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Culmina releases its first 2012 wines.

October 2, 2014, 12:12 pm
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Photo: Gates at Culmina Family Estate Winery

Culmina Family Estate Winery enjoyed two advantages in the 2012 vintage that it did not have in 2011, its first vintage.

The first: 2012 was the riper vintage in the Okanagan. The second: the wines were made in a new and well-equipped winery whereas the 2011 vintage was made in a garage. The debut wines were very good but it is no surprise that the 2012s are better.

Culmina is the winery opened on the Golden Mile Bench by Donald and Elaine Triggs (right) and their daughter, Sara. Development of the 56-acre vineyard began in 2007, a year after Vincor International – where Don was the CEO – was taken over by Constellation Brands.

Retirement did not appeal to him when there was an opportunity, he believed, to start a new winery that might raise the bar for winegrowing in the South Okanagan.

“We are trying to achieve the very best we can from our terroirs and our vineyards,” he says. “We wanted to find a site that could consistently ripen Bordeauxvarietals. We knew we needed degree days between 1,550 and 1,580. We looked at five sites from Naramata right down to the Osoyoos border before we picked the site that we are on now.”  The major benches at the Culmina vineyards average about 1,600 degree says while the highest bench, where the winery has Chardonnay, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner, is cooler, with Burgundian degree days.

The Triggs family has spared no expense on a vineyard that is expected to deliver superior grapes.

“We are not farming one large vineyard of 56 acres,” Don says. “We are micro-farming 44 individual blocks. We selected the size of the block [to achieve] uniformity of the soil. Our French consultant matched the rootstocks to each specific block, so we can ripen the vines perfectly on each block. We are farming blocks that average 1.2 acres – the largest would be three acres, the smallest is half an acre. Some of the blocks are smaller than the back yard of your house.”

Irrigation is tailored to the blocks. “We are using a very sophisticated vineyard monitoring system, the first in BC, which allows us to monitor soil moisture at five different levels down in the ground,” Don says. “Our vineyard has 108 valves managing 56 acres; so we have a valve for every half acre. It allows us to water each block precisely according to its needs.”

The family’s willingness to spend what it takes for superior results lies behind the name of the Chardonnay: Dilemma.

When Don bought the property, there were Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay vines that the previous owner had planted in 1993 and 1994. That presented a dilemma: should they keep the old vines, since old vines are supposed to give better quality grapes; or should they replace the varietals with better clones on better rootstock?

“We had the tough decision of ripping out 26 acres of 18 year old vines,” Don says. “We had Cabernet and Merlot from the old vineyard that we compared to those varietals in the new vineyard – new high density plantings of 2,044 vines to the acre. The new plantings of Cabernet and Merlot were just so superior to the old vines that I knew I had to rip them out.”

The Chardonnay vines performed better, producing the grapes for both the 2011 Dilemma and the 2012 Dilemma. But those 20-year-old plantings also will be replaced when the new plantings come into production. However, it is likely that the Dilemma brand will continue for Culmina’s Chardonnay.

Hypothesis also seems to be establishing itself as the proprietary brand for Culmina’s Bordeauxblend.

In February, Culmina released three wines from 2013 as well: a Riesling called Decora; a Grüner Veltliner called Unicus; and a rosé called Saignée. These wines have previously been reviewed and are now sold out, or nearly sold out.

Here are notes on the newly released team of 2012 wines.


Culmina Dilemma 2012 ($28). Some 85% of this spent a year in new French oak barrels; 15% was raised in stainless steel. Burgundian elegance is the model here. The wine begins with toasty aromas of lemon and apple, delivering rich flavours of tangerine subtly touched with notes of the new French oak in which the wine was fermented and aged for 12 months. About 15% was fermented in stainless and only 60% went through malolactic fermentation. As a result, the flavours are crisp and fresh. Delicious now, the wine also will develop more complexity with several more years of aging. 91.



Culmina Hypothesis 2012 ($44). This is 57% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon and 19% Cabernet Franc. It was aged 16 months in French oak (70% new). The blend here is a significant departure from 2011, which was 40% Cabernet Franc, 36% Merlot and 24% Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2012 presents a fuller, juicier arrays of flavours and textures. It has aromas and flavours of spicy black currant, along with red plum and toasted oak. The 16 months this wine spent in French oak (70% new) has polished the ripe tannins. The finish is elegant and persistent. The winery estimates the aging potential is five to 10 years. 92-94.
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The Poplar Grove/Monster Vineyards strategy for quality

October 7, 2014, 9:32 pm
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Photo: Poplar Grove's Tony Holler

Founded in 1993, Poplar Grove was still a boutique winery in 2007 when Tony Holler acquired majority ownership from founder Ian Sutherland.

Born in Summerland, Tony had already succeeded as a doctor and pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He had bigger ambitions in the wine industry and more resources to invest than his partner.

“I wasn’t that interested in having a tiny boutique winery,” Tony told me in an interview a few years ago. “I wanted to really develop a winery that was a sustainable business. What I mean by sustainable is that this business could become a family business that might go through generations of our family. In order to do that, you have to have a certain size.”

Since then, two new wineries have been built: the Poplar Grove winery still retains the boutique size and image while the nearby Monster Vineyards winery has the capacity to produce and cellar most of the wines for both labels. The capacity is 25,000 cases. With the space available at the Monster facility, the premium Poplar Grove reds now have the luxury of two years, or so, in barrel and another two years in bottle before being released. That is one reason for the noticeable rise in the complexity and quality of those reds in recent years.

The other reason, and a more fundamental one, is that Poplar Grove gets almost all of its grapes from vineyards owned by Barbara Holler, Tony’s wife.

 “When we looked at what we needed to make high end wines, one of the things that Ian Sutherland brought up was that he was buying a lot of fruit,” Tony says of his winery planning with Ian in 2007. “That was really going to be an issue. If we were going to develop a 25,000-case winery, and we are buying all the fruit, I don’t believe we can get the quality that is needed. So my wife, Barb, and I decided we have to become an estate winery. We have to control all our own fruit; we need to plant our own vineyards. That was why we ended up buying the roughly 100 acres, half here on the Naramata Bench and half on the Osoyoos East Bench.”

The Monster label, which was created several years ago, enables winemakers Stefan Arnason and Nadine Allander to keep a clear distinction in style and quality between Poplar Grove’s premium wines and Monster’s fruit-forward, easy-drinking wines.

“You can dilute those top brands by having wines that I would say are not at that level,” Tony says. “We decided [Monster] will be fun wines that people can enjoy on a patio in the afternoon.”

Monster has certainly won enough awards to prove that these are also very well made wines. The latest releases have the double appeal of being tasty and affordable.

Here are notes.

Monster Vineyards White Knuckle 2013 ($17.90). This is a blend of 50% Riesling, 24% Chardonnay, 21% Pinot Gris and 5% Viognier. The wine begins with aromas of peaches, apples and citrus. On the palate there are gobs of tropical fruit, with flavours of lychee, tangerine, and apricot. The texture is juicy, with bright acidity nicely balanced with a trace of sweetness. I am not sure why it is called White Knuckle because there is nothing scary at all about quaffing it happily. 88.

 Monster Vineyards Skinny Dip 2013 ($19.90). This is 90% Chardonnay, 10% Viognier. The wine begins with aromas of ripe apple and ripe pears, with a hint of honey and lemon. On the palate, there are flavours of apples and grapefruit. The texture is generous but the finish is dry; and that results from superb winemaking. The technical note shows the wine has 10.5 grams of residual sugar. One might expect a sweet finish but the bright acidity leaves the wine crisp and refreshing. 89.

Poplar Grove Chardonnay 2013 ($21.90). This is a bright and fresh Chardonnay, beginning with aromas of apples and honeydew melon. On the palate, there are flavours of citrus and nectarine with a subtle toasty hint of French oak. The subtlety came from the winemaking decision to put 14% of this wine in new French barriques, and just for three months. The rest aged in stainless steel; malolactic fermentation was discouraged so that the lively fruit flavours could be preserved. The texture is ever so lightly creamy. This is quite an appealing wine. 90.

Poplar Grove Viognier 2013 ($24.90). This wine is available only in the winery’s tasting room and to those fortunate enough to have joined the wine club. It begins with lovely aromas of orange blossoms and fresh apricots. On the palate, there are flavours of apricot and peach with a touch of ripe pineapple. The texture is rich with the classic spine of minerality this variety displays. The fruit flavours are exceptionally pure and intense, with a refreshing brightness reflecting good acidity. 91.

Poplar Grove Blanc de Noirs 2013 ($24.90). There are five varietals in this rosé which was made by the saignée method (bleeding juice from freshly crushed red varieties). This wine is 41% Merlot, 27% Syrah, 25% Malbec, 5% Cabernet Franc and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine has a lovely pink watermelon hue (in the style of a Provence rosé).  It begins with aromas of raspberry and strawberry, leading to flavours of raspberry and cherry. The wine’s residual sugar gives the flavour a hint of mid-palate sweetness while the bright acidity gives the wine a crisp finish. 90.
   

Monster Vineyards Monster Cabs 2012 ($19.90). This is 37% Cabernet Franc, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 4% Malbec. This is a juicy wine with a wallop of fruit on the palate. There are aromas and flavours of black cherry, black currant and spice. The long ripe tannins give this wine immediate drinking appeal but there is enough backbone to hold the wine for several years in the cellar. 89.

Monster Vineyards Merlot 2012 ($19.90). This is 92% Merlot with 4% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2% each of Malbec and Cabernet Franc. Dark in colour, the wine begins with aromas of black currant, blueberry and cocoa. The palate is generous with flavours of cherry, plum, blueberry and sage. This wine overdelivers for the price. 90.

Monster Vineyards Red Eyed 2012 ($19.90). This is 83% Merlot, 7% Malbec, 6% Syrah and 2% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. A minor quibble: the term, Meritage, should not be on the bottle because Syrah is not part of a Meritage blend, even if it almost certainly improves the wine. The wine begins with aromas of dark plum, black cherry and vanilla, with the perfumed note of Malbec. On the palate, the wine has abundant flavours of black cherry and black currant with a hint of cedar and sage on the finish.  90.

Poplar Grove Merlot 2010 ($29.90). How do you make a great wine in a cool vintage? In 2010, Poplar Grove reduced the yield of its total production from a potential to 210 tons to just 80 tons to assure good ripeness. It worked. This Merlot has 14.8% alcohol. There is also 10% Malbec in the blend. It begins with powerful aromas of black currant and vanilla, leading to flavours of black currant, black cherry, cola and chocolate. The ripe tannins give this a concentrated texture. The wine is drinking well now but will age well. 91.


Poplar Grove Cabernet Franc 2011 ($34.90 for 450 cases). This wine is 85% Cabernet Franc, 10% Malbec and 5% Merlot. This is arguably the signature varietal for Poplar Grove. This wine, whose polished texture comes from 21 months barrel aging and 18 months bottle aging, begins with spicy aromas of raspberry and blackberry. On the palate, there are flavours of black and red currant, with hints of black cherry, chocolate and vanilla. An ageable wine, it benefits from decanting if you must drink it now. 92.


Poplar Grove Syrah 2011 ($34.90). There is 4% Viognier in this wine, co-fermented with the Syrah. The wine begins with bold, meaty aromas of deli counter spice, plum and vanilla. On the palate, there are flavours of spicy black cherry, plum and prune, with lack pepper on the finish. The texture is generous. 91.



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Class of 2014: SOAHC Estate Wines

October 11, 2014, 10:13 pm
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Photo: SOAHC's Kim McLaughlin and Jamie Fochuk, with the next generation. Courtesy SOAHC Estate Wines

SOAHC is the first winery in British Columbia to be biodynamic from its inception.

Proprietor Jamie Fochuk, in developing the vineyard at Fruitvale (southeast of Trail), tapped the expertise of two French consultants: Philippe Armenier, a biodynamic farming consultant, and Alain Sutre, a Bordeaux winemaking consultant. The mineral spine in the winery’s debut releases, as well as the winemaking, reflects that expertise.

Here is the profile of the winery from my recently published John Schreiner’s Okanagan Wine Tour Guide.

Let’s clear up the name first: it is nothing more than “chaos” spelled backwards. Proprietor Jamie Fochuk explains that it is an allusion to the biodynamic viticultural practices in his vineyard.

Born in Edmonton in 1973, Jamie grew up in a farming family. After a post high school stint on the ski hills at Lake Louise, he decided to get “a real job,” and moved to Ontario wine country (his father was living in St. Catherines). When a basic viticulture course at the University of Guelphrevealed an aptitude for grape growing, Jamie found a job in 1996 with Klaus Reif, a leading Niagara vintner.

Eventually, Jamie was torn between a desire to continue studies at BrockUniversity, where he was doing well, or moving to the Okanagan. The practical-minded Klaus advised that “you will learn more behind a press than at school” and recommended him to Harry McWatters. Jamie immersed himself in viticulture at a succession of Okanagan wineries including Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards, Stag’s Hollow Winery and Black Hills Estate Winery.

He began his search for suitable vineyard land with several years of climate study. A property near FairviewCellars was appealing but too expensive. Then his research led him to the ColumbiaValley southeast of Trail. The ColumbiaGardens Vineyard had opened here in 2001, giving credibility to growing grapes in the valley. In 2006, Jamie and his partner, Kim McLaughlin, bought a nearby hillside property with excellent climate and soil properties. Detailed soil analysis revealed, as Jamie expected, no negative impact from the Trail refinery. “I know that giant molecules of heavy metals can’t float in the air,” he says. “We are a long way away. The one question would be the Columbia River, but our water comes off the mountains.”

