Stag's Hollow Winery (Winemaker & Director of Operations)

Born and raised in Penticton, Keira LeFranc is Winemaker and Director of Operations for Stag’s Hollow Winery. Keira always pursued science and was thinking of architecture as a career. She earned a degree in Biological Sciences with a Physical Sciences minor at the University of Alberta in 2013. While still in college, she worked in the tasting room of Stag’s Hollow Winery in the summer of 2012, and the next year worked in the lab and participated in harvest. “I loved the work but was overwhelmed by the responsibilities involved and decided to move to the restaurant side of things.”

Keira moved to Australia in 2014 and worked in restaurants and presented programs focused on wine education. “My pathway was Sensory. I started in restaurants and in the sommelier world, particularly the pairings of wine and food.” Finding that she missed pursuing science, she went back to school and completed her Postgraduate Diploma of Wine Science at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand.

After graduating, she first worked as a Harvest Cellar Hand at Babich Winery's Auckland facility for their 2017 harvest and then returned home to Stag's Hollow as a Cellar Hand for the 2017 harvest there. When harvest was completed, the then male winemaker gave the winery a nine-month notice and subsequently recommended Keira for the lead winemaking position. She accepted, overlapped with him for those nine months, and took over as winemaker in July 2018. The fantastic harvest that year provided Keira with what she described as a career highlight: “Six wines in the 2018 Renaissance Series,” a designation that is possible only when the wine is crafted from outstanding grapes.

Since her appointment, the winery has been named one of Canada’s Top 10 small wineries. Most recently, Keira was among the five individuals named to the “2023 International Wine & Spirit Competition Emerging Talent in Wine” shortlist.

Updated 06/23