Photo: CheckMate wines come in heritage bottles
Anthony von Mandl’s genius at positioning his Okanagan wines
reached an absolute pinnacle this week when he launched CheckMate Artisanal
Winery’s five Chardonnays in New York before
releasing them in Canada
Even before that event, the first bottle was presented
privately to Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex. Next week, Anthony will fly to London to deliver the bottle personally and to have dinner
at Buckingham Palace
The point is to ensure the world, including the New York
wine trade, takes notice of perhaps the most exceptional (and expensive) Chardonnay
wines made, so far, in the Okanagan Valley.
In case Buckingham Palace and a toney New York restaurant don’t quite drive the
point home, Anthony also has a current hook for these wines: climate change.
“Climate change is altering the wine world faster than
anyone imagined,” CheckMate says on one of its information cards. “It has
become too hot to make complex Chardonnays in some previously celebrated regions
where the grape’s natural acidity is being crippled by heat.”
The card goes on to say that four years had been spent on a
“daring initiative … to take advantage of climate change to make new world
Chardonnay with old world elegance in North America .”
Clearly, Anthony wants to be a leader of the parade of
vintners adapting to climate change. Just so that no one missed the point, one
of the speakers at the CheckMate launch was a distinguished climate scientist.
And two fine California Chardonnays were served at lunch as reference wines
along with the five CheckMate Chardonnays. The Okanagan wines have fresher
acidity.
There probably has not been a Canadian wine that launched
first in the United States
(at least not since Prohibition). The
CheckMate launch was a tour de force – as are the wines.
Anthony von Mandl (right) has a history with Okanagan Chardonnay. It
began in 1992 when John Simes, then the newly recruited winemaker at Mission
Hill, barrel-fermented some exceptional Chardonnay grapes he had secured for
the winery.
Two years later, that wine won the trophy as the best
Chardonnay at the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London . Almost certainly,
it was one of the first meaningful trophies won by a Canadian Chardonnay in a
major international competition. Mission Hill immediately positioned it as the
“world’s best Chardonnay.”
The trophy put both Mission Hill and the Okanagan on the
map. Mission Hill began buying vineyards in 1994. Now, Mission Hill and
associated wineries are the largest vineyard owners in the Okanagan. There are
Chardonnay blocks in 10 of those vineyards, including a vineyard bought in 2012
growing the clone from which the trophy-winning wine was made.
The 2012 vineyard purchases was part of deal that also
included Anthony’s purchase of the former Antelope Ridge winery, which also had
a block of mature Chardonnay. That 19-year-old winery was gutted and renovated
to become the new CheckMate winery, dedicated to Chardonnay. Trial lots of wine
were made there in 2012 but were never released. The debut wines are from 2013.
“I happen to love Burgundian Chardonnays,” Anthony told his New York luncheon
guests. “I believed we could produce Chardonnays of similar sophistication.”
Deciding he needed an “intellectual” winemaker, he undertook
a world-wide search. He selected Australian Philip Mcgahan (below), a former lawyer who
had become a winemaker and was working at the prestigious Williams Selyem Winery
in Sonoma .
Philip is a 2006 bachelor of applied science (wine science)
from Charles Sturt University Queensland and worked in the Hunter Valley
He did not have to be convinced that making great wine
involved adapting to climate change. “I started my career in the Hunter Valley
Given the run of Mission Hill’s Chardonnay blocks, he has
narrowed his selection to a total of seven acres of vines in three different
locations.
The Heritage Vineyard in the Golden Mile Bench appellation
is adjacent to the CheckMate winery. “This vineyard contains what may be the
oldest Chardonnay plantings in Canada ,”
the winery says. “These vines were planted 40+ years ago [with] an
extraordinary, distinctive Chardonnay clone, of unknown origin, that we call Heritage.”
The Barn Vineyard on Black Sage Bench has blocks of
Chardonnay planted in 1999. And the
Border Vista Vineyard on the Osoyoos East Bench, tucked against the American
border, has a block of Dijon
clone Chardonnay planted in 1997.
The concept of vineyard blocks gave rise to the winery name.
“If you look at a chessboard and you think each of the
individual squares being a block in a vineyard, it allows us to really dial in
on specific blocks and make some very limited edition wines,” Anthony explains.
“It will allow us to do interesting wines with interesting names. You could
have all sorts of things to do with chess and it all dials back to the specific
blocks the grapes are coming from, and the techniques we are using. There is a
lot of expertise going in there.”
For all of his intellectualism and for all of the modern
processing equipment, it is not Philip’s style to indulge in complex
manipulation of the wines. The grapes are harvested by hand, at night when they
are cool. He does some wild ferments in barrels or puncheons, stirs the lees
periodically and then lets the wines age until they can be bottled, unfined and
unfiltered.
“I let Mother Nature take its course over 17, 18 months,” he
says.
The resulting wines are among the most sophisticated
Chardonnays so far from the Okanagan. They are intense in flavour and terroir
characters, with the acidity and structure reminiscent of great Burgundy . These
age-worthy wines clearly raise the bar for Canadian Chardonnay, and for other
producers who also can find something positive in climate change.
CheckMate has no tasting room. The wines will all be
allocated through the winery’s website at www.checkmatewinery.com.
These are the wines.
CheckMate Capture
2013 ($90). Border Vista Vineyard grapes are in this wine. A struggling
wild ferment contributed to aromas that were initially slightly funky but
evolved to notes of orange peel. There is more citrus and spice on the palate,
with refreshing acidity. The texture is both firm and rich. 92.
CheckMate Queen Taken
2013 ($125). The grapes are from the Heritage Vineyard. This is 50% wild
ferment. The aromas appeal with refreshing hints of citrus and brioche. On the
palate, there is the note of white peach characteristic of the Heritage clone.
The wine has a rich mid-palate texture, with a spice of minerality and with
refreshing acidity. 95.
CheckMate Little Pawn
2013 ($110). The grapes for this are from the Barn Vineyard. Again 50% of
the fermentation was with natural yeast. The wine has a strikingly floral aroma
with subtle hints of citrus and well-integrated oak on the palate. The wine is
exceptionally elegant. 94.
CheckMate Attack 2013
($115). The grapes also came from the Barn Vineyard. What sets this off against
the previous wine is that Attack was aged 18 months in a new oak foudre. That
is a thick-staved oversized barrel, perhaps 1,000 litres in capacity. Wines age
more gracefully in a foudre and take up imperceptible oak. This wine has aromas
of brioche and spice with flavours of citrus, lychee and ginger. The clean
fruit flavours are bright, refreshing and exciting. 94.
CheckMate Fool’s Mate
2013 ($80). This is a 17-barrel blend from grapes grown in all of the three
selected blocks. The complexity of the wine makes the case for the assemblage.
The wine has aromas and flavours of brioche and melon, with a rich texture and
a long finish. 95
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