After clearing the trees and making biodynamic amendments to the soil, Jamie in 2010 planted Chardonnay and Riesling on the vineyard’s 2.7 hectare (6.7 acre) lower terrace. He followed that by planting Pinot Noir, Gamay and Siegerrebe on the 4.85 hectare (12 acre) middle terrace. A three hectare upper terrace remains to be planted. In his planting decisions, he has taken advice from Alain Sutre, the Bordeaux consultant who works with leading Okanagan wineries.

With no farm building yet converted to a winery, Jamie began making his wines at the Synchromesh Winery in OkanaganFalls, producing about 30 cases in 2012 and 400 cases in 2013. When a winery opens here, Jamie says the tasting room likely will resemble the original Black Hillswine shop – a plank across two barrels.

SOAHC Estate Winery
392 Columbia Gardens Road
FruitvaleBCV1R 4W6
T 250.367.7594
W www.soahc.com

Here are notes on the two wines just released.

SOAHC Riesling 2013 ($23.50). Here is a tingling Riesling with laser focussed acidity and 9.5% alcohol. The wine starts with aromas of lemon and herbs and delivers flavours of lime, green apples and herbs with a backbone of minerals. This wine really should be cellared for another two to three years to let the acidity settle down and to allow the nascent complexity emerge. 88.



SOAHC Chardonnay 2013 ($26.50). This wine begins with good aromas of citrus and green apples subtly supported by French oak. On the palate, the wine has the brightness of Chablis, with flavours of grapefruit and apple wrapped around a spine of minerals. 89.
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Class of 2014: Hugging Tree Winery

October 14, 2014, 8:08 am
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Photo: The Makepeace family (left to right) Walter, Cristine, Brad and Jennifer




The SimilkameenValley’s winery population has grown by one, with the opening last month of Hugging Tree Winery.

A family-owned and operated winery, Hugging Tree is located on the east side of Highway 3. The tasting room is modest but comfortable. The family members who take turns behind the tasting bar create a friendly atmosphere.

One need not limit the conversation to wine. Cristine Makepeace, one of the proprietors, is an enthusiastic organic gardener. She also makes excellent peach jam from the farm’s peaches and sells the jams in the wine shop.

Here is the text of the Hugging Tree profile from the recent edition of John Schreiner’s Okanagan Wine Tour Guide.

Walterand Cristine Makepeace moved 13 times during their careers with the RCMP. In 2005, just before Walter retired from the force, they settled down in the south SimilkameenValley, buying a highway-side organic apple and peach orchard near Cawston where they could finally put down roots for themselves and for their three children. Nine years later, the property has blossomed into a family-operated estate winery that includes daughter Jennifer and sons Brad and Wes.

Walter, who was born in Vancouver in 1953, joined the RCMP in 1975. His wife Cristine, whom he had met in high school in Surrey, joined the force soon after. At the time of their retirement, Walter was the staff sergeant in charge of the South Okanagan and Cristine, who joined the RCMP in 1990 (and who had previously run the Keremeos detachment), retired in 2013 as a sergeant posted at the Vancouver headquarters.

Their interest in wine burgeoned after they were posted to Oliver in 1993. Walter says “the bug” was put in his ear by Randy Toor, one of the owners of Desert Hills Estate Winery and then an auxiliary RCMP constable. “He was just getting into grape growing and he said, ‘Walt, you should buy a vineyard’,” Walter remembers. A volunteer spot at a winery during a wine festival motivated him even further. “I worked the till one of the days,” Walter says. “There was a line-up. Everybody was standing there with credit cards and money in their hands and they all had smiles on their faces. I said, ‘I have got to become a part of this’.”

Their search for a vineyard ended when George Hanson, the owner of Seven Stones Winery, directed them to a 24-hectare (60-acre) property located almost across the highway from Seven Stones. Half of the property was orchard; the other half was raw land. (A pair of entangled willow trees on the lawn inspired the winery’s name.) Walter planted grapes on the second half in 2007 and 2008 and now has an eight-hectare (20-acre) vineyard, all of it in Bordeauxreds except for a modest block of Viognier. Syrah planted unsuccessfully on another four hectares (10 acres) was removed, making room for a white varietal in future, as well as for a winery cellar.

Walter contracted Serendipity Winery to make the wines in 2011 (50 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon) and in 2012 (1,400 cases). Both Walter and Brad, his son, have taken viticulture and winemaking courses at OkanaganCollege. Brad is the emerging winemaker, a career choice flowing from the family’s roots decision. Brad was a professional snowboarder, rock musician and bartender in Whistler until he decided to move to the farm. “I wanted to support my dad’s dreams,” Brad says. “And when I spent time here, I got addicted to the lifestyle and the valley and the beauty.”

Hugging Tree Winery
1002 Highway 3
CawstonBC
T 250.499.2201

To expand on that, Hugging Tree’s consulting wine maker is Richard Kanazawa who, until recently, was the winemaker at Serendipity. Richard has his own label, Kanazawa Wines, now based on a Naramata vineyard.

Because Hugging Tree will not have a press of its own until next season, the 2014 crush will be done by Richard and Brad at Synchromesh Wines in Okanagan Falls.

Here are notes on the current releases.

Hugging Tree Viognier 2013 ($17 for about 275 cases). A delicious wine, it has aromas of tropical fruits that jump from the glass. On the palate, there are flavours of lychee, green apple and apricot. Bright acidity gives this wine a tangy, refreshing finish. 90.

Hugging Tree Rosé 2013 ($18 for about 330 cases). This made with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon juice. The wine has aromas of strawberry and candy apple, leading to strawberry flavours and a crisp, dry finish. 90.

Hugging Tree Moonchild Merlot 2012 ($21 for about 500 cases). The name is an obscure astrological reference with special meaning to the Makepeace family. The rest of us need only enjoy the wine which begins with a touch of vanilla, oak and black currant on the nose. On the palate, there are flavours of black currants and blueberries. The ripe tannins give the wine a generous texture. 89.

Hugging Tree Telltale 2012 ($25 for about 600 cases). This is 48% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon and 19% Cabernet Franc. This is a well-made Meritage from a strong vintage. It begins with aromas of blackberry and cassis. On the generous palate, there are flavours of black current, blackberry, raspberry, with a touch of vanilla and chocolate. With a firm (but not hard) texture, this wine is three to four years away from peaking. 90-92.


Hugging Tree Vista 2012 ($35 for 75 cases).This is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon and 35% Syrah. It is a wine with considerable intensity. It begins with aromas of pomegranate and black cherry mingled with the meaty notes of rare steak. On the palate, there are flavours of pomegranate, black cherry and black currant. The texture is firm and the wine should be cellared for a few years. 90 - 91.
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A trio from Therapy Vineyards

October 17, 2014, 9:04 am
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Photo: Therapy winemaker Steve Latchford


A trio of wines has just been released by Naramata’s Therapy Vineyards includes, as usual, winemaker Steve Latchford’s excellent winemaking notes.

There is detail here not often revealed by other winemakers. I don’t think it is that most winemakers want to keep secrets, but merely that consumers and wine reviews would not understand some of the technical details.

Example: the Pinot Noir was fermented with “R2, Alpha and Indigenous yeast strains” and the malolactic fermentation was started with “SB3 Instant”.

Among winemakers, those details are important. The various properties of different yeast strains can have a profound impact on the aroma and the flavour of the wine. The choices are incredibly complex. Just google Scott Laboratories and look through the near infinite list of yeasts.

I take a lot of comfort, however, from the fact that Steve provides this esoteric information. It tells me he has a good handle on what he is doing in the winery.

Let me reproduce the biography of him from the Therapy web site:

Steven Latchford was born in Ontario’s Prince Edward County in 1982, His work ethic was developed early on by working in the dairy industry  and moving onto graphic arts and design.  The wine industry allows Steve to still use his agriculture background by growing grapes and his artistic side by crafting unique wine blends.

He started in the wine industry at the tender age of 18 when he enrolled at NiagaraCollegeTeaching Winery. Unable to legally drink at the time Steve patiently waited to finish his sensory classes when he was 19.

Graduating in 2004 from the program Steve had already found winemaking, viticulture and sales employment from Vincor International in 2001 at Jackson Triggs. He also helped produce the first vintage of Le Clos Jordanne  organic wines with Thomas Bachelor which were made at Jackson Triggs and worked along side Gerald Klose in Vincor’s sprawling vineyards for 2 summers helping foster the grape growing. Allowing him to watch the process from vineyard to winery to bottle.

Working closely under Tom Seaver  and Kristine Casey at Jackson Triggs Steve was able to build a foundation of winemaking knowledge and find his passion for oenology. Marco Piccoli took over as head winemaker at Jackson Triggs  in 2005 and helped shepherd  Steve’s creativity in Icewine  and sparkling production.  Steve and Marco are still close friends and stay in contact regularly.

After leaving Niagara and Vincor in the summer of 2007 Steve was looking for a new challenge and found himself in the OkanaganValley. Tasting his way through almost every winery in the valley, Steve ended up finding a home in August 2007 at Naramata’s Holman Lang group of wineries. He spent 14 months working closely with Bernhard Schirrmeister before being recruited to work at Therapy Vineyards.

Since starting at Therapy Vineyards in 2009 Steve has been able to create wines that stayed true to Therapy’s original wine style as well as fostering in new labels including Bi-Polar Icewine, Fizzio-Therapy sparkling and a very highly successful Artist Series Riesling.

Still being under 35 years of age has allowed Steve some different insight into the winemaking process and allows himself plenty of room for playing with blends, fermenting trials and production techniques. Steve looks forward to furthering Therapy’s brand into the future and producing many more highly awarded wines.

Here are notes on the trio of releases.

Therapy Vineyards Pinot Gris 2013 ($19.99 for 217 cases). Cool fermentation retained superbly aromatic aromas in this wine, including green apple and lime, leading to flavours of citrus and pear. The wine has good weight on the palate, with lingering fruit flavours on the persistent finish. There is a crisp mineral note on the finish. It is drinking well now but I agree with the winemaker’s suggestion that this might be aged a few years. There is a good argument that we drink our Pinot Gris wines too young. 89-90.

Therapy  Vineyards Freudian Sip 2013 ($17.99 for 1,100 cases). This is a blend of 43% Pinot Gris, 28% Riesling, 15% Sauvignon Blanc and 14% Kerner. The winemaking processes, including several hours of skin contact with a special enzyme, were all designed to capture the aromatics which these four varietals have in abundance. The wine begins with aromas of peach, melon and citrus, leading to flavours of green apple and lime. Good acidity balances the residual sweetness here. The wine has a long but zesty finish. 90.


Therapy Vineyards Pinot Noir 2012 ($22.99 for 300 cases). This wine was made with grapes from three different Naramata vineyards, fermented separately and blended later. The fruit was given a five-day cold soak to extract colour and flavour and then fermented for two to three weeks. The wine was aged in a combination of new and used French oak. The wine begins with aromas of cherry, vanilla and cloves. On the palate, there are flavours of cherry and raspberry mingled with toasty oak and chocolate. Spicy on the finish, the wine has good concentration with a texture hinting at a future silkiness with more bottle age. 89.
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Travels in Sicily – Cantine Florio

October 22, 2014, 4:56 pm
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Photo: Cellar at Cantine Florio


Before the 1943 Allied landing in Sicily, the Americans softened up the enemy by bombing Cantine Florio, Italy’s oldest producer of Marsala wines.

 From the air, the sprawling Florio cellar looked like a strategic target, given its location beside the ocean and near the railroad station. One can imagine the chagrin of General Patton’s troops when they arrived in Marsala to discover that the bombs had destroyed thousands of litres of wine.

 Only a small quantity of wine from 1939 and 1941 remain today at the winery, available to collectors with deep pockets. Even in a time when Marsala wines no longer enjoy the fashion of earlier times, these precious and long-lived vintages sell for more than $1,000 a bottle.

 The credit for developing Marsala generally goes to an English trader named John Woodhouse. He sailed into the port of Marsala in 1773 and discovered a wine being made there somewhat similar to Madeira and Sherry. He fortified the local wine and sent a shipload to England. The wine was so successful that he established his own blending centre in Sicily. His success attracted other English wine merchants to Marsala as well.

 In 1833, a Palermo pharmacist and entrepreneur, Vincenzo Florio, set up the first Marsala winery owned by an Italian. Florio, who was originally from northern Italy, became a powerful businessman. In addition to the winery, he owned a shipping line, a fish processing business, a ceramics factory and extensive real estate. Eventually, he bought Woodhouse’s business.

 In 1906, Vincenzo sponsored the Targa Florio, the world’s oldest sports car race. It is still being run every year near Palermo.

There also is a suggestion that he backed General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who began his campaign to unite Italy by landing with his troops at Marsala in 1860. Today, the Florio cellars have a Garibaldi memorial, including a number of rifles that the general have given to Vincenzo.

 The Florio family had the usual problems with the third generation. Vincenzo’s grandson proved to be a playboy. By the 1920s the winery was acquired by Cinzano. It changed ownership again in 1998 and is now part of a large private wine group which includes table wine producers Corvo and Duca di Salaparuta.

 Florio remains a leading Marsala producer and its cellar, which was grandly rebuilt after the war, is one of the top winery tourist attractions in the small city of Marsala.

 The wine, Marsala, was the first in Italy – in 1969 – to get its own DOC (Denominazione di origine controllata). The regulations specify where the wines can be made in Western Sicily and from what grape varieties. The major variety is Grillo, a thick-skinned white grape that also yields remarkably good table wines.

