Sovereign Opal has established itself

The remarkably refined 2021 Sandhill Sovereign Opal calls for a more detailed look at the only white wine grape varietal developed successfully in the Okanagan. Today, 12 acres of Sovereign Opal are grown by the Casorso family, one of Kelowna’s pioneering grape-growing families.The photo is of August Casorso in the Calona winery with a glass of Sovereign Opal.

The first vintage was made in 1987 at Calona Vineyards by Elias Phiniotis (who still has a bottle of that vintage). The varietal remained in the Calona portfolio until 2020 when Sandy Leier, then the Sandhill winemaker, elevated Sovereign Opal into the Sandhill portfolio. In the process, she produced a drier and more sophisticated table wine. Over the years, the varietal has reminded me of Torrontés, the signature white varietal of Argentina. That wine runs the gamut from mediocre to expressive. Ross Wise, the winemaker at Black Hills Winery, wrote in his master of wine examination that Torrontés was one of two varietals he would banish from the earth. There have been times when I felt the same of Sovereign Opal – until I tasted the 2021 from Sandhill. I can recommend this wine without reservation.

Sovereign Opal was one of several grapes bred at the Summerland Research Station by a scientist called Lyall Denby. Technically known as Summerland Selection 166, this variety was developed at the Research Station and provided to growers for trial in 1976. A grape with a dusty pink skin when mature, it is a cross of Golden Muscat and Maréchal Foch. Calona, the only producer, began releasing a varietal Sovereign Opal with the 1987 vintage. The wine has a fresh floral Muscat character and is best when young. Summerland's grape program in the early 1970s generated a number of new varieties with the common Sovereign prefix: Sovereign Gold, Sovereign Tiara, Sovereign Noir, Sovereign Royale and Sovereign Sceptre. Only Opal made it to the consumer as a wine varietal. A table grape called Sovereign Coronation also emerged from this program and is grown widely. This varietal has too much labrusca taste to make it suitable for wine. I had a brief biographical note on Denby in The British Columbia Wine Companion, my 1996 book long out of print.

Here is an except. Denby, Lyall: Director of pomology and grape research at the Summerland Research Station from 1971 until he retired in 1983, the Regina-born Denby joined the scientific staff at Summerland in 1950 after completing a master's degree in agriculture at the University of British Columbia. He was already an authority on ornamental plants, having gained experience working at a Vancouver nursery. At Summerland he gravitated toward vegetables and later toward tree fruits and grapes. He took over the grape program, with emphasis on developing winter-hardy varieties that had been launched by Dr. D.V. Fisher, who had moved on to become Summerland's director. Like many of his professional peers, Denby had reservations about the viability of vinifera grapes. Consequently, Summerland sought to breed varieties with vinifera flavor characters but with the vigor and hardiness of hybrids. The only wine grape from this work that became a commercial variety was the muscat-flavored Sovereign Opal, produced only by Calona as a varietal. Denby said later that other promising varieties were under development when he was diverted from that research to work on the so-called Becker Project, which focused on German vinifera. "I was forced into it," Denby said. "I would have preferred to put much of my own time into the next two generations of crosses. We had some good stuff coming on; Opal was only one example." With a small Canadian delegation, Denby toured the Soviet Union in 1973 and arranged to bring back from a research station in Yalta a number of Russian varieties. These included Matsvani and Rkatsetelli which were grown at Inkameep and which Brights turned into interesting varietals in small lots before the winery's accountants decided sales were too small to continue. The Russian varieties now are largely uprooted from Okanagan vineyards.

Elias Phiniotis, who has had a lengthy career as a British Columbia winemaker, was in the cellar at Calona when the first Sovereign Opal grapes arrived. Here is an except on him from the same book. “Phiniotis was born into a winemaking and grapegrowing family on Cyprus. On a scholarship, he earned a master's degree in chemical engineering (specializing in food chemistry) from the University of Technical Sciences in Budapest, following that with a doctorate in the technology of food chemistry from Budapest's Research Institute of Viticulture and Enology. After three years at a Cypriot winery, he came to Canada in 1976 and spent two years as the technical director of Wine-Art, a retail chain of stores dedicated to home winemaking, before becoming the winemaker at Ben Ginter's winery near Westbank. Finding the winery excessively dependent on sweet red and fortified wines, Phiniotis expanded the product line to include several successful whites. At the same time, he helped two new estate wineries -- Chateau Jonn de Trepanier and Vinitera -- to produce their initial vintages of varietals. He moved to Casabello in 1980 and then to Calona in 1981. In the mid-1980s when it became evident that more vinifera would have to be planted in the Okanagan, Phiniotis was an early advocate of cabernet franc, now one of the most promising red varieties being grown in the valley. Since 1989, Phiniotis has been a consulting winemaker for several emerging wineries, including Quails' Gate and Domaine de Chaberton. In 1993 he also established a company called Pannonia Cooperage to import barrels made of Hungarian-grown acacia wood, a less expensive alternative to oak.”

In 1989, Elias Phiniotis generously sent two bottles of Sovereign Opal to Denby, who responded in March with an enthusiastic letter. It came to light recently when Phiniotis provided a copy to my wine writing colleague Bob Bell, who has a website, Wines of Canada. In turn, the letter was shared with me. It says a lot about the attitude toward vinifera grape varieties that formerly persisted at the research station.

“The first bottle was served at a special event held shortly after I received it,” Denby wrote. “It was a luncheon meal, involving more talking than eating, as often is the case. The wine was an absolute sensation, and many thanks for sending the samples to me.” He continued: “I do hope Sov. Opal came through this 88/89 winter. I suspect few of the true viniferas will, but we shall see. Also, I hope some of your specialty wines, including Sov. Opal and Chancellor (of which I have nearly a case reserved for special occasions) will survive this present chaos despite the efforts of the vinifera ‘purists’."

Chancellor was a red French hybrid, one of the better hybrid winemaking grapes. Like most of the hybrids, it was removed during the 1988 vine pull-out – no doubt the chaos referred to by Denby. In fairness to him, his scepticism about vinifera grapes was well founded. There were plenty of hard winters in the Okanagan during the years that Denby was active in Summerland. Production setbacks were not usual just as vineyards were being developed for a young wine industry. For example, the grape harvest in 1965 was a mere 185 tons, down from 2,870 tons the year before. The harvest in 1969 was 1,714 tons, down from 6,162 tons the year before. The harvest was 10,437 tons in 1979, down from 18,404 tons the year before. Whether that was due to severe winters or overcropping, which was routine, growers and scientists alike were deterred from planting vinifera. Hence, the breeding of the Sovereign series of grapes. Who knows what would have happened if that line had been pursued longer?

Vinifera vines have succeeded because the winters generally are not as hard as they once were but, more importantly, growers learned not to overcrop the vines. Overcropping delays ripening of the fruit and leaves vines vulnerable to damage from early frost.