You might not think a potato farmer and a cattle rancher have much in common with winemaking, but you haven’t heard the story of Joel Mans (plus brother Rick) and partner/friend Jordan Sinke. For generations, the unlikely boutique winery operators, with their families before them, built thriving farming operations near Lethbridge. But, as the next gen farmers will attest, curiosity (and boundless energy, obviously) added a whole new dimension to their life’s work. And by dimension, we mean, why not add a homegrown fruit wine operation to their daily duties?
Twenty-somethings Joel and Rick Mans took over a 700-acre potato farm from their dad (adding a small orchard of haskap berries in more recent years), while business partner and longtime best friend, Sinke, has a much larger cattle feedlot operation nearby. Like the Mans brothers, Sinke grew up on the family farm and had the desire to diversify, to try something different in sight of an up and down cattle market.
Together, the farmer friends have parlayed Joel’s haskap berries and a highway-side locale into Little Gem Winery and tasting room. It’s not potatoes or cows; rather a whole new skill set the men are embracing with their boutique winery offerings. “We definitely did NOT have the skill to make wine,” laughs Sinke, “But we kept working at it – we’re always learning. I help make the wine and do social media. Joel does the day-to-day winery work, and runs the tasting room. Ultimately, we want to make good wine and cider.”
Since the idea hatched in 2018, Mans and Sinke have taken the fruit harvest and enlisted the expertise of east coast winemaster and consultant, Alexandra Beaulieu, to tutor the farmers in the art of winemaking. A few years on, the results are starting to speak for themselves. “Little Gem isn’t a big wine company–and that’s on purpose,” says Joel Mans, the paperwork and marketing guy who is running the potato farm as well as raising three young sons with wife Stefanie. “When we started, we thought, sure, we can MAKE a fruit wine, but no one will drink it. We knew we had a lot of learning ahead of us,” remembers Mans of the period between 2018 and 2020.
After researching other wineries and making contacts in BC’s Okanagan wine industry, the farmers hired Beaulieu as consultant. Starting with Zoom calls, the wine master eventually came out to the farm to help with equipment setup and floor plan/work flow, recipe development and trial batches. “Joel and Jordan were very independent through the process, and as farmers, they were already hard workers and knew the principles of cleaning and sanitation; another big plus,” Beaulieu says, giving top marks to the Little Gem entrepreneurs for taking on the haskap, not one of the easiest fruits (or wines) to work with. “It’s a berry with challenges. Though it can handle a freezing climate and is easy to mascerate, it’s big on tannins, high in acid and low in sugar,” she says, adding the winery’s Oak Aged Reserve Red is her favourite. “It’s the longest aged of the lineup and the oak suits the fruit very well. It’s ‘terroir-driven’, meaning the wine is of its place. These are local wines you want to pair with local foods.”
Mans and Sinke say they like what they’ve got going with the haskap, with its healthy-for-you profile and suitability to the northern climate. Also known as the honeyberry, haskap (which comes from Japan and also does well in Russia), is a bulbous, purplish, blue berry that grows on deciduous leafy bushes, and boasts high vitamin C levels and even higher antioxidant properties. Along with a haskap cider, the Little Gem lineup includes a classic red (with bright acidity), a crisp, apple-forward white wine, and the most popular of the bunch, the oak aged reserve red. There’s also a dessert wine (think figs and dates) and a rose to round out the offerings.
The winery currently runs a 1,000 litre and 4,000 litre vat, enough to produce over 10,000 litres of wine yearly. Even though the makers are busy on their respective farms, Sinke says Little Gem produced about 10,000 litres of wine in 2024. The winery has about 16 barrels of its Reserve Red now on the go, which will make a few thousand bottles. “There’s nothing like our Reserve Red out there. It’s a beautiful wine to have with red meat: it’s our biggest seller.”
“Farming is still our full time job; evenings and Saturdays are for the winery,” Mans says.
“Having a tasting room is important, because there’s a big educational aspect to overcoming the fruit wine stigma; that it’s sweet or not the same quality as a grape wine. We started the tasting room during COVID and we’re ready to expand on that; to keep making wines that connect with people.”
The tasting room is a focus for Little Gem, with part-time and full-time staff, especially in the busy summer season, and food like local Dutch cheese and a charcuterie board a part of the offering. There’s room to seat 30 to 40 both indoors and on an outside space, with the fruit orchard nearby. And having a property along the highway and in a busy tourist corridor in southern Alberta is a bonus, Mans points out. A grand opening last summer attracted over 1,000 visitors to Little Gem winery, so it’s expected special events will continue, whether through Alberta Open Farm Days or something similar.
The company’s unique haskap cider is already in a couple of Lethbridge liquor stores and restaurants, and Calgary’s Kensington Wine Bar. And, thanks to Mans’ father-in-law, the notion of a freeze-dried haskap energy shot has come onto the scene, with an eye for getting it into liquor stores too. “We’re still quite new. Online sales are part of the future, but for now, we’re focused on creating a good value, quality, local fruit wine, and for people to have a good experience when they visit the tasting room,” Sinke says.
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