 Depending on how the wines are made and how long they are aged, Marsala styles range from bone dry to sweet. The basic wine is designated Marsala Fine, an unfortunate term that implies the wine is indeed fine. In fact, it is a wine aged only for a year. “It is too young for tasting,” Florio tour director Valentina Gambino asserted. “This kind of Marsala is good only for cooking.”

 If the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch is typical, this is the only Marsala you can find on liquor store shelves these days.

 Marsala wines become interesting when aged in oak for two or more years. A two-year-old wine can be labelled Marsala Superiore while a four-year wine can be called Marsala Superiore Riserva.
At a recent tasting at the winery, the tour group started with an excellent nutty dry Marsala aged eight years. The wine has an unfortunate name (at least for the North American market) of Terre Arse, which means a field dried by the sun.

The contrasting style was illustrated with Targa, a semi-sweet Marsala with six years of age. Its name was inspired by the car race.

Fortified to about 19% and exposed to oxygen while aging in vats or barrels, Marsala is among the most long-lived of wines. It is also a sturdy wine that can be opened and consumed gradually over several years without any deterioration of flavour. Marsala pairs well with food and is especially good as an aperitif. And consumers need to rediscover their Marsala palates because there is a lot of it available, usually at reasonable prices. Cantine Florio currently is aging about six million litres.
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Halloween party wines

October 25, 2014, 12:33 pm
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Somewhere out there, a Halloween party is looking for wines that fit the theme.

Besieged, a red wine with a scary label from the Ravenswood winery in Sonomafits the bill. It has just been listed in British Columbia at $25 a bottle.

If you prefer Okanagan wines, choose the scary labels but excellent wines from Moon CurserVineyards in Osoyoos. Example: Afraid of the Dark is an award-winning white for $22.

The dark label of the Ravenswood wine features three ravens flying against a stormy sky. Apparently, the inspiration was a memory that Joel Peterson, Ravenwood’s founding winemaker, has of once picking grapes ahead of a threatening storm while a flock of noisy ravens wheeled overhead.

A flock is sometimes also referred to with the archaic phrase, a murder of ravens (or crows) because the black birds were associated with ill luck in the early middle ages.

Far from having bad luck, Joel has had a long success as a winemaker, with the ravens being the totem for the winery.

Besieged is an intriguing blend: Petite Sirah, Carignane, Zinfandel, Syrah, Barbera, Alicante Bouschet and Mourvèdre. The percentages are not revealed and it would have been a challenge keeping track during the blending.

Besieged 2013 is a delicious wine. Dark in colour and full-bodied, it begins with aromas of plum and blackberry. On the palate, the fruit flavours are richly layered, including plum, blackberry and black cherry. There is spice and black liquorice on the finish. 90.

The label of Besieged immediately reminded me of Moon Curser’s wines. Most of their labels feature the silhouette of a wolf and a raven with a lantern. The wolf – there are sometimes two –has a spade over its shoulder, as though it was about to unearth or bury something. The raven’s lantern provides the light on a dark night.

The story behind Moon Curser is different than Ravenswood’s. The original name of the Canadian winery, which opened in 2006, was Twisted Tree Vineyards. A few years later, owners Beata and Chris Tolley decided that name was somewhat bland. They hired Vancouver marketer Bernie Hadley-Beauregard to rebrand the winery.

The new name and the scary labels emerged from south Okanagan’s 19thCentury history of gold mining. At that time, the nearest smelter was in Spokane, across the border. The miners had to pay duties if they declared their gold at the border. Consequently, there was a certain amount of smuggling at night. The miners cursed the moon when it was bright enough to reveal them to the authorities.

The Tolleys have had fun with this history, with labels such as Afraid of the Dark, Nothing to Declare, Contraband and Dead of Night. The latter, arguably their flagship wine at $38, is a blend of equal percentages of Tannat and Syrah.

However, Moon Curser’s Border Vines is more comparable to Besieged with a price of $25 for a six-grape blend of Bordeaux varieties.

The Moon Curser wines can be found in VQA stores while Besieged is not listed in about 80 Liquor Distribution Branch stores. And there is ample stock, with about 3,000 bottles of Besieged available.




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Travels in Sicily - Cantine Pellegrino

October 30, 2014, 11:33 am
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Photo: Casks of Marsala at Pellegrino winery



Since it was founded in 1860, the Pellegrino winery has remained both a leading Marsala producer and family-owned.

That has not been easy. In the edition published in 2006, The Oxford Companion to Wine says this in its entry on Marsalawines: “Production figures show a wine virtually on its death-bed.”

Yet since that was written, the gleaming white Pellegrino winery in the city of Marsala added in 2014 what must be one of the most elegant tasting rooms in Sicily. It has placed historical winemaking artefacts throughout its remarkably clean cellars. Those cellars contain 52 vats full of Marsala, each with a capacity of 300 hectolitres. Some death bed, indeed.

It must be admitted, however, that Pellegrino also makes table wines under the Duca di Castelmonte label. Table wines now account for 60% of the eight million bottles of wine made each year by this winery, with Marsala and another dessert wine accounting for 40%. The winery also produces and exports sacramental wine, the demand for which, presumably, is healthier than the demand for Marsala.

The winery was founded in 1860 by Carlo Pellegrino, very likely at the inspiration of his French wife who was from a winemaking family in Sauternes. Over six generations, marriages have changed the surnames of the owners; but the family still owns all the shares of Pellegrino. At several points in the winery, the Pellegrino family tree is prominently displayed.

The winery, by the way, is not related to the sparkling water of the same name.

Pellegrino was one of the Sicilian families that took control of the once-burgeoning Marsalabusiness from its English founders.

In its account, the Oxford Companion notes that an English merchant named John Woodhouse, on arriving at the port of Marsala, in 1770, discovered that the local wine somewhat resembled Madeira and decided to test the market by shipping some to Britain. He is said to have “invented” Marsala by adding 8.5 gallons of grape spirit to each 105-gallon barrel of wine. The point of fortifying it was to make it more stable for shipping.

The wine was such a success that he opened his own warehouse and cellar in Marsalaby 1796.

“The victualling of Nelson’s fleet in 1798 doubtlessly assisted in spreading the name of the wine,” the Oxford Companion observes.

Hugh Johnson, in his Modern Encyclopedia of Wine, writes: “In a sense it is Italy’s sherry, without sherry’s brilliant finesse or limitless aging capacity.” His brief entry makes it evident that he is not a Marsalafan – or has not had much opportunity to taste good examples.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Marsalawine producers sought to extend their wine’s real by making wines flavour with coffee, chocolate, strawberries, almonds and eggs. These were all called Marsala until 1984, when the DOC rules were tightened and the Marsala name was limited to undoctored wines.

There still are numerous types of Marsala. Pellegrino makes a dozen different examples. The primary wines are:

  • Marsala Fine, which is aged only one year in wood. This is the wine which is a staple in cooking. Hugh Johnson suggests that “Fine is normally sweet and rather nasty.” I can’t comment because none of the Marsala producers I visited offered an example for tasting.
  • Marsala Fine Rubino, which is a sweet red wine made from the Nero D’Avola grape which is the backbone of Sicilian red wines. Pellegrino makes only a small volume and does not export it, which is a pity. I thought the wine was delicious, a bit like RubyPort but not as heavy.
  • Marsala Superiore Reserva Oro, gold in colour with textures and flavours burnished during four or five years aging in cask. The dry version has an appealing nutty flavour.
  • Marsala Superiore Reserva 1985 Ambra.  Aged five years in wood, this rich and nutty Marsala is an excellent wine as a dry aperitif. This is the bottle I chose at the winery, where it retails for the equivalent of $20, an incredible bargain.
  • Marsala Virgine Soleras. This wonderful wine is made by the solera method, with cask-aged wine as old as 30 years in the blend. It is very much like a dry sherry, with flavours of butterscotch, hazelnuts and wood. It also retails for $43.50 a bottle.

The new tasting room, called Overture, aims at accelerating wine tourism. It is actually a four-storey building with a projection room in the basement, a retail outlet on the main floor, tasting rooms on the next level and a room for viewing the seacoast scenery on the top floor.

That is not this tourist-oriented winery’s only venue for special events. The Pellegrino property also includes two huge silos built as wine storage tanks in 1950, when Marsalawas still in its heyday.

Pellegrino stopped storing wine in them in 1990 and has since converted them into function rooms, with a professional kitchen and a professional tasting room. The tanks are so huge that there is an elevator for those who do not care to climb four levels to the top.

The tasting at Pellegrino included a few examples of table wines as well, all of them very well made – and probably hard to find in my market. Sicilian wines are especially interesting because many are made with indigenous grapes. A white variety called Grillo, which is used in making Marsala, yields surprisingly fresh and crisp whites.

There is no Grillo listed by the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (some private stores have various examples). The LDB, however, lists Pinot Grigio from Sicily. Even if Pinot Grigio is easier to sell than Grillo, it is absurd to list that varietal from Sicily when far better ones come from northern Italy.






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Maverick Estate Winery: golden or not?

November 5, 2014, 9:29 am
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 Photo: Winemaker Bertus Albertyn

The new Golden Mile sub-appellation has such tight boundaries that it excludes some of the best producers on what was historically considered the Golden Mile.

The only published map of the sub-appellation that I can find is a bit hard to read. However, I think Maverick Estate Winery is beyond the southern limit of the Golden Mile Bench.

As I read the final report on the sub-appellations, wineries within the historical Golden Mile (as opposed to the bench defined by soil characteristics) might still be allowed to use a variation of Golden Mile on their labels.

Maverick, which was established in 2009 by winemaker Bertus Albertyn, his father Dr. Schalk De Witt, and their spouses, should be one such winery. Its wines are bound to reflect well on the reputation of Golden Mile.

A doctor from South Africa, Schalk was practicing in Edmontonwhen he bought he bought two parcels for future vineyards in 2006 and 2009. The latter block, seven and a half acres beside highway 97, was an organic farm that was soon planted to vines. Planting is scheduled to begin in 2015 on the other block, 48 acres of raw land next to the Osoyoos Larose vineyard.

Schalk had great good fortune when one of his daughters, Elzaan, (also a doctor), married Bertus, the winemaker with the training to manage vineyards and make superb wines.

When Bertus, born in 1978 in South Africa, finished his enology degree at StellenboschUniversity, he started his career at a large wine cooperative before joining family-owned Avondale in 1994 as winemaker.  He came to the Okanagan early in 2009 when Elzaan began to practice in Osoyoos. He was Burrowing Owl Winery’s winemaker until mid-2013, when he left to concentrate on Maverick.

Maverick began selling wines in 2013. This summer, it opened an elegant tasting room on the property beside the highway.

The winery has quickly established itself as a rising star among the new Okanagan wineries. Here are notes on current releases.

Maverick Chardonnay 2013 ($26.90 for 100 cases). The winemaker uses the term “restrained power” to describe this wine. My first impression is how exquisitely pure and pristine the fruit aromas and flavours are. There is a note of peach and tangerine in the aroma, leading for flavours of tangerine, peach and mango. The wine is very subtly oaked (just five months in new French oak. The wine is elegant and refreshing with a lingering finish. 91.

Maverick Rubicon 2012 ($25 for 360 cases). This is a blend of 65% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Franc and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a very effective blend: the Cabernet Franc brings vibrant brambly flavours and aromas while the Syrah adds gamey plum and pepper. The Cabernet Sauvignon adds the structure. The wine, which was aged in a 3,500 litre oak vat, is drinking well now but will age. The winery recommends drinking it over the next three to seven years – if you can keep your fingers away from it. 91.

Maverick Pinot Noir 2013 ($29 for 250 cases). Here is a robust, assertive Pinot Noir, beginning with aromas of toasty oak, dark berries and vanilla. The wine tastes of black cherries and spice. The texture is elegantly silky, with a rich and long-lasting finish. 91.

Maverick Sofia 2012 ($30 for 285 cases of 500 ml bottles). The back label of this VQA wine describes Sofia (named for the winemaker’s daughter) as a Port. I am not sure how this slipped through the regulators because Canada, under an international agreement, is not permitted to use Europe’s wine names on its VQA wines. That said, I doubt that Portugal will be up in arms over Maverick’s 285 cases.

To make this wine, the grapes – ripened to 28 Brix – were handpicked into 30 pound trays and were cooled to 10°C overnight. In the tradition of Port, the grapes went into a large bin and were crushed by foot. The must was fermented several weeks on the skins, with alcohol distilled from the winery’s own grapes used to fortify the wine and stop fermentation. The must was then pressed and the wine was aged 18 months in French oak. The brandy spirit used to fortify the wine also was aged in oak for 12 months.


This is a terrific wine but, made with Syrah, also an atypical Port. The aromas began to fill the room as soon as the cork was pulled. In the glass, there are aromas of spice, white pepper, and Christmas fruitcake that are echoed in the flavours. The savoury flavours include plum, liquorice, chocolate and candied peel. The texture is rich. The wine carries its 19% alcohol very well, with a finish that goes on and on. 92.
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Le Vieux Pin and La Stella's exclusive releases

November 9, 2014, 3:24 pm
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Photo (courtesy Enotecca): Winemaker Severine Pinte

Wine collectors know that joining a winery’s wine club is the best route to the front of the line for special wines.

Le Vieux Pin and La Stella, the sister Okanagan wineries operated by Enotecca Wineries and Resorts, both produce such wines, often in such limited quantities that – even at aggressive pricing – the wines come and go in a blink of the eye.

Neither winery attached fees to its wine clubs. The Piccolo Club at La Stella and the Petit Club at Le Vieux Pin offer members two six-bottle shipments a year, typically at a cost of $150 to $200 per wine shipment, plus shipping charges.

Both wineries also have clubs simply called The Wine Society which offer members two 12-bottle shipments each year at an annual cost of around $1,000 for the wines. Shipping is free.

There are other benefits for members, including discounts on the wines, free tastings at the wineries and pre-release offers of limited production wines.

Winery wine clubs now have become a standard way of doing business for most British Columbiawineries. It is a win/win situation. The wineries lock in some customers and you lock in your favourite wines.

Here are notes on currant and upcoming releases from these wineries. Both wineries are fortunate to have the same talented French-trained winemaker, Severine Pinte.

Le Vieux Pin Ava 2013 ($35 for 690 cases). This is a blend of 50% Viognier, 41% Marsanne and 9% Roussanne. The wine begins with aromas of herbs and stone fruit, leading to flavours of apple, grapefruit and stone fruit. The wine has good weight on the palate, with bright acidity and with a dry, lingering finish. 90.

Le Vieux Pin Syrah Cuvée Classique 2012 ($45 for 393 cases). The 13.8% alcohol of this wine is the first clue to its elegance. It begins with spicy and gamey aromas along with vanilla and black cherry. On the palate, there are flavours of spicy black cherry with a hint of minerals and sage on the finish. The wine, which is aged 19 months in barrel, is full on the palate. 92.

Le Vieux Pin Syrah Cuvée Violette 2012 ($29 for 616 cases). This Syrah was co-fermented with a few percent of Viognier, a classic technique that fixes the colour and adds a lightly floral note to the aroma. This wine is softer and juicier than its big brother, with flavours of cherry and blackberry. The wine was aged 14 months in French oak (19% new). 90.

Le Vieux Pin Équinoxe Cabernet Franc 2011 ($145 for 55 cases). The price indicates that the winery pulled out all the stops to make this wine. The vines were limited to a yield of 1.4 tons an acre, resulting in amazing ripeness for a cool year. The alcohol here is 14.5%. The wine spent 26 months in some of the best new French oak the winery could buy. The intense aromas of this wine explode from the glass. There are notes of cherry, leather, spice and cigar on the nose, leading to intense flavours of black berry, black cherry, leather and tobacco. The individual with whom I tasted spoke of this wine having “sauvage” qualities, referring to its exotic, almost wild character. 93-95.

La Stella Fortissimo 2012 ($35 for 836 cases). The model for this wine, which includes six per cent Sangiovese in the blend, is a super-Tuscan blend. This is a big ripe wine, consisting as well of 39% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Franc, 17% Cabernet Sauvignon. The Sangiovese adds the dusty tannins one finds in Tuscan reds (aging the wine 19 months in mostly Slavonian oak also plays a role). The wine has aromas and flavours of black currant and cherry. The wine is scheduled for release in the spring of 2015. The winery recommends aging it eight to 15 years. 92.

La Stella La Sophia 2011 ($85 for 42 cases). This is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from 26-year-old vines at the U2 block at Inkameep Vineyards. This is a legendary block from which numerous outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon wines have been made by various producers. These mature vines produced fruit, even in a cooler year, which yielded 14.7% alcohol and ripe flavours. The wine has aromas of cassis and vanilla. The texture is almost dense, with flavours of black currants, prune, minerals, spice and tobacco. This is clearly a wine for cellaring or, if you want to open it now, for aggressive decanting. 95.


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Quails' Gate releases some pleasant surprises

November 11, 2014, 11:59 am
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Photo (courtesy Quails' Gate): Harvest at Quails' Gate

Why am I even reviewing the latest releases from Quails’ Gate Estate Winery?

You don’t need my guidance. When was the last time you tasted a Quails’ Gate wine that disappointed you? These are wines you can order by the case without tasting them, secure in the knowledge that the only surprises will be positive.

So let’s talk about the surprises in the latest releases. One is a Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the winery’s West Kelowna vineyard which, as we all know, is too far north for this varietal. Wait until you tuck into this wine.

Another is the $40 price tag on the Old Vines Foch Reserve. The wine is worth it, certainly. It is just that Maréchal Foch once was the butt of derision: one Okanagan vintner famously said that the varietal was not imported from Francebut rather deported from there.

Richard Stewart, the scion of the family that owns Quails’ Gate, planted Foch in 1956 (as did many others). Much of the Okanagan’s Foch was pulled out in 1988 because the variety was judged mediocre. The problem was that almost every grower was over-cropping what was already a naturally vigorous varietal. The resulting reds were thin and acidic.

Quails’ Gate single-handedly salvaged the reputation of Foch in 1994 when the winery began making Old Vines Reserve. In recent vintages, Sperling Vineyards, which has Foch vines almost as old, has released a Foch Reserve at $32, further underlining that this is good varietal is well grown.

Another surprise is the volume of Pinot Noir being made at Quails’ Gate. The Stewarts planted this varietal as early as 1975, although the majority of the vines are about 20 years old. The MountBoucherieterroir seems to deliver top-flight Pinot Noirs consistently.

The winery also makes a lot of Chardonnay. That varietal, along with Pinot Noir, are particular focuses at Quails’ Gate.

Here are notes on current releases.

Quails’ Gate Chardonnay 2013 ($19.99 for 8,960 cases). Half of this wine was barrel-fermented but the other half was fermented in tank. This technique delivers the best of both worlds: aromas and flavours of melon, apples and citrus that mingle with toasty, butter notes from the oak. The bright, fresh acidity gives the wine a crisp finish. 90.

Quails’ Gate Stewart Family Reserve Chardonnay 2013 ($40 for 2,230 six-pack cases). The winery believes this is one of Okanagan’s best Chardonnays. I am inclined to agree. Barrel-fermented and aged six months on the lees, it is packed with flavours of citrus and cloves with buttery caramel reflecting the new French oak and the full malolactic fermentation. The acidity is still fresh. There is just the slightest residual sugar here to flesh out the texture. 92.

Quails’ Gate Merlot 2012 ($24.99 for 3,177 cases). This ripe and robust wine – 14.5% alcohol – includes five per cent each of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine has aromas and flavours of plum, black cherry, blackberry and cassis. The dollop of sweet fruit on the mid-palate is framed by firm, but not hard, tannins. The texture is full and the wine is delicious. 90-91.

 Quails’ Gate Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 ($26.99 for 1,100 cases). Try telling the owners of Quails’ Gate that you cannot grow good Cabernet Sauvignon in the north Okanagan – and then taste this wine, made with grapes grown on the slopes of the winery’s BoucherieMountain vineyards! To be sure, 2012 was an excellent vintage. This wine, which has nine per cent Merlot in the blend, is one of the standouts. The appeal of the wine begins with aromas of ripe berries lifted by notes of vanilla and mocha. On the palate, there are flavours of cassis and blackberry with a hint of minerality on the finish. The texture is generous and the finish lingers. The winery believes this will cellar well for up to 10 years. 91.

Quails’ Gate Old Vines Foch Reserve 2012 ($40 for 1,200 cases). I believe I have tasted every vintage of Foch Reserve. This is perhaps the most refined example of a variety few think of as refined. The wine begins with aromas of sweet, jammy fruit, accentuated by the sweetness of the new American oak in which it has been aged. There are flavours of plum, cherry, cola and spice. Generous in texture, it has an exotic gaminess on the finish. This would be my choice for venison. 91.

Quails’ Gate Pinot Noir 2012 ($24.99 for 7,000 cases).  Intense, vibrant and sophisticated are descriptors for this wine. It begins with smoky aromas of raspberry and blackberry and delivers flavours of cherry and blackberry. Still youthfully firm, this wine has just begun to develop the varietal’s classic silky texture. There is a note of spice on the finish. 90.


Quails’ Gate Fortified Vintage Foch 2012 ($25 for 394 cases of 375 ml). This is a Port-style wine that starts with very ripe Maréchal Foch grapes. During fermentation, the wine is fortified to 18% alcohol, leaving it with 96 grams of residual sugar per litre (nine on the sweetness scale). It also has been aged 18 months in oak barrels. The aromas – plums, currants and spices – recall a very good fruitcake. On the palate, there are flavours of plum, black cherry and chocolate, with an appealing sweetness that lingers on the finish. Think of a medium-bodied, elegant RubyPort. 90.
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Church & State Quintessential 2011 wins icon tasting

November 14, 2014, 2:57 pm
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Photo: The BC iconic red wines for 2014

The results of the seventh annual B.C. Iconic Red Wines tasting saw last year’s winners trade places.

This year, the top wine was Church & State Quintessential 2011 with Poplar Grove The Legacy 2009 in second place.

At the 2013 tasting, the winner was Poplar Grove’s 2007 The Legacy with Church & State Quintessential 2009 in second place.

Talk about consistency!

The tasting was conceived and is sponsored by SIP Wines, the Richmond VQA wine store operated by Simon and Sandy Wosk. The idea of a competition among the best of British Columbia’s Bordeaux style reds emerged from a brainstorming between the Works and the late John Levine, an extraordinary wine lover.

The iconic reds are wines priced at $35 and up. The highest-priced red in this year’s tasting sells for $70.

These are world class wines and should command aggressive prices. It costs money to grow premium grapes and turn them into premium wines.

For most consumers, these would be special occasion wines. They are the kind of wines bought by collectors with wine cellars. Most of the vintages tasted here are comparatively young; all of them will be even better with four or five years of bottle age.

For this tasting, the wines were all double decanted and allowed to breath for several hours, effectively softening the tannins to make the wines more approachable now. The wines were served blind and in a random order. The 70 or so tasters scored each wine and voted for their favourites at the end of the evening.

The list below begins with the six top wines as chosen by the tasters. The remaining wines are listed alphabetically because SIP’s backroom boys did not crunch the numbers for all. Judging from my own scores, you would be happy with any of these wines on your table. Limited quantities of most of these wines can be purchased at the SIP.

I have included winery tasting notes where available and added my own where required.

Church and State Quintessential 2011 ($55). Merlot 70%, Cabernet Franc 15%, Cabernet Sauvignon 5%, Malbec 5%, Petit Verdot 5%.  This is a wine with a track record: in the spring, it won gold and was judged the best Canadian red at the International Wine Challenge in London. Here are notes from www.GismondiOnWine.com:   “It’s been a while since I’ve tasted Quintessential in fact the last time was the 2005 vintage when it was put together by Napa Valley legend Bill Dyer. Clearly he made a lasting impression with his blend. The 2011 is very hedonistic in style and well, more California than Okanagan at this point. There is a ripeness you don’t often see in BC Bordeaux blends; this red has all five grapes: cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. All grown on the Black Sage Bench. The nose is more South Okanagan, fragrant, savoury, dried herbs mixed with ripe cassis. The attack is skinny and warm with more dark fruits, tobacco, cedar and a hint of dried tomatoes. This needs another three years to put some fat on to balance off the fruit and spice. Not expected to be release until 2015 but you can grab some now off the website.”

Poplar Grove The Legacy 2009 ($50). This is 56% Merlot, 21% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc and 3% Malbec.  The alcohol is 15.3%. The winery’s notes: “Deep crimson red in colour. Distinct aromas of plum, leather, and cedar mingle in the glass. The first sip delivers cassis, plum, and vanilla flavours infused with orange zest on the palate. Mature integration of fine tannins and balanced acidity create depth of flavour in the mid palate with a long exploratory finish. A glorious expression of the 2009 vintage that will age gracefully for over a decade.Drink 2014 - 2030.”

Hester Creek The Judge 2011 ($45). This is a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Production 800 cases. Winery’s notes: “This big, ripe wine offers smoky aromas of fig, plum and leather followed by generous flavours of coffee, chocolate and blackberry in the mid-palate, all finishing with long, silky tannins.”

Black Hills Nota Bene 2012:($55 for 3,200 cases). The blend for 2012 is 57% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Cabernet Franc. In every previous vintage but the first, the blend contained around 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, creating a familial consistency in the wine. The wine has sage and herbal notes on the aroma and the finish. The fruit flavours include black cherry, plum, coffee and chocolate. The texture is rich and ripe, with long tannins. The winery says this was “more masculine” than previous vintages – even after dialling back the Cabernet, which speaks well of the quality of the Merlot. This will age as well as any Nota Bene, which is seven to 10 years. 

Clos Du Soleil Signature 2012 ($44.90) This is Cabernet Sauvignon (48%), Merlot (42%), Cabernet Franc (9%), Petit Verdot.  Winery notes: “Signature is Clos du Soleil’s flagship Bordeaux-style blend, produced by hand and aged for 18 months in French oak barrels.  The 2012 vintage is a stellar example of this iconic wine. The nose opens with aromas of cassis, blueberry and dark cherry, on a background of spice and mixed herbs. On the palate the wine is full, long and elegant.  Bright fruit flavours of cherry and black and red currant flow seamlessly into a long finish with notes of tobacco and black pepper.  Enjoyable in its youth, the fine tannins and beautiful balance of this wine ensure its ability to age for a decade.”

Church and State Quintessential 2009 ($54.90 for 750 cases).  Winery notes: “Dense and dark in colour, with ultra-black cherry and cassis aromas complexed by notes of coffee, baker's chocolate, pencil shavings and graphite aromas. On the palate, there is dark concentrated black cherry fruit and gorgeous tannin structure producing great richness and length, but with impeccable balance. The wine coats and totally fills your mouth, and a staggering array of complex flavours continue to linger in your mouth long after swallowing. Drink now through 2020, possibly aging longer, depending on your preferences and individual assessment of the wine over the years.”

The remaining 11 wines are listed alphabetically.

