The approach by visitors to CedarCreek Estate Winery this
summer involved negotiating a lot of construction activity and equipment.
It was a case of short-term pain for long-term gain. The 30-year-old
winery, which was acquired in 2013 by Mission Hill proprietor Anthony von
Mandl, is being renovated to accommodate a year-round full-service restaurant
and an expanded wine shop and tasting room.
In fact, there has been a lot of activity at this site in
recent years. The new Martin’s Lane Winery, also owned by von Mandl, has been
built just north of CedarCreek.
But judging from the wines released this summer, everything
is in order at the back end of CedarCreek. Winemaker Taylor Whelan has produced
excellent wines.
The current releases include a fine white blend called
Senator’s White. (There is also a Senator's Red which I have not tasted.) This is a touching tribute to the previous owner of
CedarCreek, Senator Ross Fitzpatrick. Born in the Okanagan, the son of a
packinghouse manager, the senator had successful careers in both business and
politics. However, his Okanagan roots led to his 1986 purchase of a small
cottage winery called Uniacke, which he promptly renamed CedarCreek.
The senator talked about it in a 2004 book, A Wine Journal, that I was commissioned
to write for CedarCreek.
“I started working in a packinghouse when I
was 13 years old, putting handles on grape baskets,” he says. Having grown up
amid orchards, Fitzpatrick was determined to own one. “In my first year in
university, I took agriculture because I wanted to come back here.” Later, he
switched to commerce courses, equipping himself for a life in business. While
his business career advanced elsewhere in North America, he returned regularly
to the Okanagan to bid on one orchard property or another but never closing a
deal until 1986. That was when he bought a struggling estate winery called
Uniacke which then had as many fruit trees as it had grape vines.
In 1958, as Ross Fitzpatrick graduated from
the University of British Columbia, a royal commission was studying the
problems of the Okanagan’s fruit packing industry. Fitzpatrick was recruited
from university to become the research assistant to Dean E.D. MacPhee, the
royal commissioner.
After that commission reported (with a
massive 819-page report that restructured the fruit industry), Fitzpatrick
worked for two years in the Vancouver office of Sun-Rype, the orchard
industry’s marketing arm, before leaving for postgraduate work in the eastern
United States and then a political job in Ottawa as the executive assistant to
Jack Nicholson, a cabinet minister from British Columbia.
“I went off and did a lot of other things
but my heart was always here,” he says. “I kept coming back, looking at places
to buy that I couldn’t afford. There are half a dozen key orchard properties in
the Okanagan that are very historic, one being Greata -- which we now
have.” It was many years and several
business successes later before Fitzpatrick could afford to satisfy his homing
instinct.
In 1962 Fitzpatrick applied, and was
accepted, for postgraduate business studies at several major American
universities, ultimately enrolling at Columbia University’s Graduate School of
Business in New York. That spring, while he was waiting for the start of the
semester, Fitzpatrick, who had been active in campus politics at UBC, worked on
Jack Nicholson’s successful election campaign.
Intensely interested in politics even then,
Fitzpatrick spent a semester prior to Columbia studying economics at the
University of Maryland. His studies, he recalls, were not nearly as engaging as
the hours spent at the Library of Congress, observing John F. Kennedy’s
incandescent presidency. Along with transferring to Columbia, Fitzpatrick
prepared to work in the United States after completing his studies.
But early in 1963, when the Liberals were
elected to government, Nicholson invited him to Ottawa as his executive
assistant. His dean at Columbia advised him to take the job. Fitzpatrick wrote
his examinations early (and earned “dean’s list” marks) but never found time to
write the thesis required for the degree. “It is the only thing I have started
that I never finished,” he said. He spent the next three years in Ottawa, where
he formed a lifelong friendship with Jean Chrétien, then a rising young Quebec
politician.
When Chrétien became the prime minister
thirty years later, Ross Fitzpatrick was an invaluable advisor in British
Columbia and on the new government’s transition team. In 1998, the prime
minister appointed Fitzpatrick a senator from British Columbia. True to his
homing instinct, the Senator established his office in Kelowna, initially in an
office tower not far from where he was born in a house on Bernard Avenue in
1933.
Given his busy schedule, the
senator put the management of CedarCreek in the hands of his son, Gordon. He
ran the winery so well that the asset attracted the offer from von Mandl. They
did the initial deal on a handshake.
Greata Ranch, referred to in the
book excerpt, was retained by the Fitzpatrick family. It reopened this year as
Fitzpatrick Family Vineyards.
By making a wine called Senator’s
White, Anthony von Mandl has honoured the exceptional legacy of Ross
Fitzpatrick.
Here are notes on the wines.
CedarCreek Senator’s White 2016 ($18.99 for 2,000 cases). This is a
blend of 53% Chardonnay and 47% Sauvignon Blanc, fermented primarily in
stainless steel (15% in neutral French oak). The wine begins with lovely aromas
of apple, melon and passionfruit, leading to flavours of ripe pear, apples and
stone fruit. It is a dry wine with a rich, svelte texture and a lingering finish.
92.
CedarCreek Pinot Gris 2016 ($18.99 for 6,798 cases). This wine has
aromas and flavours of pear, nectarine and citrus with a spine of minerality.
The almost imperceptible residual sugar is balanced with bright acidity. The
wine has a briskly focussed freshness on the palate and finish. 90.
CedarCreek Riesling 2016 ($17.99 for 1.342 cases). This is an
exquisitely-balanced Riesling. The wine, with just 11% alcohol, has 19.5 grams
of residual sugar and 9.5 grams of acid. The wine delivers aromas and flavours
of lime and peach. This bright, focussed wine has a delicious, lingering finish
that seems drier than the numbers suggest. This makes for a great food wine (we
enjoyed it with sushi) and an excellent aperitif. 91.
CedarCreek Platinum Haynes Creek Viognier 2016 ($28.99 for 741
cases). This is an outstanding Viognier from one of the winery’s Osoyoos
vineyards. Some 40% was fermented in French oak barriques; 30% in in barrels
and foudre; and 30% in a 660-litre concrete egg. This has helped give the wine
a rich, unctuous texture. The wine begins with expressive aromas of ripe
apricot and pineapple, leading for flavours of peach and apricot. Fruit
flavours coat the mouth and led to an intense and memorable finish. 94.
CedarCreek Pinot Noir 2015 ($24.95 for 3,060 cases). This wine is made with grapes from five different blocks of Pinot Noir, each aged separately in French oak barrels. The result is a dark wine with aromas of black cherry and plum that are echoed on the generous palate. 90.
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