Meet Ben Stewart

As founder and owner of Quails’ Gate Estate Winery, Ben has been involved in industry, community and volunteer organizations as a leader and champion for more than a quarter century. He continues to help shape a vital BC wine and grape growing industry while contributing to social, cultural and economic development in the Okanagan and in British Columbia through his participation in:

Central Okanagan Regional District Advisory Planning Committee
UBC Okanagan President’s Advisory Council
BC Ministry of Transportation Minister’s Advisory Committee
Westside Governance Committee
Kelowna General Hospital Foundation
Brookhaven Extended Care Facility Campaign
Southern Interior Cancer Centre Campaign
Rotary Centre for the Arts

Ben has been recognized as Business Leader of the Year in Kelowna (1998), and, on the Westside, the Westbank Chamber of Commerce President’s Award (2006). He has been a Kinsman, a scout leader and a member of the Canadian Ski Patrol.

Ben was born and raised in Kelowna. Upon graduating from George Pringle High School in Westbank, he moved to Calgary to pursue a career in banking and consumer finance, rising to become an assistant manager with Citibank Canada.

After leaving the banking business in 1979, Ben returned to the Okanagan Valley to join his father, Dick, in the family vineyard and pursue the dream of starting a winery. In 1989 Ben founded Quails’ Gate Estate Winery, one of Canada’s premier wineries. Today Quails’ Gate Estate Winery employs over 100 employees and is internationally recognized and awarded as an outstanding wine producer and tourist destination. Quails’ Gate prides itself as a family run business.

Ben and his wife Ruth have been married for 30 years and have three children, Liane, Kitson and Patrick. They live on the Westside of Kelowna at Quails’ Gate.