Cassini Cellars The Godfather 2010: ($70.) This is a blend of 33% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 17% Cabernet Franc and 17% Syrah. Aged in oak for 23 months. Production 120 cases. The winery’s notes: “Nice integration of oak and dark fruit flavours like cherry, black currant and plums gives this wine a rich and complex taste with silky tannins to round out the wine to enjoy now or put down for years to come. Drink now to 2020.”

Gray Monk Odyssey Meritage 2011: ($35). This is a blend of Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The winery’s notes: “Our reserve series now includes the Odyssey Meritage. This full bodied wine is composed of the four traditional varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc, all grown in the SouthOkanaganValley. Aged in new French oak barrels, the result is flavours reminiscent of blackberry jam with a hint of vanilla.”

Hillside Mosaic 2009 ($40 for 499 cases).  Merlot 55%, Cabernet Sauvignon 22%, Cabernet Franc 9%, Malbec 9%, Petit Verdot 5%.  My notes: "This is Hillside’s flagship Bordeauxblend. It is a point of pride that every vintage of Mosaic since 2006 has been made entirely of Naramata Bench fruit. The wines arguably are more vibrant and brighter that Bordeauxblends from the south Okanagan. This is a firm, age-worthy red with flavours of black currant, coffee, chocolate and liquorice."

LakeBreeze Tempest 2010 ($45). The winery’s notes: “The sum is greater than its parts in this classic Bordeaux blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 5% Malbec. Aged in new French oak for 15 months, this wine is full and rich. Following on the heels of the 2008 Tempest, which won “Red Wine of the Year” at the All Canadian Wine Championships, this wine will continue to improve over the next several years.”

La Stella Fortissimo 2012: ($35 for 857 cases). The blend is 39% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Franc, 17% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Sangiovese. The winery’s notes:
“The 2012 Fortissimo sees the highest percentage of Cabernet Franc in the blend ever! This was necessary as means to maintain a below 15% alcohol in the final wine as well as better balance of acid/tannins/fruit. 2012 Fortissimo is as outstanding and forward as we thought it would be; all the components are married seamlessly together. The large format puncheons and Hungarian/Slavonian oak are evident in the subtle way the oak presents itself. Deep ruby in the glass, the 2012 Fortissimo is packed with bright, luscious fruit of a perfect ripeness, harvest-ready cherries and raspberries, more anise than liquorice and a wink of a spicy zing, supported by smooth tannins and balanced out nicely by a backbone of acidity.” 

Mission Hill Compendium 2010: ($60). This is 41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 38% Merlot and 21% Cabernet Franc.  The winery’s notes: “The grapes were selected from designated blocks within our estates in Osoyoos and Oliver; they were hand harvested and hand sorted and then gravity filled to small French oak fermenters. After 3 weeks extended maceration the free run wine and a small portion of lightly basket pressed wine was aged separately in French oak barrels for 13 months. It is a dark, dense and brooding giant of a wine, featuring a complex mix of black currants, blueberry, liquorice, mint and dark chocolate. The palate is rich and full-bodied with muscular tannins and well-focused flavours.

Mission Hill Quatrain 2010: ($60). This is 40% Merlot, 20% Syrah, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, with fermentation and extended maceration in small French Oak Fermenters. The wine was aged in French oak barrels for 15 months. The winery’s notes: “The 2010 Quatrain is an elegant wine, boasting red berry, black cherry, eucalyptus and cedary spice aromas and flavours. Syrah adds a juicy-fleshy texture to this uncommon blend, lending a seamless profile of ripe fruit, dark chocolate and spice to the gutsy structure of the three dominating Bordeauxvarietals. ”

NK'Mip Mer'r'iym 2010: ($50).A blend of 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot. The winery’s notes: “The wines were fermented in separate lots and pressed into a combination of French and American oak barrels. We began with 28 potential lots from various vineyard blocks within the three vineyards and a total of 350 barrels – all to make a 20 barrel blend. After hours of trials and tasting we determined the percentages of each varietal in the blend. In the end we hope we got it right. It is a wine that is not necessarily about power but more of balance and harmony – about elegance and length – important qualities in any marriage.”

Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin 2009 ($45 for a production of 16,000 six-bottle cases). This is 58% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 7% Petit Verdot and 2% Malbec. Winery notes: “This rich full-bodied wine features a deep intense ruby colour, and deliciously persistent aromas of ripe red raspberry, dark chocolate with toasty caramel and vanilla notes. Opulent flavours of blackberry fruit, spice and pepper grace the palate with a well-rounded tannin structure and fruit-driven lingering finish.”

Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin 2010 ($45). Winery notes are not yet available. My tasting notes speak of aromas of black currant, ripe raspberry, sage and graphite. On the firm palate, there are flavours black currants, dark chocolate and espresso.

Painted Rock Red Icon 2012 ($55).  This is 31% Malbec, 28% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Franc and 15% Petit Verdot. The winery notes: “This wine is rich and seductive with dark chocolate, coffee and black cherry combined with vanilla, showcasing the predominant varieties in the blend. More mocha and rich tones of black cherry, tobacco and cassis. A long, well balanced and polished finish.”






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Tinhorn Creek releases its 2Bench Red 2011

November 15, 2014, 2:02 pm
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In September, Laughing Stock Vineyards hosted a vertical tasting of every vintage of Portfolio from 2003 to 2012.

A more detailed discussion of that tasting is still being worked on. However, one conclusion is worth keeping in mind as we begin to see the release of 2011 reds from other wineries in British Columbia.

As everyone knows, 2010 and 2011 were cool vintages. So was 2004. Yet those were three of the tastiest wines in the Laughing Stock range.

The lesson is that well-made reds from cool vintages will benefit from bottle age but will show as well as wines from warm and generous years like 2012. The latter vintage shows an in-your-face opulence and is probably the wine to drink while waiting on the 2011s.

The wines from cooler vintages are likely to have brighter fruit and more acidity that warm vintage wines. The acidity means the wines will be tight and lean when young. But they don’t necessarily stay that way with appropriate bottle age.

These reflections are generated by a bottle of Tinhorn Creek Vineyards recent release of its Oldfield Series 2Bench Red 2011. This is arguably the winery’s flagship red.

Tinhorn Creek began making this blend in 2007, calling it 2Bench Red because fruit is sourced both from the winery’s Black Sage Road vineyard and from its Golden Mile vineyard. “Only upwards of 10% of that wine will come from the Golden Mile Bench,” Tinhorn Creek president Sandra Oldfield says. “But those components from the Golden Mile Bench, the Malbec and the Petit Verdot, are pretty unique on this side.”

Prior to that vintage, all of Tinhorn Creek’s reds were single varietal wines. In 2007, the owners decided they understood their vineyards well enough to do what the Bordelaise do: select good blocks of fruit and put together an age-worthy blend.

While the early blends were anchored with Cabernet Sauvignon, the winery has responded to the conditions in each vintage – blending more Merlot or more Cabernet Franc if that yielded the better blend. Early vintages were aged in French and American oak. More recent vintages have all been aged in French oak only.

“We age the wine three years before we release it,” Sandra says. “We don't release any of this wine before its third birthday.”

That is why we are just now seeing the 2011 vintage. But that is prudent, especially since 2011 was comparatively cool. This wine would have been very tight a year ago.

It is still tight enough. However, I double-decanted the wine and I finished the bottle on the second day. The object was to accelerate the aging. That is not to discourage you from drinking it now but only to encourage you to cellar it.                    This wine has a lot of upside if you lay it down for another three to five years.

That was the lesson learned from the Portfolio vertical. That winery’s 2004 was tight and lean on release. With bottle age, it has fleshed out and, at 10 years, is appealingly vibrant and fresh. Tinhorn Creek’s 2Bench red should enjoy a similar evolution.

Here is my note.


Tinhorn Creek Oldfield Series 2Bench Red 2011 ($29.99 for 1,446 cases). The blend is 39% Cabernet Franc, 35% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Petit Verdot. It begins with aromas of cherry, cassis and plum. There is an elegant core of sweet fruit on the palate, including cassis, raspberry and plum, with a touch of tobacco and cola on the finish. The texture evolved from lean to medium-bodied with decanting, portending how this will develop in your cellar. 91.
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Bella Wines harmonizes with a bubbly quartet

November 20, 2014, 5:13 pm
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In 2011, Jay Drysdale and Wendy Rose launched Bella Wines, the first winery in British Columbiadedicated exclusively to sparkling wine.

The business plan has been to make the wines, at least until now, in someone else’s winery. That husbands their resources: better to spend the money on grapes, winemaking and marketing, getting the brand established before sinking the big bucks in a standalone winery.

They are evolving in that direction. This year, they settled on their own vineyard on the Naramata Bench.

Given their caution, it was a surprise this fall when they released, at the same time, four single-vineyard Chardonnay sparkling wines.

Only a modest volume was produced from each vineyard. I will think their banker might have advised them to blend a single sparkling Chardonnay. It would have made life simpler for Bella and, perhaps, made it easier to market the wine.

But it would have denied us the chance of tasting terroir. Each of these wines has its own personality. It is a great deal of fun to taste them side by side.

As the photo shows, the winery has minimized the cost of packaging four wines by using similar clear bottles and similar labels. Even so, each wine required its own label run, with the vineyard identified in fine print at the label border. The four back labels, while similar in design, have different content. And the wines have been released both in 750 ml and 375 ml bottles. The large bottles are $24 each and the half bottles are $15 each.

If you consult the Bella website, you will find that the winery is prepared to ship six packs for a minimal shipping charge of $10. Twelve-packs are shipped free anywhere in British Columbia.

Jay explained the rationale for the four vineyard quartet in a recent newsletter to Bella’s customers:

Why would a winery release an unprecedented four single vineyard sparkling chardonnays?  How are you supposed to taste the differences when the wines are all made with the same grape, in the exact same method?

I look at it like this: each vineyard is like a household and every household is different, even if everyone lives on the same street.  In each house the kids (grapes) are brought up relatively the same way, but as they grow they develop their own personalities.  Their experiences (weather and soil conditions) shape them into what they are today.  Each year (vintage) we are capturing a period based on what each household went through.  Now those kids have moved out (gone to the winery) and this is where it gets exciting (geeky winemaker) where I can gently coach each wine along to emphasize its personality.

By the tone of this story you can tell that I want to hear what each wine has to say.  Some people say you are tasting the difference of the "Terroir" but I believe we are experiencing an expression of the vineyard.  I do believe each vineyard has a voice and whether that vineyard is farmed organically or not, or whether it does or does not water, it still influences the personality of that vineyard.  That is why we call our line up of Sparkling wines "Vineyard Expressions".

What does this mean to you?  When you try the wines side by side you discover that each wine has a different personality and like people you connect better with some than you do with others.  This is the reason for my transparency in winemaking because as your palate becomes more educated (consume more) you will have certain preferences that you enjoy more than others and those preferences can be related to where the grapes come from.

This long winded explanation still comes down to simplest gut deciding factor - Do I like it?  I am confident enough to guarantee that one of the four sparkling chardonnays will become your favourite.

These are the four wines.

Bella Oliver-Westside Sparkling Chardonnay 2013 (120 cases of 750 ml bottles and 95 cases of 375 ml bottles).  The grapes are from Secrest Mountain Vineyards, a high elevation vineyard northwest of Oliver. The winery calls this “our confident and bright little one.” I preferred this slightly above the others. It is a crisp and elegant sparkling with citrus and ripe apple flavours back withminerality. 90.

Bella Oliver-Eastside Sparkling Chardonnay 2013 (50 cases of 750 ml and 10 cases of 375 ml). The grapes are from the Cerqueira Vineyard on Black Sage Road, southeast of Oliver. This wine has a creamy texture and seemed more exuberantly bubbly that the others. There are notes of yeast, citrus on the palate, along with hints of peach. The winery calls this “ambitious, young and edgy.” 88.

Bella Kamloops Sparkling Chardonnay 2013 (55 cases of 750 ml and 20 cases of 350 ml).  The grapes are from the Harper’s Trail vineyard east of Kamloops. The winery calls this “intelligent, focused and unique.” It certainly is that. This is the toastiest wine on the nose and the palate, with marked minerality in the flavour and finish. I would like to see get more than the standard (for Bella) 11 months aging on the lees to see whether the Krug personality might develop. 87-89.


Bella Keremeos Sparkling Chardonnay 2013 (90 cases of 750 ml and 25 cases of 375 ml). These grapes are from Robin Ridge Winery’s vineyard. The winery calls this “an old soul who is very friendly,” a descriptor that I confess eludes me. The wine has a pleasing creamy texture with toasty yeast and crisp apple on the palate.  The crispness reflects the fact that this wine has the brightest acidity of this quartet. 88-90. 
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Remembering Ted Brouwer

November 22, 2014, 1:39 pm
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Photo: Ted Brouwer with Inkameep Vineyards in the background

Ted Brouwer, one of the pioneers of Okanagan viticulture, died in Oliver on November 21.

In memory, I reproduce here two essays from my 1996 book (out of print),  British Columbia Wine Companion. One was a biographical sketch of Ted and the other was a long piece on struggles of getting Inkameep Vineyards established on a bench of land north of Oliver.

Today, the vineyard is one of the most important in the south Okanagan. Its legendary U2 block of Cabernet Sauvignon delivers grapes that, at $4,000 a ton, are perhaps the most expensive in the Okanagan. The quality of the fruit justifies the price.

Without Ted Brouwer’s perseverance during the vineyard’s first two decades, wineries today might not be benefitting from the site’s well-grown grapes.

