Solvero Wines is a boutique producer that began planting a vineyard in Summerland’s Garnet Valley in 2016. In the last several years, the winery has been making a name for itself with superb Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and rosé wines.
Unfortunately, the hard freeze events in both the 2023 and 2024 winters inflicted significant bud damage in the Solvero vineyards. That prevented the winery from producing wine from the estate.
Like many other Okanagan wineries, Solvero was able to find top-quality fruit from vineyards in Washington and Oregon.
The winery is now releasing a Pinot Noir rosé, made with grapes from a superb Oregon vineyard. Alison Moyes, Solvero’s winemaker, “spent much of September in Oregon,” Solvero recently told members of its wine club. “Back in July, Alison hand-selected two vineyard sites - five specific blocks of grapes that were farmed specifically for Solvero. Pinot Noir was selected for our sparkling wine base; we are very excited to introduce a Blanc de Noir to our portfolio! Stay tuned for that. Those grapes came from the Hyland Vineyard in the McMinnville AVA. Pinot Noir was also chosen for Rosé. We found ideal Chardonnay grapes from the Aebischer Vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains AVA.” Both of those viticultural areas are in Oregon.
In the technical notes for the rosé, the winery says that the grapes were “farmed by hand to our specification.” Alison was at the vineyard to make the picking decisions and to supervise pressing the grapes. The juice was chilled to 4◦C and was shipped overnight in a refrigerated truck to the Garnet Valley winery. There, Alison fermented 75% of the juice in stainless steel at cool temperatures. The other 25% was fermented in a neutral barrel. The lots were blended and bottled in mid-February.
In short, Alison had almost as much control of the 2024 vintage as she would have had with grapes grown in the Garnet Valley.
Solvero’s own vineyards are being resuscitated by re-trunking the vines so that they will resume production over the next few years.
“Many of the vines in the Okanagan Valley that sustained bud damage from the cold are pushing new shoots from the ground,” Solvero told its wine club last year. “Re-trunking uses the new shoots from the base of the vine to replace the existing damaged trunk. The new shoots grow from the established rootstock and will push fruit in the following year, unlike planting brand new vines, which takes at least two to three years before they produce viable grapes. Once the new shoot is established, the original trunk is removed.”
Here is a note on Solvero’s first release from the 2024 vintage.
Solvero Rosé 2024 ($25 for 200 cases). The Pinot Noir grapes are from the Aebischer Vineyard in Oregon. The wine has a delicate salmon blush and aromas of watermelon and wild strawberries. There is a medley of berry flavours on the crisp and refreshing palate. 91.
