Kelowna’s
Summerhill Pyramid Winery is on a roll this year. Examples:
·
The winery’s 2013 ‘Small Lot’ Sémillon Icewine received 100 points
and a double gold at the San Francisco International Wine Competition this
year.
·
In May, Summerhill’s 2014 Chardonnay Icewine was judged the best
of the icewines at the Chardonnay du Monde competition in Europe.
·
And with its latest releases, Summerhill has joined the ranks of
the Okanagan’s serious Pinot Noir producers.
Of
course, the winery, which opened in 1992, continues to specialize in sparkling
wines. If founder Stephen Cipes had his way, he would call these wines
Champagne. The Summerhill sparkling wines are all, I believe, traditional
method wines – fermented in bottle just like Champagne. However, Champagne is a
term now limited to the French wine region of that name.
The
Maréchal Foch is one of the wines in Summerhill’s Heritage Series of wines.
“The Heritage Series was established to celebrate the history of BC’s wine
industry, demonstrating that beautiful wines can be produced with grapes that
are rarely used in modern winemaking,” the winery explains.
Foch
is a robust red French hybrid that was one of the mainstays of the wine
industry before the 1988 vine pullout in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys.
The object of that pullout was to eliminate the hybrids from BC vineyards in
the belief that they produced mediocre wines.
The
main reason those grapes made such poor wines is that they were not being grown
to make quality wine. The hybrids were overcropped as a matter of routine and
wineries, by and large, had to accept the grapes.
The
hybrids still in the vineyards today are being cropped at the same tonnages as
the vinifera grapes. That is why delicious wines are being made from the
surviving French hybrids.
The
grapes for the Summerhill wine are from an Oliver vineyard operated by veteran
organic grape grower Hans Buchler, whom I profiled in British Columbia Wine Companion in 1996. Since the book is out of
print, here is an excerpt:
Buchler, Hans (1947-): One
of the leading organic grapegrowers in the Okanagan, the lean, lanky Buchler
farms a seventeen-acre vineyard tucked into a bucolic, pine-covered valley high
above Oliver. In Berne, Switzerland, where he was born, his father was a doctor
and his mother a teacher. When he finished college, Buchler spent some time
traveling before returning to Switzerland and marrying Christine, a nurse. They
lived and worked on his father-in-law's organic vegetable farm in the Swiss
winegrowing region known by the appellation La Cot, where his interest in
grapes and wine began. Land prices being prohibitive in Switzerland, Buchler
and his wife emigrated, choosing Canada over New Zealand because Buchler had
traveled across Canada in 1976. "I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of
British Columbia," he recalls. The raw land they purchased near Oliver was
planted to grapes in 1983 after Buchler negotiated a contract to sell the fruit
to Mission Hill. They originally planted foch,
Okanagan riesling and verdelet, along with only two vinifera
(gewurztraminer and white riesling). The Okanagan riesling was the first to be
replaced -- with chardonnay, pinot noir and semillon; half of the foch was
uprooted later and the verdelet was pulled out
after the 1995 harvest, to be replaced by pinot noir and gamay. The
remaining foch plants may have gained a lease on life by the return of this
variety to favor. As well, Mission Hill has had commercial success marketing an
organic foch wine, made from Buchler's grapes.
The vineyard has been organic since 1988, after Buchler had used
herbicicides and synthetic fertilizers in the first two years. "But that does not agree with my outlook
on farming," he says. Now he gets nutrients into his soils by growing
legume cover crops such as peas, vetch and clover, so successfully that some
parts of the vineyard are at risk of having excessive nitrogen (which causes
the vines to grow too vigorously). Weeds
are kept under control with cultivation and by incinerating the young weeds
with blasts from a portable propane-fueled flame thrower. The most devastating
insect pest in vineyards is the leaf hopper. Buchler has found the populations
of these can be reduced with insecticidal soaps and by introducing parasites,
some of which are commercially available while others -- notably a microscopic
wasp called Anagrus epos -- occur naturally. None of the controls is complete
but Buchler is satisfied with establishing a balance between nature and an
acceptable amount of damage. "I always have to find the solution which is
the least labor intensive," he says.
Dedicated to organic principles, Buchler is a member of the
Similkameen-Okanagan Organic Growers Association and has been president of the
Association of Certified Organic Growers of British Columbia. With three
wineries fully organic in 1995 and with many requests for information from
growers, Buchler knows he is no longer pioneering the concept.
He is now selling grapes to Summerhill, one of the
earliest wineries to commit to organic production. Indeed, Stephen Cipes would
like to have the entire industry to commit to organic production.
Organic or not, well grown hybrids can produce good wine.
My guests at dinner recently had the Summerhill wine side by side with a Syrah.
The consensus? The Maréchal Foch was better.
Here are notes on recent Summerhill releases.
Summerhill
Cipes Brut Rosé NV ($30.48). This traditional method sparkling wine is made with organic
Pinot Noir. The wine rested about three years on the fermentation lees before
being finished. It has a lovely rose petal hue, with aromas and flavours of
strawberry accented with a hint of breadiness. The finish is refreshingly crisp
and dry. 90.
Summerhill
Organic Maréchal Foch 2013 ($25.99). This wine, aged nine months in French and American oak,
is bold, with aromas of ripe dark fruit and flavours of black cherry, plum,
blueberry and chocolate. The ripe tannins give the wine a juicy texture.
90.
Summerhill
Pinot Noir 2013 ($29.89 for 962 cases). This wine was aged for 33 months in
neutral French oak barrels. The wine begins with aromas of cherry and
raspberry. On the palate, there are flavours of cherry, strawberry and vanilla.
It is savoury on the finish with notes of forest floor. 88.
Summerhill
Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2013 (N/A). The notes identify the vineyard as
Chandra Vineyard. This wine was aged 32 months in neutral French oak. Whether
it is because of evaporation in barrel or ripe fruit, the wine has 14.7%
alcohol and is ever so slightly porty. Perhaps that is not a typical Pinot Noir
but this bold wine is pretty tasty, with a concentrated texture, aromas and
flavours of cherry and plum. There is a touch of vanilla and spice on the
finish. 90-91.
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