The biographical sketch refers to Ted’s desire to grow grapes on the apple orchard to which he had moved after leaving Inkameep. Subsequently, he did plant a vineyard with Syrah, among other varieties. Several years ago, he almost died when his tractor rolled over on him. His life was never dull.

A rotund and cheery optimist with infinite patience with bureaucracy, Brouwer steered Inkameep Vineyards Ltd.through its tumultuous early years, learning grapegrowing as he went until he was completely seduced by viticulture. After he left the vineyard in 1986, he bought a small apple orchard nearby on a property with no vines. "I still would like some grapes," he said wistfully in a 1995 interview.

Brouwer was born in 1925 in Heemstede, a small town about twenty-five km west of Amsterdam in Holland, the son of a food wholesaler. In 1946 Brouwer enlisted in the Royal NetherlandsArmy's medical corps and was posted to Indonesia, then still a Dutch colony. In his free time there, he enrolled in courses in tropical agriculture. On returning to Holland in 1950, he went to work for his father's firm but continued his agricultural studies until, with a group of other ex-army friends, he came to Canada in 1955. After a summer on a grain farm near Medicine Hat, Brouwer moved to Vancouver and spent two years working as a poultry technician at the University of British Columbia. That led to his working on several large turkey ranches until the fall of 1967 when he enrolled in a two-year agriculture course at NorthernLightsCollegein Dawson Creek.

In the summer of 1967 he had responded to an advertisement for a vineyard manager at Monashee Vineyards. The job did not materialize because owner Ed Wahl decided to run the vineyard himself; but the offer piqued Brouwer's interest in grapegrowing. When he heard that a job was opening at Inkameep, he was able to spend the summer of 1968 there before returning to the college, completing his studies with a term paper on grapegrowing. In the spring of 1969 he took over as the vineyard manager, staying there until February 1986 when he clashed with a newly-elected chief of the Inkameep band and was fired. The resulting suit for wrongful dismissal was settled out of court with Brouwer getting a cash settlement to compensate for the abrogation of his contract.

Inkameep Vineyards:  At 215 acres in size in 1995 and one of the Okanagan's largest commercial vineyards, Inkameep was judged an "apparent failure" after its first decade. It survived, now selling more than one million dollars worth of quality wine grapes each year. Today, Sam Baptiste, the vineyard's ambitious general manager, envisions several thousand more acres planted to grapes in the Osoyoos Indian Band's reserve, which stretches from Oliver to Osoyoos along the eastern slopes of the OkanaganValley here.

In 1966 Andrés Wines, then five years old and wanting an assured source of grapes, sought, but was refused, a long-term vineyard lease on Osoyoos Band land. The following year, however, the Band re-considered the opportunity, in concert with the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and one Agnes MacDonald, who proposed she would supply vinifera vines from Germany to the project. (MacDonald withdrew from the venture before planting began.) With Ukrainian-born Balthaser Bachmann as vineyard manager (he had been running the Andrés vineyard at Cawston), a development plan was drawn up. The Band invested $60,000 and Indian Affairs  $428,000. Andrés was to provide technical advice through Bachmann. A man nearing seventy at the time, he was described in a letter by an Indian Affairs official as  "an older man with set ideas and minimum patience [who] has not worked on a Reserve before and has difficulty realizing that the people he is advising have not the background in grapegrowing that he has."[1]Bachmann declined the job as foreman, preferring to be an advisor, and Jim Stelkia, a Band member, was chosen as foreman, with Ted Brouwer, who was still finishing a community college agriculture course, joining Inkameep initially as project manager. Andrés' founder, Andrew Peller, acknowledged that Brouwer "had no experience with vineyards" but was "a smart man [who] learned the best methods from all over the world. He certainly knew how to work."[2]Brouwer believed that all agriculture has common principles. "I find apple growing more difficult than growing grapes," he said. "There is a way of adapting yourself. You have to take an interest in how things progress. You grew up along with the grape." An almost scientific record-keeper, Brouwer filled 104 diaries of data during his eighteen years with Inkameep. Unfortunately, enthusiasm was no substitute for experience, as the events of 1968 showed. Because an irrigation system was not installed until late summer, the newly planted sixty-three acres of vines had to be watered by hand, causing a  $20,000 labor cost overrun. "The failure to install a satisfactory irrigation system until mid-August resulted in a twenty per cent [vine] loss through drought,"  according to a project review of the vineyard done in 1977 for Indian and Northern Affairs and signed by Fred Walchli, then its regional director in British Columbia.[3]Frost in December knocked off another twenty per cent.

That inauspicious start set the tone. "The new year [1969] began with no money for wages, and consequent labor problems," the Walchli review continued, alluding to the perennial difficulty in getting the bureaucrats to release Inkameep's operating funds as they were needed. Brouwer, who took over as the full-time manager this year, described the vineyard's initial years as "a struggle that was unbelievable." He attributed some of the problems to the way Indian Affairs disbursed funds. "We got actually piecemeal financing and you got piecemeal results," he said later. On occasion he got personal bank loans to meet the payroll, being reimbursed later when the money arrived from Ottawa. In 1969, he could not hire enough planters until the summer school break; this was much too late to plant and many new vines, with no chance to become dormant for winter, were damaged by an early October frost. By February 1970 the vineyard project had burned through $267,000 of its capital yet, with eighty-three-and-a-half acres planted, was well behind schedule. However, Inkameep harvested its first thirty-five ton crop that fall, marking the event with an official opening where Joseph Peller was made an honorary chief, shared a peace pipe and picked up the bill for the event. Plantings remained stalled in 1971 but the existing vines produced 153 tons of grapes which were sold for $26,900, covering about half the vineyard's wage bill. In September 1971, the vineyard incorporated so that it could borrow additional funds from a federal government program. Brouwer recalled: "The bank at that time said, 'Hey Brouwer, an organization of this size should have sufficient funds available to carry out an operation of this size.'"

"The company planted 49,000 vines in 1972," Walchli reported. "However, the pattern of the previous years was repeated; funds were received too late to ensure that adequate labor was on hand." Once again, vines were planted later in the spring than they should have been and many, not fully dormant in the fall, were damaged by cold weather. Then on January 4, 1973, a week of cold weather after a long spell of mild weather caused what Walchli described as "almost wholesale destruction of the new plantings, as well as severe stunting to many of the older plants, particularly those planted in 1969."  No vines were planted in 1973 while the damage was assessed. It was bad: the 1973 harvest was only sixty per cent of the 252 tons produced in 1972. Uncertain how severely vine productivity had been hurt, Brouwer ordered a very light pruning to preserve a large number of buds -- with the result that 1974's crop was almost double that of 1972. The vineyard then compensated by pruning the overcropped vines aggressively and the 1975 harvest dropped to 235 tons. This was, however, the first Inkameep vintage taken off with a new mechanical harvester, acquired because of the perennial labor shortage. The best news for 1975 was that Andrés sponsored an experimental planting of vinifera vines -- johannisberg riesling, ehrenfelser and scheurebe --  purchased from the Geisenheim Institute in Germany. This marked a turning point for Inkameep which had been planted initially to Okanagan riesling, foch, de chaunac and other hybrid varieties.

Planting was suspended after the 1973 freeze, in part because the major wineries now decided they did not want the white varieties scheduled for Inkameep. The vineyard, with land ready for cultivation, sought to generate cash with corn in 1974 and with vegetables in 1975. Once again misfortune dogged the project. The vegetable crops soaked up the labor pool, preventing Inkameep from doing any significant planting. In the late summer, much of the bounteous tomato crop rotted in the field due to a shortage of labor.  Sixty acres of corn planted in 1976 were ploughed under after a cold spring and unusually wet summer. The grape harvest that year also was poor. Walchli's report, which was done just after that harvest, called the vineyard an "apparent failure." He did not blame Brouwer, having recognized that "the position of the vineyard manager is unenviable" because of the energy Brouwer expended on dealing with the real culprits, the departmental bureaucrats, who had impeded developing Inkameep to the 200-acre vineyard planned at the outset. "While staggering investments were made in capital improvements," Walchli wrote, "little concern was given to planting the vines, upon which the ultimate success of the project would depend.... The circumstances reflect the deep-rooted belief that Indian-operated projects will ultimately fail."

Despite that devastating report, the promise of new funds from Ottawa enabled Brouwer to carry on, this time with a significant planting of white vinifera vines imported from Geisenheim, in early 1977. "There were 83,000 plants and Andrés underwrote the whole thing," Brouwer recalled. The backing by a major winery enabled Brouwer to do the usual juggling of his finances (Ottawadisbursements being late as usual), stalling suppliers such as Air Canada -- which flew in the vine cuttings -- as much as six months. Inkameep managed to plant another ninety acres that spring, bringing its size to about 250 acres. Production was 465 tons in 1977 and 735 tons in 1978; and Inkameep had operating profits. The vineyard's profile improved further when Andrés in 1977 released Inkameep Red and Inkameep White, two of the Okanagan's earliest vineyard-designated wines. Then the notorious 1978-'79 winter killed 15,000 of the Geisenheim vines and damaged the vineyard's mature vines so badly that grape production plunged to 107 tons in 1979 and did not recover to the 1978 level until 1982.

Amid the rebounding optimism of 1980, Simons Resource Consultants of Vancouver was hired to produce a major feasibility report on what was called WolfCreek Farms Vineyards. The concept was to develop a new 500 acre vineyard (eighty per cent in white varieties) on the Osoyoos Reserve, with Andrés and T.G. Bright each to  purchase the production of 200 acres and the remainder to be marketed to other wineries. Four locations were studied, including two near the current vineyard, with the preferred site being a bench on the east side of OsoyoosLake. "A new vineyard will certainly lend more feeling of pride to the Osoyoos band and utilize prime land for which there does not appear to be other plans," Simons commented in its 1984 report.[4] Had it gone ahead, about $6 million would have been invested over five years, with all of the planting done in the first two years. This audacious plan was stillborn; by this time, the wineries were struggling with a surplus of red wines and wanted growers to pull out vines.

Brouwer meanwhile had begun encouraging an estate winery based on Inkameep's production. Indian Affairs, perhaps understandably given the financial struggles of the vineyard, wanted nothing to do with the idea -- but the T.G. Bright & Co. winery from Niagara Falls did. After failing to acquire the Mission Hillwinery in 1978, Brights seized the opportunity to develop a winery north of Oliver, not far from the vineyard, in a $1.9 million building financed by Inkameep Vineyards Ltd. with a loan on commercial terms from the federal government. The winery, now operating under the Vincor name, was opened in 1981. "Without my suggestion and the gut feeling that we could do something with a winery, Vincor would not be there," Brouwer asserted later. Sam Baptiste was chief of the band when the winery agreement was negotiated. "It almost didn't happen," he recalled. Some of his fellow chiefs were opposed, telling him at a meetings of chiefs: "Sam, the biggest problem on every reserve is alcoholism -- and you're putting in a winery!" His first reaction was to call off the talks with Brights but he changed his mind after the meeting. "I thought about it and I decided it was none of their business." 

Ironically, the Geisenheim vines imported in 1977 set back the planting of the vineyard. The federal plant health authorities discovered viruses among the vines, stopped Inkameep from importing more Geisenheim vines to replace the losses and quarantined the entire vineyard for several years, which prevented Inkameep from sending vine cuttings out to nurseries for propagation. "We had brought those plants in on the assumption that those plants were free of any contaminated viruses," Brouwer recalled. It should have been a safe assumption, Geisenheim being one of Germany's leading grape breeding stations.  In any event, vines do not produce enough wood to yield cuttings for new vines until their third year. Forced to rely on its own resources, the vineyard did not fully replace the losses of 1979 until 1986. 

In 1983, however, the vineyard began to show its potential by producing 1,000 tons for the first time. Cold weather then reduced the 1984 vintage to 750 tons and selective pruning was a factor in 1985 production dropping to 625 tons. This was a factor in the confrontation between Brouwer and the Osoyoos band which led to Brouwer's abrupt departure in February 1986 (and a subsequent out-of-court settlement in Brouwer's favor). His successor, Kenn Visser, inherited a vineyard on the turn: it produced 1,100  tons that fall and turned a tidy profit.

The Missouri-born Visser, who had lived in the Okanagan since 1980 and who was a manager at Covert Farms before being hired for Inkameep, soon found himself considering strategies to help Inkameep survive the free trade agreement Canada and the United States signed in 1988. Along with most other growers, Inkameep got rid of unwanted grape varieties (foch, de chaunac and Okanagan riesling),  pulling out 107 of the 255 acres then in production. That still left Inkameep B.C.'s largest producing vineyard; and while it had contracts for its remaining grapes through the 1994 vintage, Visser and the Osoyoos Band  probed the winery option again with the production of Nordique Blanc, a white wine aimed initially at export sales. The market trials in New York and Chicago gained significant media attention for Inkameep but ultimately the label was licensed to Summerhill Estate Wineryand the vineyard continued to sell its grapes, negotiating new three-year contracts for them in 1995.
 
Baptiste has presided over replanting Inkameep with vinifera. The new vines have included thirty acres of chardonnay along with plantings of merlot and pinot noir and scheduled plantings of cabernet franc  and sauvignon blanc. In 1995 the vineyard still retained twenty-six acres (of 215 planted) in two workhorse red hybrids, chancellor and baco noir, that may ultimately give way to red vinifera. He also has had some struggles with the weather but they have been a far cry from Ted Brouwer's experiences. In part, this reflects the knowledge that has been gained in vinifera growing. Newly-planted chardonnay were caught by freezing temperatures in early 1991 but this time most  of the vines survived. "I'd never grown chardonnay before and I found out how hardy it is." Baptiste also has adopted conservative techniques. "Every time there is a bad freeze, I take the ones that survive and I take cuttings," he says, arguing that these are stronger plants. "I also hill my young plants [ploughing a protective blanket of earth against the base of the vines each fall] until they are three years old."  He has great confidence in Inkameep's ability to grown quality grapes. "There's going to be a surplus of grapes in a few years," Baptiste predicted in a 1995 interview, "but there will never be a surplus of premium grapes."
  


