New research on the geodemographics of Niagara’s winery visitors is sparking conversations in wine country.

Recent Geography graduate Sara Murdoch (MA ’25) wrote her master’s thesis on consumer desires in the Niagara wine industry after coming to live, work and research in the benchlands.

In 2021, her family purchased the Di Profio Estate Winery in Jordan Station, Ont. They relocated from Mississauga to jump headlong into the winery business for the first time, rebranding as 180 Estate Winery.

The move opened up the opportunity for Murdoch, who was finishing a bachelor’s degree in geographic analysis at Toronto Metropolitan University at the time, to pursue graduate studies at Brock, which is also home to the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI).

Her thesis research, supervised by Professor Michael Ripmeester, a Fellow of CCOVI, was inspired by a potentially catastrophic event for the new business owners.

“In 2021, we had a flash freeze and lost about 30 per cent of our vines, with a big portion of them being right at the front of the property where guests drive in and everyone could see,” she says.

The opportunity to be connected to nature while visiting the winery, whether sitting on the patio or walking through the vineyard while sipping a glass of wine, was an important part of the customer experience for Murdoch’s family.

“We couldn’t pull out the vines at the time because it was winter,” Murdoch says. “We got a little nervous about how people would view us, if they might think we don’t take care of the vineyard.”

But a divide emerged among customers, according to Murdoch, with some people showing concern about the dead vines and others failing to question or even notice them. She began to wonder if visitors’ reactions might be related to their locations.

She says she saw a chance to use her research to build “understanding of what people are looking for, where they’re coming from, where we could market better and what we could do better in terms of caring for people who visit us.”

While inspired by her family business, Murdoch’s project included location analysis and travel analysis to consider how boutique wineries across Niagara can better tailor their offerings to customers — from offering mid-week wine tastings to food pairings and more.

“People come from Toronto or the greater Toronto area not for one winery, but to stay the weekend and go to several wineries,” she says. “They need good experiences to find a couple spots that they love and will keep coming back to.”

Murdoch plans to share her research findings with local municipalities, other winery owners and anyone in the industry who would like to help grow the estate winery community in Niagara.

“I’ve always had a love for geography — I’ve known that I wanted to do something with geography since grade six,” she says. “And then I fell in love with the wine industry so quickly, that this research was really an opportunity to connect the two.”