Baillie-Grohman stays in the family

Photo: Myran Hagenfeldt and Wes Johnson (Credit Matt Bolt)

Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery, based on a Creston vineyard planted in 2007, has new owners in a transaction that keeps the winery in the family. Founders Bob Johnson and Petra Flaa have sold the winery to their winemaker son, Wes Johnson and his fiancée, Myran Hagenfeldt. Both have extensive winemaking experience in New Zealand, where Wes studied enology. Myran was born in Sweden but got into the wine industry in New Zealand, where she and Wes met.

This is an ownership transfer that leaves this outstanding Kootenays winery in very good hands. In a statement, Myran says: “It’s an exciting step for us to build on the legacy that Bob and Petra have created and to play an integral part in putting this emerging wine-growing region, the Kootenays, on the map.” Bob and Petra had initially moved from Calgary to a Creston cherry orchard because of their love of the Kootenays. Their decision to switch to growing grapes reflected a long-time love of wine. Both had been members of the Opimian wine club, and Bob once was a home winemaker. Bob was born in 1958 in Red Deer. He was a reservoir engineer with Sproule Associates, a consulting firm he joined in 1984, until he retired in 2013 to focus on Baillie-Grohman’s marketing. The winery now produces about 5,000 cases a year. The 7-hectare (17½-acre) estate vineyard is farmed by Petra, a former technology manager, with viticultural skills acquired from University of Washington correspondence courses.

“When I began to develop a fascination with wine nearly three decades ago, I never walked into a bookstore without searching out wine books,” Bob confessed to a winery blog in 2019. “I gradually amassed a decent collection, and some were particular favourites. I was especially drawn to the stories behind the wine, and few held a greater appeal than The Heartbreak Grape: A Journey in Search of the Perfect Pinot Noir by Marq de Villiers.” It is not surprising that Baillie-Grohman’s flagship wines are made with Pinot Noir.

The winery’s success owes a great deal to its New Zealand connection. In 2009, when Bob and Petra needed to make Baillie-Grohman’s first wines, they advertised for a winemaker on a New Zealand website recommended to them by Mark Rattray, another New Zealand winemaker who was then advising Skimmerhorn Winery and Vineyard, Creston’s first winery. “We got applications from all over the world but none from Canada,” Petra once told me. “But we had so many New Zealanders and Australians.” Mark interviewed the most promising applicants, and Bob and Petra hired Dan Barker, the owner of the Moana Park Winery in Hawke’s Bay and New Zealand’s Young Winemaker of the Year in 2003. He travelled annually from New Zealand to the Kootenays to make or advise on every Baillie-Grohman vintage through 2016. Meanwhile, Bob and Petra sent their son to New Zealand, where Wes mentored at Moana Park and other wineries while earning his enology degree. He became the fulltime winemaker at Baillie-Grohman in 2014.

“My passion is to be able to make elegant, handcrafted wines that showcase our unique terroir here in Creston,” Wes says. The winery has earned acclaim with wines made from the vineyard’s cool climate grapes. Pinot Noir makes up two-fifths of the vines. The rest of the vineyard is planted with Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer, and Schönburger, along with 250 Kerner plants for occasional icewine. The winery also farms its Creston Valley Vineyard and the newly planted St. Augustine Vineyard.

The winery is named for a legendary Kootenay area pioneer, William Baillie-Grohman. He came in 1882 with Teddy Roosevelt to hunt trophy mountain goats. Impressed with the area’s farmland, he leased 19,200 hectares (47,500 acres). He organized a British syndicate to divert the Kootenay River and settle colonists on the drained land. The scheme ultimately stalled when a lawyer made off with investment funds. The remaining British settlers developed the area. Baillie-Grohman’s colourful story lives on. Remains of the SS Midge, the steamboat he built to navigate the river, are in the Creston Museum.