Noble Ridge is in a mood to celebrate

Photo: Noble Ridge's Leslie and Jim D'Andrea

Jim and Leslie D’Andrea, the proprietors of Noble Ridge Vineyard & Winery, remark that the last several months of the year feature many occasions to celebrate with sparkling wine. “Please help us get the Noble Ridge Sparkling story out there,” they write in a note accompanying their latest releases.

They have their own reasons for celebrating. This year has seen a recovery of wine touring as well as a revival of their Okanagan Falls vineyards. Benoit Gauthier, the winery’s chief winemaker, writes: “We’re thrilled to see that the vineyard bounced back beautifully this year. … It has been a picture-perfect growing season, with an early bud break, a warm and consistent summer and the beginning of a fall that feels more like a continuance of summer. … I now believe we will exceed our initial forecast of 50% of a typical crop, reaching closer to 65%.”

That has been a typical comment across the Okanagan. For example, Blue Mountain Vineyards, located just a stone’s throw from Noble Ridge, reported 80% of a normal harvest in the 2025 vintage. Vineyards have recovered from the 2024 freeze much better than expected, to the point that some growers have struggled to sell all their grapes this fall.

That is not the issue at Noble Ridge, which will need all of its own grapes to replenish its cellars. Noble Ridge used American grapes in 2024 just for white wines, apparently relying on red wines in its cellar from earlier vintages. If you would like to celebrate with Noble Ridge, here are three current sparkling wines.

Noble Ridge The Pink One 2020 ($34.99). This wine is made entirely with Pinot Noir (clones 114, 115 and 777). The berries are given four hours of skin contact, just enough to give the wine a delicate hue. A traditionally-made sparkling wine, it was en tirage for 42 months. There is just a hint of brioche in the aroma and on the palate, with flavours of wild strawberry. The active bubbles give the wine an especially festive appearance in the glass. 92.

Noble Ridge The One 2018 ($34.99 for 345 cases). This is 72% Chardonnay and 28% Pinot Noir. The grapes were whole cluster pressed and fermented cool. The wine was en tirage for 47 months before being disgorged. The wine has aromas of citrus and brioche; on the palate, there are flavours of lemon, pear and brioche. The mousse gives the wine a creamy texture; the finish is dry and refreshing. 94.

Noble Ridge The One Grand Reserve 2017 ($49.99 for 165 cases). This wine is also 78% Chardonnay and 22% Pinot Noir, but with 66 months en tirage. The grapes were whole cluster pressed and the wine was fermented cool. Citrus and green apple mingle with brioche in the aroma. On the palate, there is a medley of complex flavours, including apple, pear, biscuit and almond. The mousse gives the wine a creamy texture but the finish is crisply dry. 96.

Gehringer Brothers releases 2024 International red wines

Gehringer's Australian-trained Brendon Gehringer '

The latest newsletter from Gehringer Brothers Winery started off with this teaser: “We have some news that we are excited to share. Although we can't let the ‘cat out of the bag’ just yet, we would be happy to say that there's a new product that will be joining our portfolio! Stay tuned. More details next month - allow us to tinker away in the cellar and all will be revealed very soon!”

My hope is that it is a red wine aged in oak barrels. Traditionally, the winery has not had barrels in its cellar, for two reasons. Most of its wines have been whites that did not need oak aging. Secondly, the brothers – Walter and Gordon – have always been frugal. When they made reds that needed oak, they put oak staves in the stainless steel tanks and let the wine pick up some oak flavour. It does not mean that frugally-made wines are not good. Gehringer Brothers has an awesome record of medals won in various wine competitions. Yet barrel-aging takes a red wine to another level.

Walter’s son, Brendon, returned to the Oliver winery in September 2023, after spending many years in Australia. He had gone there in 2008 to train as a winemaker, and followed that up by working at several wineries, notably in the Barossa Valley. He has had plenty of experience at finishing red wines in barrel. That is why I speculate that the new wine is a barrel-aged red.

