Sandhill and friends: a tastihg

Photo: Sandhill winemaker Sandy Leier

Over the next five years, the sprawling Calona Vineyards complex near downtown Kelowna will be almost entirely rebuilt.

Since Andrew Peller Ltd. took over the winery in 2005, there has seldom been a year when the new owners were not spending money on a facility that dates from the 1940s.

In 2014, Calona’s cramped wine boutique was swallowed by the spacious and elegant Sandhill tasting room. With that change, the venerable Calona name began to disappear from the buildings and the labels. Conviction has now replaced Calona’s labels. The tasting room also stocks wines under the Peller and Wayne Gretzky brands, both part of the growing Peller stable in B.C.

The effect of these changes and of the renovations will put some distance between Peller and the historic Calona brand.

Both are wineries with a long history in B.C. Andrew Peller began in 1951 as Andrés Wines, with a facility in Port Moody. This winery closed only in 2005 after Peller took over the Kelowna winery and moved all production there.

Calona was started by Giuseppe Ghezzi, an Italian entrepreneur (he had run a silk factory in Italy and a farm colony in Manitoba) who arrived in the Okanagan in 1931 with the know-how for making wines from cull apples. Short of cash, he got the support of Kelowna’s business leaders, notably grocer Pasquale (Cap) Capozzi and hardware merchant W.A.C. Bennett, the future premier and then president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. They raised the money, provided management and, with Ghezzi’s son, Carlo, as winemaker, got the Okanagan’s first winery off the ground. The winery began making grape wines in 1936. Calona’s early success was assured when it began producing St. John sacramental wine for the Catholic Church in Canada on the initiative of a Kelowna priest, Monsignor W.B. McKenzie.

When the Conviction labels were introduced in 2015, there has been an effort to commemorate some of that history. For example, Conviction Pinot Noir is sub-titled The Priest, referring to Monsignor Mackenzie.

Calona had scored a major commercial success in the 196os by producing fruit flavoured wines modelled on what the Gallo Brothers were doing in California. However, the unfortunate image of plonk attached itself to the Calona label and nothing could shake it even after the winery began producing award-winning table wines.

The Sandhill brand was created in 1997, successfully distancing that label from Calona’s image. Sandhill was recognized from the beginning as a producer of premium wines, an image increasingly important as consumers gravitated to drinking premium wines. That is why, when Peller decided to refresh the Calona wine shop, the company re-developed it as the Sandhill wine shop.

Sandhill differentiated itself not just with premium wines, but with single vineyard wines. In recent vintages, that strategy has been amended with the introduction of “Terroir Driven” series wines. Those wines blend grapes from more than one of the vineyards under Peller’s control. It enables larger volume production of those wines. It also gives winermakers the tools to introduce more complexity to the blends.

The Sandhill Small Lots wines, however, remain single vineyard wines.

The legendary Howard Soon was the Sandhill winemaker for 20 years until he retired last year. (He is now the winemaker at Vanessa Vineyards in the Similkameen Valley.)

His successor, appointed in June, is Sandy Leier. Born in Kelowna in 1978, she joined the Calona winemaking team in 2006 after earning a chemistry degree at UBC Okanagan. Since then, she has been the lead winemaker for both the Calona and Wayne Gretzky Okanagan labels.

On her appointment, she was quoted as saying: “I love exploring the unique properties and diverse microclimates of each of Sandhill’s vineyard sites and celebrating those differences in the wines. The single vineyard and single block wines in the Small Lots portfolio give us this window into the terroir of a range of excellent growing sites within our region.”

Sandy leads a quartet of female winemakers at Kelowna winery. The others are Sydney Valentino, who began making the Conviction wines three years ago; Stephanie Van Dyk, right, who began her winemaking career at Summerhill Pyramid Winery in 2002; and Barbara Hall, who joined the group this summer after working at Chaberton Estate Winery, Burrowing Owl Vineyards and Church & State.

Recently, Sandy and Stephanie led a tasting for me of a representative range of the wines they are making at the Sandhill and Friends winery. Here are my notes.

