Anthony Buchanan Wines has a home

Photo: Anthony Buchanan sets up for vintage

After seven or eight years as a virtual winery, Anthony Buchanan Wines opened a bricks and mortar home this summer on Lombardy Place, a stub of a street in Kaleden. It is the culmination of a journey that began 20 years ago when Anthony Buchanan developed his interest in wines, initially as a consumer.

Born in Owen Sound, Ontario, in 1970, he moved to Vict0ria with his mother in 1980 where he began a career unrelated to wine. “I was a hair dresser for 21 years,” Anthony says. “I got into hair dressing right out of high school. I owned my own business for 11 years in Victoria.” However, he developed an interest in wine through membership in the Opimian Society, a national wine club. “In 2001, 2002, I started to think about a different career choice,” he told me in an interview. “I have always loved food and wine. I like the social aspect of it as well.” At first, he set out to be a sommelier, taking the first two levels of Wine and Spirits Education Trust course and the level one course from the International Sommelier Guild. But as he learned winemaking details from these courses, he decided that winemaking had more appeal. He started with a distance learning course in enology from the University of California at Davis.

He got his feet wet by working the 2007 crush at Blue Mountain Vineyard & Cellars and then got a job at the Church & State winery at Brentwood Bay, where he met Nicolle, now his wife and partner in the winery. In 2009, he enrolled in the two-year enology program at Washington State University. He and Nicolle moved to the Okanagan in 2010 where he worked initially at the Soaring Eagle Winery, which was in receivership. “Some people think I have taken the hard way into this business, but it has been good for me,” Anthony says. “I have learned a lot and I have been put into some situations which I think some winemakers don’t experience. By that, I mean a lot of corrective winemaking. I have had to salvage large amounts of wine. Your really learn quite a bit in that process. Then when you are all of a sudden given pristine fruit, the facility and the equipment, it is almost like a dream come true.”

In 2012, he became the winemaker for Eau Vivre Winery in the Similkameen Valley, still one of his consulting clients. He made the first wines for his own label, a Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir, in 2014. While nurturing his own label, he was the fulltime winery at Desert Hills Estate Winery from 2016 through 2020. Desert Hills had been buying fruit from adjoining vineyards near Kaleden which had begun to transition to organic production. When Anthony left Desert Hills, the owners of the vineyards offered to transfer the lease to him. That also gave him the opportunity to convert a large building on the property into a wine production facility with a tasting room, which opened this spring. He is located close to Black Market Winery, which has been open for two years, and to Birch Block Vineyard, a virtual winery that is planning to build in a year or two. “Now that there are four or five wineries here, people will come to Kaleden for a day,” he says. “Between three and five wineries is pretty much all you can do in a day. We are in the process of doing some signage together as a group, which will make it easier for people to find us. We are talking about possibly doing some events next year, just to get more exposure for the area for people to come to visit. It is a beautiful spot.”

The production at Anthony Buchanan Wines was 1,300 cases in 2021, a year in which the heat dome reduced the volume of grapes. This vintage, the winery expects to produce about 2,500 cases in a facility with the capacity of about 3,000 cases. “That is where we will cap it,” Anthony says. “It is good for me. I can still do 90% of the cellar work. I am still involved in the vineyard, too, to a certain extent. I don’t want to lose that. The larger you go, the more people you have to hire. We want to keep it small and keep it focussed.”

As a winemaker, Anthony does not hesitate to think out of the box. Two of his largest volume wines have unconventional names, Fubar and Snafu. “The blends are a little bit obscure,” Anthony says. “The Fubar is 38% Gamay, 28% Zweigelt, 23% Merlot, 7% Pinot Noir, 3% Syrah and 3% Muscat. The Snafu is 100% estate; usually between four and six varieties of skin-fermented white grapes. This current one is 30% Sauvignon Blanc, 27% Chardonnay Musqué, 20% Muscat, 15% Sémillon, 7% Viognier and 1% Grüner Veltliner.” Current releases include a wine which is a blend grapes, apples and dandelion blossoms, all estate grown, and a rosé called La Bise which is a blend of 55% grapes and 45% apples. “There is definitely a crowd that is looking for these styles of wines,” Anthony believes. “They are a little more rustic. They are a little more farm to table. You are utilizing everything from your property. We also have some apple trees here and the dandelions grow freely here. We don’t take them out of the vineyard. We just keep them.”

Even the “conventional” wines show Anthony’s original touches. His Pinot Blanc – a varietal he believes in under-appreciated – is fermented in a combination of barrels. He has fermented Riesling in an amphora (the winery now has three). In 2021, because he worried about smoke taint, he made a white Pinot Noir to minimize the time the juice spent on the skins. This year, his followers have been asking him to repeat that style.

Here are notes on some current releases.

Anthony Buchanan Grape Apple & Dandelion 2021 ($22.90). Light and fresh, this wine has aromas and flavours of citrus and apple. “The grape portion is predominantly Chardonnay Musqué – about 52%, with 2% Viognier,” Anthony says. “The apple portion is a co-ferment of Pink Lady and Braeburn.” The dandelion blossoms, fermented separately in sugar and warm water, are just 4%. The winemaker says the dandelions add texture and an herbaceous note to the wine. 88.

Anthony Buchanan La Bise NV ($22.90). This rosé is a 55% grape blend (Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Gewürztraminer, and Chardonnay Musqué) and 45% apple (Spartan, McIntosh and Gala). With just 8 ½% alcohol, the wine is light and refreshing with aromas and flavours of apple and raspberry. 88.

Anthony Buchanan Pinot Blanc Lawson 2021 ($24.90). This barrel-fermented wine begins with aromas of Asian pear. On the palate, there are flavours of apple and pear. There is good weight and the finish is dry. 90.

Anthony Buchanan Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay 2021 ($31.90 for 56 cases). This wine was fermented in new French oak. The oak flavours are very well integrated, with tropical fruits, ripe apple notes and butter on full display. 91.

Anthony Buchanan Zweigelt 2021 ($32.90). This wine begins with dark fruit and spice aromas. Vibrant on the palate, there are flavours of dark cherry, blackberry and even licorice. 91.

Anthony Buchanan Syrah William Dean 2020 ($37.90). This wine is made with Black Sage Road fruit. Whole clusters were trodden by foot before fermentation; and the wine aged 12 months in oak. Bold and full-bodied, the wine has aromas and flavours of plum, fig and pepper, with an earthy note on the long finish. 92.