Gehringer’s 2024 wines were made primarily with grapes from California, due to the damage its Okanagan vineyards suffered from the severe freeze in January that year. It is a much better story this year, as the newsletter relates: “Vintage 2025 continues to be an exceptionally good season,” the winery reports. “Bumper crops of BC fruit with quality to match! As we have replanted almost all of our red varietals, our red wines unfortunately will not be produced this year. We have ,however, been fortunate to harvest fruit from our surviving Pinot Noir blocks. This is scheduled to be blended with our Cabernet Sauvignon to reproduce our well received 2024 Rosé style. Despite having lost certain Schönburger and Gewürztraminer blocks in the 2023/4 weather event, we have managed to source supplies to produce a re-run of our much-adored Schönburger-Gewürztraminer! It has been great to watch how these wines are evolving in the cellar this vintage!”

Here are notes on Gehringer’s 2024 reds, all of them made from California grapes.

Gehringer International Series Merlot 2024 ($N/A). This is an easy-drinking Merlot with aromas of plum and oak and flavours of plum and cherry. The oak lends a smoky note. 89.

Gehringer International Series Summer Night 2024 ($14.49). This is a blend Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. It begins with aromas of blackberry and cherry which are echoed on the soft, juicy palate. 90.

Gehringer International Series Cabernet Merlot 2024 ($18.49). This blend is another easy-drinking red, with aromas of spice and flavours of red cherry and black currant. The tannins are long and soft. 89.

Gehringer International Series Pinot Noir 2024 ($18.49). This is a juicy red, showing notes of cherry and a silky texture. I would cellar this another six months to allow the oak flavours to integrate better with the fruit. 89.

Frind surprises with a Foch rosé

Frind winemaker Corrie Krehbiel

One of the few varietals to survive the Okanagan’s 2024 winter and produce grapes was Maréchal Foch, the winter-hardy French hybrid. In the grape pull-out after the 1988 harvest, most growers pulled out Foch, replacing it with various vinifera varietals deemed to make better wines. Only Quails’ Gate Estate Winery (and a few others) retained a significant acreage. Since 1994, Quails’ Gate’s Old Vines Foch has enjoyed a cult following.

Nearby Frind Estate Winery, which opened in 2019, planted a six-acre block of Maréchal Foch in the flat terrain that leads to the lakeside winery. The winery site once was the home of former Premier Bill Bennett. Winery owner Markus Frind bought the historic property in 2017. Recognizing that the low-lying area was an obvious frost pocket, Marcus planted Foch.

The happy result: Corrie Krehbiel, Frind’s winemaker, had a harvest from the flat in the fall of 2024. She made a commendable rosé that is 94% Foch. It is the first rosé from that varietal that I can ever recall tasting. Wines like this may go some way to reviving Maréchal Foch as a varietal worthy of its place again in the vineyards of the Okanagan. To give some perspective on the grape, let me quote from my 1998 book, Chardonnay and Friends, which profiled the 40 major wine varietals then growing in the Okanagan.

“French plant breeder Eugene Kuhlmann (1858-1932) was the creator of this and of several other hybrid varieties, most of which now have been phased out of vineyards in France and North America. The variety is named for a French hero of World War One, Marshall Ferdinand Foch, commander in chief of the Allied armies in 1918. (An apparent admirer of French leaders, Kuhlmann also created another blood-red variety that was named Léon Millot after a prime minister.) Like the other hybridizers of his day, Kuhlmann created new varieties by crossing native American vines with European vines in a search for productive and disease-resistant varieties. Georges Masson, an Ontario wine writer in the 1970s, wrote that Foch “makes a good wine resembling a French Burgundy.” The comparison to Burgundy, which is made with Pinot Noir, may have been inspired by the vaguely similar earthy aromas and smoky note in the finish of a Maréchal Foch wine. Other flavours include plums and spice.

