The Okanagan wine industry was saddened to
learn of the death on December 26, 2012, of Bert Sperling, a leading Kelowna grape grower and
the father of a distinguished winemaking family.
Pioneer Ranch, the 18-hectare Kelowna vineyard which he
operated for many years, has become home to Sperling Vineyards. The winery was
opened in 2009 by his daughters, Ann and Susan (with their spouses), fully
supported by Bert and his wife, Velma.
To give a flavour of the man, here is a brief
profile that was printed in 1996 in my book, The British Columbia
Wine Companion.
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Sperling,
Englebert (1928-) Bert
Sperling, as he is called, was born in Sedley , Saskatchewan , in 1928 but grew up in the Okanagan after
his family moved to Kelowna
in 1930. After a brief postwar stint in the air force and a decade in road
building and construction, he agreed in 1960 to take over Pioneer Ranch, the
eighty five-acre farm just outside Kelowna
operated by his father-in-law, Napoleon Peter Casorso, who was retiring and who
had not restored vines and fruit trees badly damaged in a winter a decade
earlier. Not interested in tree fruits, Sperling replaced the orchard and
replanted the existing vineyard, for a total of fifty acres of vines.
The grapes originally were sold to Calona
Wines, Casorso having been a founding shareholder. Almost all were labrusca
varieties, except for perle of csaba, an aromatic early variety whose maturity
coincided with the arrival of California
grapes at Calona. "By the time
Calona would accept them, the wasps would have eaten the grapes right out,
leaving just a shell there," Sperling recalled. After several years of quarrelling
with the winery about when his perle of csaba would be picked, Sperling angrily
switched his contract to Growers' Wines, and with this winery's encouragement,
converted the vineyard from labrusca to preferred hybrid grapes such as de
chaunac. This relationship ultimately led to Sperling and his son, Douglas,
buying the Beau Séjour Vineyard from Growers'. The Pioneer Ranch vineyard still
grows perle of csaba, along with several other white vinifera varieties,
including gewürztraminer. In 1995,
finding a surprising demand for the old stan dby,
maréchal foch, Sperling converted all of his verdelet vines by grafting them
over to foch.
[The Beau
Séjour vineyard is now home to St. Hubertus Estate Winery.]
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At Sperling Vineyards, Ann Sperling, now a
winemaker with a national reputation who grew up amid the vines, relies on
those vines to make an excellent Old Vines Foch, along with Riesling,
Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat .
The wines are a tribute to Bert’s foresight as a grower.
In 2008, Ann shared this memory of her
father’s vineyard:
“When I was very young the area that is
now under vine had grapes, peaches, cherries, apricots and prune-plums growing
on it. All the grapes at that time were labrusca or labrusca hybrids like
Delaware, Diamond, Campbell Early, Patricia etc., but the exception was the
Perle de Csaba. It is a vinifera and a Muscat
type. It ripened early (i.e. late August) and tasted wonderful. I certainly
attribute my love of muscat and Moscato d'Asti to having gorged myself as often
as possible on those grapes.
“For all the fruits, the trueness of character and intensity, with supporting acidity, was always prized by the family through the generations. Great flavours are a hallmark of the terroir.”
“For all the fruits, the trueness of character and intensity, with supporting acidity, was always prized by the family through the generations. Great flavours are a hallmark of the terroir.”
The
winery, with its fine-flavoured wines, is a legacy for Bert Sperling.
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