by Sue-Ann Staff
Tap into your Fancy Farm Girl
A passion for wine has taken Sue-Ann Staff around the globe, but through all her travels and all her experience crafting award-winning wines, one truth became evident to her.
She loves the farm.
***
The sights, the smells, the sounds and, perhaps most importantly, the lifestyle. A fifth generation farmer in the heart of Ontario’s Niagara wine country, Sue-Ann has taken her passion for wine and blended it with her passion for the farm in the bottles of Fancy Farm Girl Wines.
“Fancy Farm Girl is more a state of mind than it is a wine,” says Sue-Ann. “I believe every woman has a bit of a fancy farm girl in her, the girl who rides a Harley, the figure skater who becomes a hockey fan. And she always, always, pours prior to drinking.”
These marketing words are behind the winery’s new
Fancy Farm Girl label – but they also capture the very essence of Sue-Ann.
***
“The best day for me is when I start out in steel-toed work boots and ripped jeans, get up to my elbows in the vineyards or tank room, and then head home, shower, pop on a gala dress and go to pour wine at a splashy event. I love the contrast, the diversity, the glamour. But my roots are in the farm,” matter-of-factly states Sue-Ann. (Sommelier Velma LeBlanc)
***
Timing is everything. When I visited Sue-Ann in August last year, we walked through the vineyards & I suggested that we feature her; at that moment in time neither Sue-Ann nor I knew that March 2015 would be a turning point for her. Sue-Ann Staff is, to use her words, “going at it on my own”. She is shedding her responsibilities as a winemaker at other wineries and focusing 100% on her own winery: Sue-Ann Staff Estates Winery...Home to Fancy Farm Girl Wines. This is a big leap for anyone, yet, in my humble opinion, this remarkable woman can do anything. (Sommelier Debbie Trenholm-Savvy Wine Company)
***
***
About Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery:
A small, quality oriented winery on the Staff family’s 200-year-old estate on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment in Jordan, Ontario, Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery blends more than a century of grape growing experience with Sue-Ann’s 15 years of making award-winning wines. After opening in 2009, it has been a whirlwind of ultimate experiences, from weddings to corporate dinners to food truck events and Niagara Icewine programs.
***