Blue Grouse reaches out through Zoom

Photo: Blue Grouse winery

In order to reach out to wine writers and sommeliers in Vancouver, the Cowichan Valley’s Blue Grouse Winery scheduled a luncheon and tasting on March 19 at a leading Vancouver restaurant.

It never took place because restaurants had been asked to shut down the previous week in order to control COVID-19 outbreaks.

In early May, Blue Grouse reached out to those same wine writers to do a virtual tasting using Zoom, the online communications technology that many of us might never have discovered but for COVID. 

Blue Grouse sent each of us bottles of its signature wines, a 2019 Pinot Gris and a 2017 Pinot Noir. We tasted the wines together with winemaker Bailey Williamson and owner Paul Brunner (left). We also learned about the quite substantial vineyard expansion under way.

We also learned that the Cowichan Valley has been awarded sub-appellation status. An announcement was planned this spring at Blue Grouse before the winery had to close its wine shop. But as a result of having a sub-GI, the wineries in the valley will begin labelling wines as Cowichan Valley wines.

This property was a pioneering Cowichan Valley vineyard, some of it planted as long ago as 1986.  A German-born veterinarian, Hans Kiltz, bought the property in 1989, expanded the vineyard to seven and a half acres, and opened the winery in 1992.  Long before the region had a sub-appellation, Hans operated as if it had. He was adamantly against bringing in Okanagan grapes for winemaking.

The sub-appellation status clears the air. Wines will be labelled clearly to inform the consumers where the grapes were grown.

When Hans decided to retire in 2012, he sold the winery Paul Brunner, a wine-loving mining engineer. Paul has more resources and more ambition than Hans had. By 2015 he had replaced Hans’s functional winery with a much larger one featuring eye-catching architecture. The curvaceous and sweeping roof mimics the feathered back of a grouse. In spacious tasting room inside now has high ceiling more like a concert hall, and a far cry from Blue Grouse’s former cozy tasting room.

The new winery has turned Blue Grouse into one of the most popular wine-touring destinations on Vancouver Island. The winery has been selling more than half of its production directly from its wine shop.

Business was good. The first quarter of 2020, Paul says, was the winery’s best quarter so far. Vines were ordered and plans were made to quadruple the vineyard acreage over two years. Then the lockdown went into effect in mid-March, halting visits to the winery and most sales except for online sales. The winery has just re-opened its wine shop and is preparing to welcome wine tasting again.

The lockdown, however, did not stop the vineyard expansion. Blue Grouse has been working for several years with Pedro Parra, a viticultural consultant. The first vineyard expansion took place in 2017 with the development of what is called the Paula Vineyard (named for Paul’s daughter).

The next vineyard expansion began this spring. Some 7,000 vines have been planted. Another 11,000 will be planted this fall. A further 10 acres will be planted next year.

“The entire vineyard. when it is fully planted, will be 35 acres,” Paul says. “When I bought it from Hans Kiltz, it was between eight and nine acres.  There has been a four-fold increase in size. All of the 25 acres of new plantings will be Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay … the bulk of which be Pinot Noir, a variety of clones and rootstocks.”

Blue Grouse is positioning itself for a significant expansion in sparkling wine production. Some of the new plantings in cooler portions of the vineyard will yield grapes ideal for bubble.

Blue Grouse is also on the road to organic certification. “In the vineyard, we have been using organic practices now for a number of years,” Paul says. “But unless it has been documented and certified, that does not count for a whole lot. So we start officially in August this year and it will take us three years from there.”

“We have contacted the certifying body,” Bailey (right) says. “We will start with them on the vineyard. Then we will move to winemaking to have the full suite of organic certification. We will probably have organic [vineyard] certification in three years. From there, we will start moving through the organic wine certification.”

Both of the wines featured in this tasting are small volume wines, limited by the size of the plantings in the original Kiltz vineyard. However, the mature vines deliver fruit with a good deal of flavour.

The Pinot Gris is reminiscent of Alsace. “With the Pinot Gris, I am trying to find a happy balance between the oak and the fruit and the acid,” Bailey says. “The acid does not seem to be an issue because are on the coast. But to have it in balance with the oak treatment while maintaining the aromatics that Pinot Gris has, it is a test in balance.”

The Pinot Noir vines are also more than 30 years old and the clone is unknown. “It looks like it is Ritter clone,” Bailey says. “That was developed by Fritz Ritter in the 1950s and 1960s. He had been working with Helmut Becker at the Geisenheim Institute. I think they were breeding it for a cooler climate. It would make sense that was what ended up here in the late 1980s, early 1990s. I can’t verify it.”

The new plantings include a multiple of clones, all properly identified. One vineyard block will be have all the clones interplanted and the resulting wine likely will be released as a field blend.

Here are notes on the Zoom releases:

Blue Grouse Pinot Gris 2019 ($25.99). The wine in rich in texture, with aromas and flavours of citrus and pear mingled with buttery notes. The finish is dry. 91.

Blue Grouse Pinot Noir 2017 ($37.99). Fermentation started with wild yeast in stainless steel. The wine was then transferred to a 600-litre amphora and an older oak barrel to finish fermentation and to age. The wine is dark, with aromas of spice and toasted oak, leading to flavours of dark fruit. The texture is firm. 90.