“Foch was among the French hybrids that were imported to Ontario and New York State just after World War Two by wineries and growers searching for hardy, productive and disease resistant varieties that could make better wine than the North American varieties then being grown. (Almost no one then believed that the classic vinifera would survive in eastern North America.) While Foch had already been named in France, most varieties generally arrived bearing only the hybridizer’s number, such as Seibel 9549, and had names assigned to them by the wine industry in the early 1970s. The significant red hybrids besides Foch were De Chaunac, Chelois, Baco Noir, Chancellor and Rougeon. De Chaunac and Chelois largely have been dropped because the wines are light and uninteresting. The others, while less important than they once were, are hanging on or, in the case of Foch, making a comeback. As recently as 1985 Foch had accounted for a quarter of British Columbia’s grape harvest. But most of the vines were pulled out after the 1988 vintage, leaving Foch at less than two per cent of the crop. ‘To my way of thinking, that is just ridiculous,’ said Jeff Martin [the winemaker at Quails’ Gate at the time]. ‘I looked at the records for the hybrids we purchased in the 1980s. The grapes were immature. The problem was not the variety -- it was grape-growing and winemaking.’ In the early 1980s yields of ten to twelve tons an acre were common, three times the yield now demanded of those vines in the Quails’ Gate vineyard. In the 1990s the variety generally is grown more carefully.”

At the time the book was written, at last 10 wineries in British Columbia were releasing wines made with Foch. I w0uld be surprised if more than five have it in their portfolio now. However, the way the varietal handled the 2024 freeze could restore a bit of the varietal’s profile. Most of the wines in the Frind profile are made, and well made, with premium vinifera varietals and that is not likely to change, however successful the Foch rosé is. Here are notes on three current Frind releases.

Frind Rosé 2024 ($22.99). The 94.2% Foch in this wine is supplemented with 3.4% Cabernet Franc, 1.4% Pinot Noir and 1% Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes were picked deliberately for rosé. The grapes were whole-cluster pressed, fermented cool and aged nine months in stainless steel. The wine presents with a vibrant hue. There are aromas of cherry and raspberry leading to engaging flavours of red plum, strawberry and pomegranate. The finish is long and refreshing. 90.

Frind Premier Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 ($39.99). This wine includes 8% Petit Verdot and 1% Merlot in the blend. The wine was aged 13 months in French and American oak. It is a big, ripe wine from a hot vintage. It has aromas of cassis, dark cherry and plum which are echoed on the palate. The long ripe tannins give this wine good body and a long finish. 91.

Frind The Premier 2023 ($44.99). This is a blend of 68% Merlot, 27% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Tannat, aged 14 months in French and American oak. It is a bold, dark wine with aromas of plum, black cherry and blueberry. The palate delivers dark fruit flavours with a long finish. 93.

Evolve sparkling wine cellar complements Penticton's Chronos

Photo: Winemaker Lynzee Schatz (courtesy of Evolve Winery)

The spirit of the late Harry McWatters may have been lurking in the ether at this summer’s opening of Evolve Sparking House, a Penticton winery dedicated to making bubbly wine. In his day, no one in the Okanagan was more passionate about sparkling wine than Harry. At Sumac Ridge Estate Winery, one of his former wineries, trials with sparkling wine began in 1985 and led to the release four years later of Steller’s Jay, long one of the most successful traditional method bubblies in B.C. (It is now made by Arterra Wines Canada.) “It is what I drink when I am deciding what to drink for dinner,” Harry quipped on numerous occasions.

Four years before he died in 2019, Harry had launched the Time Winery in downtown Penticton. The winery went into receivership after Harry’s death, to be purchased by Ron and Shelley Mayert. Time has been rebranded as Chronos, while the Evolve brand, created by Harry, has remained in the portfolio and now graces the separate Evolve winery on Lower Bench Road.

The sparkling wine house opened with three award-winning sparkling wines made by, or finished by, Lynzee Schatz, the Okanagan-born winemaker who joined Time in late 2019. She took over from Harry’s winemaking team, Nadine Kinvig and Graham Pierce, who would have laid down the foundation for two of these wines. Lynzee trained as a winemaker in Australia and spent five years with Chandon, a French-owned sparkling wine producer in the Yarra Valley there. “Sparkling wine has been my passion since I entered the wine industry over 20 years ago,” she is quoted in a recent publicity release from Evolve.

