Phantom Creek joins the bubble parade

Photo: Winemaker Mark Beringer (photo courtesy Phantom Creek)

The latest Okanagan winery to release sparkling wines is Phantom Creek Estate Winery, with a pair of premium cuvées from the 2017 vintage. Since the winery, owned by businessman Richter Bai, only began making wine in 2016, it is clear that sparkling wine was part of the strategy almost at the start. This is not a producer that jumped onto the bubble parade just because Prosecco has expanded the market for sparkling wines. Mr. Bai has always aimed at the top end of the market. These two wines compete favourably with Champagne. Here are the winery’s notes on these two wines. I have tasted the wines and agree totally with the descriptors.

2017 Sparkling Brut Reserve Méthode Traditionnelle ($80) 93% Chardonnay 7% Pinot Noir This Chardonnay-dominant Brut Reserve shows delicate, elegant fruit, led by lemon and crisp green apple lifted by orchard blossoms and acacia. There’s added richness and complexity from aging in neutral barriques for 11 months prior to blending, along with toasty brioche notes from an additional 47 months in the méthode traditionnelle. That patience gives this wine its soft, creamy mousse, leading to a precise, richly textured palate that combines an evocative chalky minerality with impeccable purity of fruit. My score: 92.

2017 Sparkling Brut Méthode Traditionnelle ($70) 64% Chardonnay 36% Pinot Noir This poised Brut seamlessly blends the lively finesse of Chardonnay with the depth of Pinot Noir. The nose shows bright and expressive fruit, with ripe lemon and golden apple, along with toasted hazelnut and subtle, harmonious sweet spices. The wine is framed by rich brioche notes, benefiting from extended aging on its lees for 47 months, leading to a fine, persistent mousse. It’s exceptionally balanced in a classic Brut style, with a verve and tension that carries the long, chalky finish. My score: 93.

I was able to taste some of Phantom Creek’s table wine portfolio during a visit to the winery in July. There were no wines that scored less than 92; most scored higher. I awarded 100 points to a 2016 Phantom Creek Cuvée. I was not surprised that the wine showed so well. In December 2016, I was at a luncheon hosted by Mr. Bai. He brought along, from his personal cellar, a leading classified growth red from Bordeaux. Anne Vawter, a Napa consultant who was Phantom Creek’s launch winemaker, brought samples of several reds she that fall in the Okanagan. I preferred her young wines to the prestige wine from Bordeaux.

Consistently high quality wines have been produced vintage after vintage at Phantom Creek, even though there has been rather a lot of turnover of winemakers. Anne Vawter was in charge of the 2016 vintage. Ross Wise MW joined Phantom Creek just as the 2016 reds were being made. He was there until moving to Black Hills Estate Winery early in 2019. He was succeeded by Francis Hutt, a New Zealand winemaker. After Frances returned to New Zealand, he was succeeded in 2021 by Mark Beringer. Added to the bench strength is white winemaker Karin Grosstessner-Hain, who has been with the winery since the inaugural vintage. She is supported by a renowned winemaking team, Philippe Melka (a red wine consultant) and Olivier Humbrecht MW, a white wine specialist from Alsace.

With Mark Beringer, the winery has returned to the California influence in the cellar. He is the great-great-grandson of Jacob Beringer, one of the founders of the Napa Valley’s Beringer Vineyards. After receiving an Enology degree from California State University in Fresno, Mark spent a year in the cellars at Benziger Family Winery in Sonoma before joining Duckhorn Vineyards as an enologist in 1992, where he worked his way up to Vice President of Winemaking. In 2009, Mark joined Artesa as Vice President and Winemaker. In 2015, he returned to Beringer Vineyards as chief winemaker.

How Mr. Bai lured him away from the family winery is not known. But judging for the quotes attributed to Mark, he was clearly persuaded by the Okanagan. “The Okanagan Valley really excites me as it shows so much potential and there is an incredible opportunity to help this region achieve global recognition,” he said in a winery news release in July, 2021. “Phantom Creek Estates has invested significantly in acquiring some of the region’s most acclaimed and historic vineyards, technology, architecture and talent, so I believe that the winery will be the premier property in the region, if not Canada, and that’s a goal I’m inspired to be a part of.” He will find that the competition is stiff. However, he has already found that Mr. Bai has equipped the winery with the tools, including exceptional vineyards, that will enable Mark to make wines ranking well against other Okanagan wines, to say nothing of Napa wines.