Wayne Gretzky Okanagan 2017 Pinot Grigio ($14.99). Sometimes, Pinot Grigio on the label is more about marketing than style. With this wine, however, Sandy made a light and refreshing wine (12.7% alcohol) approximating the Italian Grigio style. It is a crisp wine with notes of citrus and peach. 91.

Sandhill 2016 “Terroir Driven” Pinot Gris ($17.10). This is a blend of grapes from Peller’s Hidden Terrace Vineyard at Oliver and the King Family Vineyard on the Naramata Bench. “The King Family gives the wine the nice minerality while the fruit from Hidden Terrace is picked a little riper and it gives a nice rich palate,” Sandy explains. The wine has 13.8% alcohol, with rich flavours of pear and apple. 91.

Sandhill 2017 “Terroir Driven” Pinot Blanc ($19). This has aromas and flavours of apples. By fermenting 30% of this in barrel, the winemaker has added weight to the texture. However, the finish still is crisp and refreshing. 91.

Sandhill 2016 “Terroir Driven” Chardonnay ($17.10). Fifty percent of this wine was fermented and aged in French oak (half new). The wine has aromas of citrus and oak, leading to buttery and marmalade flavours. Good acidity leaves a finish of bright fruit. The wine is seriously underpriced for the quality. 91.

Sandhill 2016 “Small Lots” Viognier ($25 for 522 cases). The grapes are from the Osprey Ridge Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench. The wine is almost fat in its ripeness with a texture so rich that I took it to be barrel-fermented (it was not). It has aromas and flavours of ripe apricots. 91.

Conviction 2016 Sovereign Opal ($13.99). Sovereign Opal is an aromatic wine grape developed at the Summerland research station. It is grown on just one Kelowna vineyard and Calona/Conviction gets it all. The aromatics are dramatic, leading to mouth-filling tropical flavours of spice, lychee and lime. 90.

Sandhill 2017 “Terroir Driven” Rosé ($18). This blend of Merlot and Gamay comes down on the side of intensity as opposed to the anaemic style that, unaccountably, seems to be in fashion. The wine presents with good colour in the glass. It has aromas and flavours of strawberry and cherry. 90.

Wayne Gretzky Okanagan 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah ($16.99). The blend has slightly more Cabernet than Syrah. These two varietals marry well together. There is a hint of mint in the aroma along with black currant. On the palate, the flavours are a medley of deli meat spices, black cherry, black currant and fig. 90.

Wayne Gretzky Okanagan 2014 Signature Series Shiraz ($29). Made with fruit from Osprey Ridge Vineyard, this co-fermented Syrah and Viognier won gold last year at Syrah du Monde competition. The aromas begin with black pepper and dark fruits. On the palate, it is plump and rich with flavours of black cherry, figs, dark coffee and dark chocolate. 93.

Sandhill 2016 “Terroir Driven” Syrah ($22). This wine blends fruit from the Sandhill Estate Vineyard on Black Sage and the Vanessa Vineyard. The dark colour telegraphs the bold aromas and flavours of this meaty red. There is a hint of white pepper. 90.

Sandhill 2016 “Small Lots” Syrah. ($N/A). Made with fruit from Sandhill Estate, this wine has an attractive core of luscious fruit (cherry, plum). The long ripe tannins give the wine a juicy texture and svelte finish. 92.

Sandhill 2015 “Small Lots” Petit Verdot (Wine club only). The fruit is from the last vintage that Sandhill bought from the Phantom Creek Vineyard before it was sold. Only 200 cases were made. The wine, typical of the varietal, is dark and dense, with flavours of plum, fig, black coffee and dark chocolate. 93.

Sandhill 2016 “Small Lots” Petit Verdot (N/A).  This was a barrel sample. The fruit for this wine comes from Osprey Ridge, a vineyard not far south of Phantom Creek with a comparable terroir. Again, the wine is dense and black, with flavours of dark fruits, dark chocolate and a touch of slate on the finish. 94.