Photo: Tasting room at Evolve Sparkling House. Here are notes on the current Evolve and Chronos wines.

Evolve Brut Premiere 2020 ($39.99 for 1,000 cases). This is a blend of 67% Chardonnay and 33% Pinot Noir. The wine was three years en tirage. In the glass, the attack is crisp and fresh, with aromas and flavours of brioche and citrus. 91.

Evolve Brut Rosé 2018 ($49.99 for 500 cases). This is a blend of 50% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir, 9% Pinot Blanc and 1% Syrah. The wine was en tirage for five years. This delicious wine presents with a delicate rose petal hue and an active mousse. There are aromas and flavours of wild strawberry. The finish is crisp and refreshing.

Evolve Brut Nature 2018 ($49.99 for 500 cases). The blend is 50% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir and 10% Pinot Blanc. The wine was en tirage for five years. Light gold in hue, the wine presents with an active mousse. It has aromas and flavours of brioche mingled with notes of baked apple and citrus. 92.

Evolve Rosé 2023 ($29.99 for 280 cases). This is made with Syrah from an Osoyoos vineyard. In the glass, it is salmon pink, with aromas and flavours of strawberry. The finish is crisp and dry. 88.

b>Evolve Momento 2021 ($24.99 for 1,300 cases). This cheerful red is a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Syrah. Each varietal was aged separately for 18 months. The wine is ruby in colour and has a juicy texture. It has aromas and flavours of cherry, blackberry and plum. 90.

Evolve Pinot Noir 2022 ($49.99 for 200 cases). This is made with Naramata fruit fermented in stainless steel and aged 12 months in French oak (20% new). Aromas of spice and cherry are echoed on the silky palate. 88.

Evolve Grenache 2022 (Wine club only; 475 cases). This rare (for the Okanagan) varietal was aged 15 months in French oak (none new). The wine presents in the glass with a brilliant ruby hue, with aromas of cherry and red licorice that are echoed on the palate. 91.

Chronos Malbec 2020 ($N/A for 163 cases). The wine presents with aromas of cassis and blueberry. Full-bodied, it has flavours of dark fruits mingled with spice and cedar. 91.

Chronos Malbec 2022 ($N/A 163 cases; wine club only). Bold and rich, the wine presents with aromas of spice and dark fruits leading to concentrated flavours of blueberry and blackberry with a hint of licorice. 93.

Chronos Fourth Dimension 2021 ($44.99 for 350 cases). This is a blend of 65% Syrah, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc. Each varietal was fermented separately before blending. The wine was aged 18 months in American and French oak (20% new). Aromas of black cherry, pepper and tobacco lead to flavours of raspberry and cherry mingled with spice. 92

Chronos Ouroboros 2020 (25 cases; wine club only). This is a blend of 56% Merlot and 44% Syrah, co-fermented in French oak barrels. It is a dark, dense and brooding wine with aromas of blackberry and plum. Those are echoed on the palate, mingled with spice and dark fruits. 92.

Chronos Cabernet Franc 2021 ($39.99 for 1,140 cases). This wine was made with fruit from Osoyoos vineyards. It was fermented in open-top tanks with gentle daily pump-overs. The wine was aged 18 months in French oak barrels (20% new). The wine is bold and ripe, reflecting a hot vintage. It has aromas and flavours of blackberry, raspberry, plum, dark cherry with a long finish. 92.

Chronos Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 ($34.99 for 1,140 cases). The dark colour and the rich texture of this wine reflect the long ferment and daily pump-overs. The wine was aged 18 months in American and French oak (20% new). It begins with aromas of cassis, spice and dark fruits. These are echoed on the palate, mingled with flavours of plum, black olive and chocolate. 92.

Chronos Petit Verdot 2021 (Wine club only for 135 cases). Made with fruit from an Osoyoos vineyard, the wine was fermented in open-top fermented with daily pump-overs. It was then aged 18 months in American and French oak barrels. Dark in colour, this is a concentrated wine with aromas of blackberry and dark cherry. On the palate, there are flavours of dark cherry, plum, and black olives, with minerality on the lingering finish. 93.