[1] A.B. Ash, regional agricultal supervisor for Indian Affairs, in a letter April 26, 1968 to Jim Stelkia of the Osoyoos Band; in Brouwer personal files.
[2] Quoted in The Winemaker, Peller's autobiography.
[3] Inkameep Vineyards Ltd. Project Review, January 1977, prepared by F.J. Walchli, Regional Director General, British Columbia, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. Copy in personal files of Ted Brouwer.
[4]Inkameep Vineyards: Analysis and Forecast, copy in personal files of Ted Brouwer.
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Osoyoos Larose – a new release and a new life

November 26, 2014, 2:37 pm
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Osoyoos Larose's Mathieu Mercier and Julie Rapet

Look for Osoyoos Larose Winery to come out from under the radar next summer. The winery will open its first tasting room on its mountainside vineyards near Osoyoos.

And look for an altogether more aggressive stance in the market now that Osoyoos Larose has hired a new agent, Charton-Hobbs, after emerging from its suffocating joint venture with Constellation Brands last year. Bordeaux’s Groupe Taillan, which previously owned 50% of Osoyoos Larose, acquired the other 50% last year.

Mathieu Mercier, the senior winemaker at Osoyoos Larose, says he has noticed an increases in sales since Charton-Hobbs took over the portfolio in July.

The Osoyoos Larose joint venture, initiated in 1998, was originally between Vincor International and Groupe Taillan. Vincor was taken over in 2006 by Constellation, a New York-based company that is the world’s largest wine group.

Donald Triggs, who was Vincor’s chief executive, engaged a French partner in order to transfer French knowhow to the Okanagan. Groupe Taillan, which operates several leading chateaux including Gruaud Larose, brought invaluable expertise in both viticulture and winemaking to the Osoyoos Larose project.

From the first vintage in 2001, the winery’s Le Grand Vin established itself as a premium Okanagan wine in the Canadian market. It has also begun to penetrate the American market until Constellation stopped selling it there because it was competing with other wines in the Constellation portfolio.

The well-equipped winery was set up in the remote northeast corner of Constellation’s sprawling Jackson-Triggs winery north of Oliver. Since Groupe Taillan acquired 100% of Osoyoos Larose, Constellation has distanced itself so much that its administration office refuses to announce visitors to Osoyoos Larose.

“Nothing to do with us,” I was told; and was left on my own to negotiate the tanks, presses, hoses and whatnot  littering a parking lot, on the way to meet with the winemaking team at Osoyoos Larose, Mathieu Mercier and Julie Rapet.

The tasting room planned for the vineyard, which is northwest of Osoyoos, will be the first sign of Osoyoos Larose’s independence. Within a couple of years, it is expected the entire production will move to a new facility near the vineyard. Osoyoos Larose is looking for property.

Mathieu and Julie, who were wine school classmates in Bordeaux, arrived in 2013, taking over from the founding winemaker, Pascal Madevon. Pascal had moved on to work with Donald Triggs at his new Culmina Family Estate Winery.

Mathieu, born in Cognac in 1988, had already worked in wineries in France, Chile and California. When the opportunity came to manage Osoyoos Larose, he did not hesitate after tasting the wines.

“Taillan owns a lot of property in Bordeaux, from a medium one to a very expensive one like Gruaud Larose,” Mathieu says. “When we did some tastings to compare Osoyoos Larose with some of the best Grand Cru in Bordeaux, it was obvious that we could compare it. Osoyoos Larose belongs among the famous good wines in the world.”

He arrived in March 2013, in time to blend the 2010 Le Grand Vin. That wine is just being released to the Canadian market.

There are just 3,000 cases. That is down dramatically from the 8,000 to 10,000 cases made in every vintage between 2003 and 2009. A similar small volume of 2011 Le Grand Vin will be released next year as well.

The drop in production reflects the two cool vintages. Those necessitated a rigorous selection of the best lots of wine in the cellar to maintain the quality of Le Grand Vin.  Merlot, which ripens reliably in the Okanagan, comprises two-thirds of each blend.

“In 2010 and 2011, we did not want to compromise quality,” Mathieu says. “We knew that any greenness [unripe flavours] would show up in the wine.”

Most of the wines from 2010 and 2011 were declassified and blended into the winery’s bargain-priced second label, Pétales d’Osoyoos.  The 2011 Pétales has been available for several months and is remarkably good, especially at $25 a bottle.

The volumes of Le Grand Vin will return to normal with the 2012 vintages. That vintage, along with 2013 and 2014, have been among the best Okanagan vintages in a decade.

Mathieu and Julie also are setting out to raise the bar even further at Osoyoos Larose with innovations in the vineyard and in winemaking. In 2013 and again in 2014, they took samples of each of the vineyard’s five varietals and fermented them in barrel. I was able to taste impressive and delicious barrel samples of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from 2013.

They plan to make an ultra-premium red blend that will be released either late next year or early 2016. While the volumes may not support a commercial release, it should be a great conversation piece available in the new tasting room and perhaps to a planned wine club.

Here are notes on the current releases.

Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin 2010 ($45). This is 67% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Malbec. This is a wine with appealing aromas of both fruit (cassis) and oak (vanilla). The flavours are bright, with notes of black currant, blueberry and cherry. The wine has a firm backbone of fine tannins, with a generous texture from the Merlot. With 13.8% alcohol, this wine has the fingerprints of a fine Bordeaux red all. 91-92.

Osoyoos Larose Pétales d’Osoyoos 2011 ($25 for 4,000 cases). The blend is 67% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Franc, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot and 2% Malbec. The wine begins with aromas of cherries, black currants and blackberries along with a hint of vanilla from the 16 months aging in new and used French oak. On the palate, the wine appeals with a juicy texture and flavours of red berries. There is a hint of chocolate on the fruity finish. 90.




















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Figaro 2013 - Terravista's winter wine

November 29, 2014, 4:27 pm
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Most producers release white wines in the spring and reds in the fall.

But what should you do if you only make two or three wines, and all are white?

Bob and Senka Tennant, the owners of Naramata’s Terravista Vineyards, take a practical approach: they release their whites at differing times of the year.

Fandango, the winery’s gold medal winner, was released several months ago. It is a blend of Albariño and Verdejo, two Spanish white grape varietals. So far,  Terravista is the only winery in Canadagrowing these grapes.

The winery’s Figaro 2013 has just been released and is called the winery’s “true winter white wine.”

Having tasted it, I get their recommendation. This blend of Roussanne, Viognier and Marsanne is a big ripe white with a warming 14% alcohol. It is a far better wine with the hearty dishes eaten at this time of year that with lighter seafood salads we might eat in spring and summer.

The winery even published a recipe for Thai chowder, which is reproduced here. I have not had time to make it, but, from the ingredients, it is easy to see how well the chowder would pair with the wine.

I think this might also be a wine to pair with roast turkey if, like me, you prefer the white meat.

Figaro pairing "Thai Chowder"




1 tbs of fish sauce
1 tbs of red curry paste
1 tbs of minced ginger
1 can (400 ml) of coconut milk
1 cup of chicken broth
Add all the above ingredients to a pot, cook on low for about 1/2 hour, cool and leave in fridge overnight.

Next day add:

1 minced shallot
1 red pepper slivered
1 lb of halibut or any white fish skinned de-boned cut lengthwise and then into chunks (chicken breast could substitute)

Simmer on low until protein cooked

Garnishes:
steamed romanesco pea pods
sprigs of cilantro

Serve with cooked ramen or rice!

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Here is a note on the wine.

Terravista Figaro 2013 ($23.90). The wine begins with aromas of apricots, herbs and hazelnut. On the palate, the wine is rich, with flavours of stone fruit and again, a delightful hint of hazelnuts on the lingering finish. One is barely aware of the alcohol level because of the wine’s lush texture. 90.




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Sandhill’s impressive new digs in Kelowna

December 2, 2014, 10:43 am
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 Photo: Winemaker Howard Soon in Sandhill's new barrel room

When the Sandhill Estate Vineyard was developed on Black Sage Road(between 1994 and 2000), two areas were left without vines so that a winery could be built one day.

Since its launch in 1999, the Sandhill wines have always been made at the sprawling Calona winery in downtown Kelowna.

The Black Sage Road winery plans remained dormant. The company that previously owned Calona and Sandhill was short of money. The soundly financed Andrew Peller Ltd. bought Calona and Sandhill in 2005 but found other priorities, including investment in vineyards.

This summer, a brilliant compromise emerged. Instead of a winery in the country on Black Sage Road, Sandhill has been housed in downtown Kelowna, in a spectacular new wine shop attached to the venerable Calona building. Master winemaker Howard Soon continues to make the wines in dedicated quarters in the Calona winery.

The breathtaking tasting room – there are few to match its grandeur in the Okanagan - shows off the wines to great advantage. To consumers, it does not matter that the tasting room is not actually on a vineyard.

A special tasting bar includes a massive interactive screen with stunning views of all the Sandhill vineyards. There is even a view of an old vine in profile, with roots spreading deep into the soil. This is better, in fact, than being in the vineyard where you would never get to see a 12-foot-deep profile of roots and soil unless you brought your own backhoe.

With Sandhill, such detail about the vineyards is fundamental to understanding the wines. Sandhill makes only single vineyard wines. Currently, the winery farms or buys grapes from six specific vineyards. Because Howard never combines grapes from several vineyards in a Sandhill wine, those wines express the terroir of their individual sites.

To experience that, you could taste the winery’s two Pinot Gris wines side by side. One is from the King Brothers mature vineyard just north of Penticton. The other is from Peller’s young Hidden Terrace Vineyard at Covert Farm north of Oliver.  

I have recently tasted the two Cabernet Merlot 2012 wines side by side. One is made with grapes from the sandy Sandhill Estate Vineyard on Black Sage Road; it is a rich and jammy wine. The other is from grapes grown on the extremely rocky Vanessa Vineyard in the SimilkameenValley; it is a firm and mineral-laden wine.

Here are notes on wines tasted recently with Howard in the Sandhill tasting room.

Sandhill Sauvignon Blanc 2013 Hidden Terrace Vineyard ($17.99 for 2,765 cases). The wine begins with aromas of gooseberry, lime and green tomato, leading to flavours of lime and grapefruit. The texture is vibrant and the finish is refreshing. 88.

Sandhill Pinot Blanc 2013 Sandhill Estate Vineyard ($16.99). Half of this wine was barrel fermented in French and American oak, which may account for the fullness of texture and the hint of butter on the palate. The wine begins with aromas of pear and apple and delivers flavours of apple, pineapple and spice. 89.

Sandhill Chardonnay 2013 Sandhill Estate Vineyard ($17.99 for 2,820 cases). Half of this wine was fermented in French oak and aged nine months on the lees. That was done for richness and complexity. The other half was fermented in stainless steel, preserving the vibrant fruit and acidity. Malolactic fermentation was not allowed. The wine begins with aromas of apple and citrus, with a hint of oak. On the palate, there are flavours of ripe apple, tangerine and toasty oak. 89.

Sandhill Single Block Chardonnay 2012 Sandhill Estate Vineyard Block 11 ($30 for 125 cases). The vines on sunbathed Block 11 were planted in 1997 and now produce ripe (14% alcohol) and richly flavoured Chardonnay. About 60% of this wine was fermented and aged eight months in new French oak. The wine begins with alluring tropical fruit aromas and delivers juicy flavours of tangerine and ripe apple. There is an elusive lemon note on the finish that recalls lemon meringue pie. The finish goes on and on. 91.

Sandhill Cabernet Merlot 2012 Vanessa Vineyard ($19.99 for 5,700 cases). This wine is 50% Cabernet Franc, 30% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. The vines in this Similkameen vineyard grow, as Howard notes, “in rows blasted out of the rock.” This wine was aged 13 months in American oak. It is still a wine with grip. The black currant flavours are underlaid with minerality – a smoky, slate character with dark fruit and dark chocolate. 89-90.





Sandhill Cabernet Merlot 2012 Sandhill Estate Vineyard ($19.99). This is a ripe, juicy wine with aromas of cassis and vanilla. On the palate, it delivers flavours of black currant, black cherry, with spice and chocolate on the lingering finish. 90.







Sandhill Pinot Gris 2013 Hidden Terrace Vineyard ($18.99 for 4,872 cases). The wine has aromas and flavours of citrus and apple with both mineral notes and bright acidity forming a spine. One is not in the habit of decanting white wines but it might be considered. A day later, the second half of the bottle expressed more fruit and a fuller texture. 88-90.

Sandhill Syrah 2012 Sandhill Estate Vineyard ($19.99 for 2,268 cases). This wine has aromas and flavours of black cherry, spice and white pepper with a pleasant touch of oak on the finish. The texture is generous. 90.

Sandhill Syrah 2012 Phantom Creek Vineyard ($40 for 12 barrels). Here is a rich, full-bodied wine with aromas of black cherry and vanilla. Those are echoed on the palate, along with flavours of plum. There is a hint of black liquorice on the finish. 91.

