marketing program: there are women and children needing help, and we want to help. It is who we are. Our first year we gave about $400. This year we are on track for around $6,000.
On my mother's side, we are Bulgarian, though I did not know it for years. Every August we would drive up near Thunder Bay to see my grandparents, and I would hear the grown-ups slip into a language I did not understand. In the '90s I decided to go and find the family. I taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet and about forty words, flew to Sofia, took the train to Shumen, and met cousins I had only known through letters. My great-grandfather grew grapes there, and the family still owns and manages 80 hectares of vineyards to this day. To honour all of it, I bring Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon together with our Niagara fruit and make a wine we call Haretage, a play on our name. The back label carries a photo of the three nieces I met on that first trip. Of everything we make, Haretage is the one I am proudest of.
After my parents passed, we found boxes of old family photos, Scottish ones on my father's side, Bulgarian ones on my mother's. They are going up on our walls, because I feel it is important to honour and remember where you come from, and ours is a genuinely diverse, beautiful story worth telling.
You will feel the same idea in the room itself. We built the place from reclaimed materials: an open courtyard inspired by the ones in Europe, 115-year-old reclaimed Detroit brick, and 150-year-old local barn board. At first, tastings were all up at the bar, and it never felt quite right to me. So I built 22 harvest tables out of that same old barn board, because that's when I actually enjoy wine, cooking dinner, sitting down to it with family and friends, or just unwinding with a glass in the evening. This is a place to sit down and stay a while, and let the space remind you a little of the old world, wherever your own family's story began, while you make a few new memories with the people you're with.
That is the short version. The long version is better told over a glass, so come find me on the floor. John.
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769 Niagara Stone Road, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome.