Photo: Andrew Windsor
Tinhorn Creek Vineyards president Sandra Oldfield is
transferring the role of head winemaker to Andrew Windsor, 35, an Ontario-born
vintner with a master’s degree in enology from Adelaide
University in Australia .
Sandra has been the head winemaker at Tinhorn Creek for 20
years. In recent years, she has taken on an increasingly heavy management role.
That triggered the decision to launch a six-country search for a new winemaker
that ended with hiring a Canadian.
“I have a day job, running Tinhorn,” Sandra (left) explained in an
interview. “It turns out that is a pretty big job. I can’t make wine on the
side. For me, it was not a really difficult step to take. It is not like I am
going anywhere.”
Andrew Windsor has been recruited from Andrew Peller Ltd. in
Ontario where
he has been involved in making wines from the VQA portfolio during the past three
vintages.
“We have hired him to be a winemaker and to bring in new and
creative ideas to the cellar in the same way that Andrew Moon did things to
revitalize our vineyards,” Sandra says.
Moon (right) is the Australian viticulturist that Tinhorn Creek
hired in 2008. He has had a profound impact on how the winery manages its
vineyards, resulting in a quite apparent rise in the quality of Tinhorn Creek’s
wines.
Korol Kuklo, the assistant winemaker at Tinhorn Creek for
almost 15 years, will continue in that role.
“She is great with managing people and she is great with managing cellar
operations,” Sandra says. “That need does not go away when you bring on a new
winemaker. The new person needs to have a cellar manager that knows what they
are doing.”
This will be Andrew’s second winemaking job in British Columbia . He was
hired in July 2010 as winemaker for EauVivre Winery and Vineyard in the Similkameen Valley . He left in March 2011, after 10
months, to work at a large Pernod Ricard winery in New Zealand .
“He switched to a bigger winery than us,” EauVivre owner
Dale Wright says. “We were too small for him.”
However, that gave Andrew a taste for winemaking in British Columbia that
has brought him back. “He made red wine out here in the Similkameen, so he
knows what the possibilities are here,”
Sandra says. “When he was interviewing with us, [he said] on three or four
separate occasions that he really does want to make the best wine in Canada . He has
targeted that this is the place where he can do that, on the Golden Mile Bench
and on Black Sage Bench.”
Andrew initially studied environmental science at the University of Guelph but got a taste for winemaking in
2005 at The Ice House Winery at Niagara-on-the-Lake. He completed his
winemaking degree at the University
of Adelaide in 2006.
In 2008, he joined the winemaking staff at Mollydooker
Wines, a McLaren Vale winery that had been started in 2005 and has since made a
reputation for its big red wines. He left there to join EauVivre and then, in
the spring of 2011, returned to the southern hemisphere for the 2011 vintage at
huge Pernod Ricard operation in New
Zealand .
When that job was completed, he moved to France and
spent six months, and another 2011 vintage, at Cave de Tain, a producer of
Hermitage. On returning to Canada ,
he joined Peller in mid 2012.
“France
taught me that wine is not just a science but an art form, a culture and an
expression of a place,” Andrew said in a new release from Tinhorn Creek. “Wine
has the ability to take you to a place in the world without leaving your home.”
“Once he was back in Canada , he really did want to be
back in B.C.,” Sandra says. “He is going to be bringing a lot new to us. He is
here to do what Andrew Moon did – bring a skill set from different locations
and apply it here.”
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