Sandhill Single Block Merlot 2011 ($40 for six barrels). This is from Sandhill’s Block C1. The wine begins with alluring aromas of plum, cassis, blueberry and vanilla, and echoes this cornucopia of fruit flavours on the palate. The silky tannins add fullness to the texture. 91.

Sandhill Two 2011 ($35 for 13 barrels). This is 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot and 23% Cabernet Franc. A wine with a generous texture, this begins with aromas of cassis, vanilla and tobacco. On the palate, there are flavours of black cherry, vanilla and mocha. This is an elegant wine, ready to drink now but with the potential to age well a few more years. 92.

Sandhill Malbec 2011 Phantom Creek Vineyard ($35 for seven barrels). This is sold out. Those who have it in their cellars are fortunate indeed. It begins with the classic perfumed aroma of Malbec (violet, raspberry and spice) and goes on to deliver flavours of currants, blueberry and lingonberry. 91.





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Class of 2014: One Faith Vineyards

December 6, 2014, 12:59 pm
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Photo: One Faith proprietor Bill Lui

One grasps for words to describe One Faith Vineyards, the Okanagan’s newest winery. Audacious and ambitious, because it launched with the most expensive red wine yet (about $165 a bottle) from a British Columbia winery.

“My goal for One Faith Vineyards is to become the First Growth for the Okanagan,” owner Bill Lui said at the crowded launch party.

The collectors and wine aficionados had the first chance to taste the wine and an opportunity to buy a three-bottle box for $495. Since only 144 cases of 2012 One Faith were made, there is not a lot of wine to go around, even at these prices.

If One Faith succeeds, and I believe it will, this wine is a game changer for the Okanagan. If Bill can get collectors to pay Bordeaux prices for Okanagan wines,   his peers will be able to do the same. That will significantly improve the overall economics of growing wine in a high-cost region like the Okanagan and the Similkameen.

Bill is a Vancouverbusinessman whose successful medical supply business enabled him to pursue a growing passion for wine, notable for the great reds from Bordeaux. He has taken Wine & Spirits Education Trust courses in wine and wine-making courses at the University of California. He has travelled and tasted in Bordeaux. On a recent trip, he arranged to visit all of the five First Growth producers.

Taking his cue from how the best do it, Bill nailed down a superior source of grapes by leasing several small blocks in Harry McWatters’s Sundial Vineyard on Black Sage Road. Planted in 1992, this is one of the most mature of Okanagan vineyards. It is also farmed by Richard Cleave, a revered veteran grape grower. Bill considers him “the best farmer” in the Okanagan.

Then Bill went to Californiato hire consulting winemaker Anne Vawter. “He was looking in the NapaValleyfor a winemaker,” Anne told me. “He wanted to go outside the fold of the Okanagan, and look for somebody who was making wines in the style that he wanted to make. My name kept popping up.”

Anne grew up near Walla Walla, wine country in WashingtonState. After considering a career in dentistry, she got a degree in viticulture and enology at the University of California, quickly emerging an important consulting winemaker. Most of her clients (such as Ziata Wines, Oakville Ranch Vineyards and Teaderman Vineyards) are in Napa. Her husband, Cameron Vawter, is the winemaker at Dana Estates at Rutherford.

Anne has her own label, Red Mare Wines, a name inspired by her equestrian interests. She manages Blossom Creek Ranch, a horse farm in Calistoga.

She has now made three vintages for One Faith, starting in 2012. She acknowledges that One Faith has been fortunate to launch with three of the Okanagan’s best vintages.

“I think it is a really fascinating place to make wine,” she says of the Okanagan. “It is similar in certain ways to WashingtonState, but individual as well. The soil where we are making our wine on the Black Sage Bench area is very uniform sand and very deep sand. That is distinctive and unique. Most places are not going to have that soil structure. That is fascinating for me.”

“I am also drawn to higher latitudes,” she continues. “There is something special that happens, especially with the blending varieties – Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. It is interesting when you have that shorter season, longer days and sometimes higher temperatures … a combination of those things sometimes produces wines that are a little more interesting. It produces rich Merlots, strong, mouth-filling, tannic Merlots. I think somehow it has to do with the shorter season and the longer days.”

Bill Lui has spared no expense. The vines are allowed to produce only between one and two tons of grapes per acre, perhaps a quarter of the usual yield for Bordeauxreds in the Okanagan. Such extreme viticulture is designed to produce concentrated wines with rich flavours. There is a bit more turbo-charging at fermentation, with 10%-15% of the juice bled off after crush, further concentrating the wine.

That juice, by the way, is turned into a rosé called The Girls. The proceeds from that wine go entirely to breast cancer research. There also is a companion red, a home for wine that does not make the cut for blending into One Faith.

The volumes of One Faith are small. Production in 2013 was a little higher than 2012 while the current vintage production was similar to 2012.

“The idea is to keep the production very small, with attention to detail,” Anne says. “All of the wine is barrel-fermented, which takes an amazing amount of space, time and energy. The goal is to maintain something small that we can keep our eyes on.”

The result is what Harry McWatters, who has given marketing advice to Bill, calls “a new milestone in British Columbia wine.”

Here is a note on the wine.

One Faith 2012 ($495 for a box of three). The wine is a blend of 45.4% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 24.6% Cabernet Franc. The wine was aged between 20 and 22 months in French oak. The wine begins with deep and complex aromas of cassis, vanilla, spice and dark cherry. On the palate, there are layered flavours of black cherry, plum, cassis, chocolate and tobacco. It is a sveltely polished wine with long, silky tannins. The wine is drinking well now but will continue to improve in the bottle for five to eight years. 95.





  
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Ten years of Laughing Stock Portfolio

December 9, 2014, 12:02 pm
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 Photo: Cynthia and David Enns

Laughing Stock Vineyards, which opened in 2005, celebrated its 10th anniversary this year with events that included vertical tastings of its flagship red blend, Portfolio.

At one event at the Naramata winery for its wine club members, owners David and Cynthia Enns offered to sell a limited number of verticals from the winery’s library stock. To their surprise, few sets were purchased -- because most club members already had verticals in their own cellars.

Only a handful of Okanagan wines can boast of a similar following. Oculus from Mission Hill, Nota Bene from Black Hills and Le Grand Vin from Osoyoos Larose, Pinot Noir from BlueMountain, all of which have released in ten or more vintages, come to mind. Several other producers are closing in on decade-long collectible vintages, a sign of the maturing British Columbiawine industry.

David Enns set out to make a collectible wine from day one after beginning his winemaking in a garage in Whiterock. The first wines he made with WashingtonState fruit – he crushed a ton of Cabernet Sauvignon in 2001 and two tons of Syrah in 2002 - were the rehearsal before turning pro in 2003.

Laughing Stock’s first vintage was about 500 cases of Portfolio in 2003. It was made in the then-tiny Poplar Grove winery. It was two years before David and Cynthia built a winery on the five-acre Naramata vineyard they had purchased.

“I did the pilgrimage [to Bordeaux] before I blended the 2003 Portfolio,” David says. “I went to Bordeauxfor the en primeur tasting. It was an amazing trip of tasting close to 1,000 different wines and then coming back and blending Portfolio.” The 2003 Portfolio is 64% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Cabernet Franc. 

Opening a winery was a major career change for David and Cynthia, who were then running an investment consulting company. They only sold that business in 2006 after their winery was established.

“Our original business plan was that we were going to buy a lot of our fruit so we don’t have to become farmers,” David recalls. “Well, we quickly realized that if you want good wine, you need good fruit – and you have to grow it. So we hunkered down and bought another 22 acres [in Osoyoos]. So 50% of our fruit comes from Osoyoos and 50% comes from the Naramata Bench.”

For the vertical tasting, Laughing Stock presented several tables, starting with one about the volume of grapes crushed each year.

2003
  8 tons
2004
 32 tons
2005
 43 tons
2006
 87 tons
2007
 78 tons
2008
 98 tons
2009
103 tons
2010
  90 tons
2011
 110 tons
2012
 109 tons
2013
 121 tons

Currently, there are no plans to increase production volumes. “In 2005 I built my winery,” David says. “I built it to do 5,000 to 6,000 cases a year.” Cynthia adds: “We are not increasing production and we are not going to build a new facility in the next five years.”

The Portfolio blend has become more complex as Laughing Stock has been able to access or grow the entire suite of varietals found in most Bordeauxblends.

Another table from the winery sets this out.

Vintage
Merlot %
Cabernet Sauvignon %
Cabernet Franc %
Malbec %
Petit Verdot %
2003
64
33
3


2004
55
35
10


2005
59
33
 3
 4
1
2006
61
16
16
 5
2
2007
56
25
12
 6
1
2008
53
24
12
 8
2
2009
36
27
22
14
1
2010
32
42
 6
18
2
2011
42
32
17
 7
2
2012
45
25
22
 7
1

As that table shows, Portfolio has been anchored with Merlot in every year but 2010. “Back in the day, people said go heavy Merlot all the time,” David says. “It was pretty safe advice. Since then, there has been more Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc planted in the right sites now. A more balanced approach can be taken today than 10 years ago.”

However, Portfolio is “definitely skewed towards [Bordeaux] Right Bankstyle,” David adds. “It is all Right Bank except for 2010, which is Cabernet Sauvignon-based.” That was a reflection of vintage conditions, in which Cabernet Sauvignon shone through better in the blend.

The basic consistency in the style of Portfolio is one reason why the wine is collected. But that does not mean the wine tastes the same today as it did a decade ago. It is a wine that has been continuously refined through access to more and better grapes. The wine also improved after Laughing Stock built its own winery and included sophisticated winemaking equipment. As well, David has worked with a wide variety of French coopers en route to choosing the barrels he believes best suit his style.

“We only get one shot at this a year,” he says. “The coopers I am picking are all French. A lot of the oak is fine-grained and the barrels are medium or medium plus toast.”

Laughing Stock is small enough that it can ferment its grapes in small batches and keep them separate until blending.

“At the fifteen month mark, the following March, is when we start a month of blending trials,” David says. “We will make two cuvees. One is Blind Trust Red and the other is Portfolio.”

The lower-priced Blind Trust Red is bottled in April while the Portfolio blend goes back into barrel for about three more months. Typically, Portfolio has 18 to 20 months of barrel age; between 35% and 55% of those barrels are new. The object is to structure Portfolio as age-worthy, with Blind Trust as an earlier-drinking red.

“We build our wines to age,” Cynthia said at the vertical tasting.  “How well do B.C. wines age? Will they be fresh and clean in 10 years? We can’t answer that question until we get there.”

The tasting, of course, provided the answer. Wines as well made as these can last that long, or almost that long.

Portfolio 2003, however, is beyond its best. Anyone with a few bottles left needs to open them soon. The winery advised drinking it by 2013. The other vintages all are sound.

There is a reason why 2003 is not aging well. That vintage was the hottest in the decade, with 1,494 degree days, about 200 degree days more than the annual average. That produced very ripe grapes. In its youth, this was a jammy and fleshy Portfolio (“a fruit bomb,” Cynthia says), somewhat low in acidity and with 15.1% alcohol. (Due to a labelling error, the bottle read 13.8% alcohol.)


Here are notes on succeeding vintages, with point scores I made during the tasting.

Portfolio 2004: The winery advises drinking it this year but don’t fret if you keep it another year. It is a wine with aromas of vanilla and cassis, with berry flavours that are still bright. The finish has notes of chocolate, thyme and sage. 91.

Portfolio 2005: Drink this by 2015. This was the first Portfolio made in the new gravity-flow winery and incorporating five varietals. It has matured to display aromas of cassis, blueberry and mulberry and to offer of core of cherry and vanilla flavours. 94.

Portfolio 2006: Drink this by 2016. The 2006 vintage was warm and consistent. Beginning with aromas of plum and blueberries, the wine has a concentrated texture with flavours plum, black currant, chocolate and espresso. The texture is still firm. 92.

Portfolio 2007: Drink this by 2018. The wine begins with almost floral aromas of black currant, black cherry and vanilla that are echoed in the flavours. There is a touch of mocha and mint on the finish. 93.

Portfolio 2008: Drink this by 2019. For the first time, fruit from Osoyoos and Cabernet Franc from a grower were incorporated in Portfolio. The wine comes off as bold and muscular, with aromas of black cherry and jammy flavours of black cherry, black currant, plum and sage. 94.

Portfolio 2009: Drink by 2020. This vintage was shortened by frost early in October; fortunately, it has been the second warmest year in the decade (1,427 degree days) and the grapes were superbly ripe. This is big, rich Portfolio with aromas of vanilla, cassis and blueberry and flavours of black cherry, dark chocolate, coffee and liquorice with a hint of graphite on the finish. 95.

Portfolio 2010: Drink by 2021. This was a notoriously cool year, requiring the dropping of some fruit (note the drop in the tonnage crushed). Surprisingly, given the vintage, the best varietal in the winery was Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a fresh and lively Portfolio, a bit lean in texture but with aromas of cassis and flavours of red currant, pomegranate and mint. 93.

Portfolio 2011: The winery has not published a lifespan recommendation; I would suggest drink by 2021. This was another cool vintage (1,195 degree days) with a harvest that did not start until mid-October and did not end until mid-November. However, this wine was good enough to win the Lieutenant Governor’s Award of Excellence. It has aromas of black currant, cedar and spice, with flavours of black currant, cherry and chocolate. 93.

Portfolio 2012: No lifespan recommendation from the winery; I would suggest this will cellar until 2024. The aromas are still closed but the wine has intense flavours of black currant, black cherry and liquorice. The text is generous with long, ripe tannins. This was one of the best vintages, with 1,333 degree days in a long, warm growing season. 92-94. 
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