Culmina's Elaine and Donald Triggs
Donald Triggs, the former chief executive
of Vincor International Ltd., is back in the wine business with the launch of
Culmina Family Estate Winery in the Okanagan.
This is his third career in the Canadian wine
business and the second time that he and Elaine, his wife, have sunk their
life’s savings into the business. This time, they are doing it at an age when
most people retire.
“Retirement to me is a nasty word because
it implies stopping,” says Don, who was born in 1944. “I don’t think life is
about stopping. It is about continuing and doing what you love.”
Vincor was the 14th largest wine
company in the world when Constellation Brands took it over in mid-2006 for
$1.6 billion. As a significant shareholder in a publicly-traded company, Don emerged
from that transaction well fixed for life. But he and Elaine, who had run a
premium Niagara vineyard for Vincor, only took
a few months off before looking for land in the Okanagan for a new vineyard and
winery.
That decision firmed up when Sara Triggs,
the youngest of their three daughters and with a master’s in wine business from
the University of
Adelaide
Culmina, a no-expenses spared project, has
scheduled its grand opening for August 2013.
Photo: Culmina Winery (south side)
The project’s new gravity-flow winery, with
a capacity to produce 6,000 to 8,000 cases a year, was built last year,
surrounded by vineyards on the Golden Mile, on western flank of the south Okanagan Valley
Don is well known in the wine industry: he
and former partner Alan Jackson gave their surnames to Jackson-Triggs when that
became the new name for Brights Wines in 1994.
Both he and Elaine grew up on farms in Manitoba California
His performance
there caught the eye of headhunters. In 1982, he was recruited to run the Vancouver-based
North American operations of Fisons PLC, a British fertilizer company. While
Elaine was becoming a chartered accountant, Don was promoted to Fisons head
office in Britain
At heart, Don is an entrepreneur who enjoys
building companies. “I’ve always had
this yearning to be in my own business,” he says. “And I really had a twinge in
my bones for the wine business.”
In 1989, when
Labatt decided to sell its the wine business to the managers, Don came back
from Britain
“I sold my ski chalet and took all the money I had saved
up, and re-mortgaged my house,” he recalls.
But this is what ultimately grew into Vincor which owned, among other assets, six Okanagan wineries.
But this is what ultimately grew into Vincor which owned, among other assets, six Okanagan wineries.
One of them, Osoyoos Larose,
is a joint venture with Groupe Taillan of Bordeaux
One of their consultants was Alain Sutre who was sufficiently impressed to take on other Okanagan clients
since then. (They include Burrowing Owl, Painted Rock and Poplar Grove.)
One of their consultants was Alain Sutre who was sufficiently impressed to take on other Okanagan clients
since then. (They include Burrowing Owl, Painted Rock and Poplar Grove.)
When Don and
Elaine decided to get back into the wine business in 2006, they also turned to
Sutre. “I said to Alain, is it possible to raise the
bar again?” Don says. “Osoyoos Larose pushed the bar up and others have
embraced that vision, because quality has gone up around the industry.” Sutre
said yes, noting that Okanagan terroir was so much better understood than had
been the case a decade earlier.
They looked in detail at five Okanagan
sites, in some cases taking soil and temperature readings, before buying 44
acres in 2007 from Olivier Combret and his family, then the owners of Antelope
Ridge Estate Winery. Only 14 acres were under vine, almost all of which has
since been replaced. The decision, Don says, was financially painful but
necessary to upgrade the vineyard.
There is a delightful sentimental streak in
both Don and Elaine, illustrated by the names of their vineyards.
The former Combret property is called Arise
Vineyard. One of Don’s ancestors several generations ago was a purser in the
first British garrison in the Barbados Canada
Photo: Vineyard at Culmina
In 2009, while Arise was being planted, Don
and Elaine bought another 60 acres on two hillside benches above Arise. Here,
two new vineyards have been planted. The lower of these two is called Stan’s
Bench, named for Elaine’s father. The upper bench, a cool northeast slope that
rises to 595 meters, is called Margaret’s Bench, for Don’s mother.
When the three vineyards are fully planted
– the final planting is scheduled for this spring – Culmina will have about 54
acres of vines to supply it.
These are among the highest density
plantings in the Okanagan, with 2,044 vines per acre. In most Okanagan vineyards,
the density ranges from 900 to 1,500 vines per acre. The theory behind high
density is that by forcing the vines to compete with each other, each vine will
produce less fruit but better quality.
In addition to these three vineyards, Don
and Elaine are also planting about 1,000 bush vines (Syrah, Cabernet Franc and
Cabernet Sauvignon) on three sun-bathed and almost inaccessible fingers of soil on the
mountainside. They admit that this is a $10,000 experiment.
That, however, is pocket change in this project.
Total investment is not disclosed but is substantial. The technology for
computer-monitored real time moisture and temperature data alone is a $100,000
investment. Soil analysis is so detailed that the vineyards are broken into 1
¼-acre blocks, with the choice of clones of rootstocks precisely determined by
the soil in each block.
The multiple exposures and soils of the
site governed the planting decisions. “We have not planted what I want to
drink, and that upset me no end,” says Don, who had hoped to plant Sauvignon
Blanc, Grenache and Mouvedre until his consultant advised against them.
The varieties planted in Arise, lowest and
warmest of the vineyards, are Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah
and Malbec. Stan’s Bench, which has both heat pockets and cooler exposures, is
planted to Chardonnay, Riesling, Viognier, Malbec and Petit Verdot. Margaret’s
Bench is planted to Chardonnay, Riesling and 2.3 acres of Grüner Veltliner.
This is the first planting of that Austrian white in the Okanagan.
Photo: Steep road in Culmina's vineyards
Culmina has dynamite winemaking..
Matt Dumayne, after more than a decade of winemaking in New Zealand
In mid-January, Pascal Madevon left Osoyoos
Larose, where he had been winemaker and vineyard manager since 2001, to join
Culmina.
The wines to be offered this summer, likely
between $25 and $30 a bottle, are expected to be a Chardonnay called Dilemma
(because there is still some debate whether to keep those old vines or plant
newer clones) and Hypothesis. The latter is a Bordeaux
The winery explains that Hypothesis can be defined as “a
provisional idea whose merit requires evaluation. … To the Triggs, Hypothesis
wine represents ‘their best effort’ bringing together all the wisdom of 30
years in the industry.”
The winery is equipped with a tasting room
and function rooms to take advantage of the stunning views over the valley from
this site. Like everything else here, the owners want to raise the bar on the
visitor experience. There will be a casual tasting bar but the intent is to go
further.
“We want to tell our story,” Elaine says.
“We will do sit-down tastings. But because we have spent so much time and
energy on vineyard development, we really want to focus on providing as many
people as possible with a vineyard tour; and to educate them on what we are doing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment