TIME Winery changes hands

Photo: Ron and Shelley Mayert (credit Chris Stenberg)

TIME Winery and Evolve Cellars, the sister wineries founded by the late Harry McWatters, have emerged from creditor protection proceedings under new ownership.

Abbotsford businessman Ron Mayert and his wife, Shelley, have acquired Encore Vineyards Ltd., the holding company under which TIME and Evolve operated.

Christa-Lee McWatters, formerly Encore’s president, continues as general manager of TIME and Evolve. Her sister, Darrien, continues as operations manager.

Encore filed a restructuring proposal with the courts on May 7. The company had liabilities of $17,953,699.22 against assets of $3,366,005.46.

In a memo to Encore shareholders in early May, Christa-Lee laid out the impossible situation in which she found herself after her father died in July 2019.

“Unfortunately, upon taking control of the business and after significant review of its affairs, it was confirmed that the Company has sustained continued losses since inception,” she wrote.

She decided the best course was to sell the business. A marketing document was prepared in December 1919, with seven parties exploring potential investment. “All but one of the parties chose not to proceed further with their exploration,” she wrote.

Ron Mayert was the remaining party, with an offer of about $5.8 million to the creditors of Encore. That was subsequently accepted by the receiver. Mayert took control of the Penticton winery on July 1.

Ron Mayert was born in Summerland and grew up on an orchard. Shelley is from a Fraser Valley farm. “Before getting into wine, Ron was a co-founder [in 1999] of Petcurean Pet Nutrition, Old Yale Brewing and Napa Vineyard Inn,” according to a news release from Time.

The release quotes Ron: “We are honoured to join the BC wine community and are excited about making world class wines from one of the most unique and beautiful wine valleys of the world.”

Winemaker Lynzee Schatz, who had joined Evolve Cellars last year, will continue as the winemaker for all the labels here, including TIME, Evolve and McWatters Collection.

Here is a biographical note on her from Okanagan Crush Pad, where she had worked previously:

Raised in Kelowna BC, Lynzee Schatz was introduced to wine through her mother, who was a budding wine aficionado and avid gardener. In 2006, Lynzee worked at Summerhill Pyramid Winery, where her inquisitive nature gained her the opportunity to start shadowing the cellar hands. These early experiences left Lynzee with a fascination for wine, planted the seed for her future career, and provided her first efforts in organic winemaking.

Lynzee has a Bachelor of Wine Science from Charles Sturt University in Australia. She has traveled widely, completing many vintages abroad including stints at Pisoni Vineyards and Winery in California, Domaine Chandon and Yeringberg in Australia's Yarra Valley, and Tawse and Angels Gate in Ontario. Her travels have gained her extensive experience with sparkling wine production, and while at Yeringberg, she realized her love of farming; in particular, rearing lambs, minding sheep, and cattle work.

Lynzee returned to Canada in 2014 and for three years, split her time between making wine at Vancouver Urban Winery and brewing for their sister company, Postmark Brewing. Longing to bring her experience and education back to the Okanagan, Lynzee relocated to Penticton in August 2018.

Harry McWatters’s initially started building TIME winery on his Black Sage Road vineyard. However, in 2015, Richter Bai bought the entire property, including a partially-completed cellar, for his Phantom Creek Estates winery.

Harry then purchased a recently shuttered four-screen movie theatre in downtown Penticton (as a teenager, he once took a date to a Saturday matinee here). By 2018, it had been converted into the largest of Penticton’s urban wineries, with a capacity to produce 25,000 cases a year and with room to expand.

The project, however, had endured significant delays and cost overruns which contributed to its financial situation. The trustee’s report noted “large carrying costs on debt, the need to pay for rental production facilities and higher than expected marketing costs in order to grow market share as well as factors outside of the company’s control, such as the Alberta wine boycott and forest fires impacting tourism.”

“It’s been a massive since last year,” Christa-Lee says in the TIME announcement. “The Mayerts could not be the more perfect people to join the winery, and bring both the experience and the wines to the next level.”