Remembering Naramata winegrower Tim Watts

Photo: Tim Watts (left) with partner Bob Ferguson

Kettle Valley Winery has announced that Tim Watts, one of its founding partners and a pioneer of Naramata Bench winegrowing, passed away on June 27, 2024. “Tim asked for no ceremony to mark his passing, but asked that you share a glass of wine with those that are dear to you,” his partner, Bob Ferguson, wrote in an email. In keeping with that request, I opened a bottle Kettle Valley Malbec 2006, one of about a dozen older Kettle Valley reds in my cellar. These are long-lived wines and, true to my expectations, the wine, while showing its maturity, still is drinking well. A fitting tribute to Tim.

Tim, who is survived by his wife Janet, and their sons, Andrew and Stuart, was born in Victoria in 1958. Graduating from the University of British Columbia, he began working as an exploration geologist. Eventually, he became the senior geologist at the Nickel Plate gold mine near Hedley in 1987. Until the mine closed in 1996, he juggled that position with developing vineyards for the winery.

He had begun making wine in 1980 in his Vancouver apartment, partnering with Bob Ferguson, an accountant and a fellow amateur winemaker. The two had discovered each other’s passion for winemaking after they married sisters. (Bob’s wife is called Colleen). When the partners were frustrated by the difficulty in getting good grapes, Tim and Janet decided to move to Naramata in 1985, planting a test block of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at their home. When that succeeded, he and Bob developed two vineyard properties near Naramata to support a winery. Bob resigned his partnership with a Vancouver accounting firm and moved to the Okanagan in 1992. The winery was opened four years later and, at the peak of its output, was making 13,000 cases a year. Kettle Valley has scaled back in recent years, especially after illness slowed Tim down.

From the beginning, Kettle Valley made interesting and distinctive wines, including barrel-fermented whites and bold, age-worthy reds in styles setting the winery apart from what was then the Okanagan’s mainstream. “We decided that making a German style of wine was like taking Bibles to Rome,” Tim told me in a 1993 interview. Their timing was very good. The 1988 pullout of most of the Okanagan’s vineyards (to get rid of hybrid varietals) had created a great deal of pessimism about the future of the area’s winegrowing. The partners were able to acquire choice vineyard sites at very reasonable prices. “We were lucky,” Bob told me once. “We had first pick of some of the properties because we were the first ones here. Tim picked some really good sites with great air drainage, good soil conditions, and close to the lake.”

“We were told we were stupid to plant Cabernet Sauvignon,” Tim, who took the viticultural lead at Kettle Valley, told me in another interview. “We were told it would never grow. Then we were told after it grew that it would never ripen. Then we were told maybe it will ripen but it will never be any good.” The Old Main Vineyard was planted in 1990 to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, one of the earliest plantings of Bordeaux varieties on the Naramata Bench. In the end, Kettle Valley grew a full range of Bordeaux red varietals, including Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. The winery’s Old Main Red, a Bordeaux blend, has long been one of the icon wines in the valley.

“For the past four decades, Tim dedicated himself to growing some of the best grapes in the Okanagan and making many exceptional wines,” Kettle Valley said last week. “One of the things I love about this business,” Tim told me once, “is there are so many different things that can happen and so many different directions that you can go; things you can change.” It was a great career. Tim and his partner, Bob, have been great assets to Okanagan winegrowing.