How Blue Mountain minimized damage during the 2022 winter

Photo: Winemaker Matt Mavety

If memory serves, Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars has released these three white wines a little earlier than in earlier years. Perhaps the winery needed to get product into the hands of consumers and restaurants, restocking a pipeline that was a bit empty after Blue Mountain’s decision not to release any wines from the smoke-affected 2021 vintage. The 2022 whites do not taste hurried. If anything, the fruit comes across as bright and fresh, reflecting the quality of the 2022 vintage.

As has now been widely reported, the nature of that vintage set the wine industry up for so much damage in the 2022-23 winter that this year’s grape crop will be about half of last year’s. The 2022 vintage started with a late and cold spring, setting the vines back about three weeks. The vines began to catch up during a warm July, a prelude to perfect conditions for maturing quality fruit through to the end of October. Some producers took advantage of the fine weather (shirt sleeves at the end of October) to let grapes hang. That proved to be a trap. Vines need a few weeks after harvest to go into dormancy for winter. But it got cold in November and stayed bitterly cold. Substantial plantings were killed by the cold; lucky ones only suffered bud damage.

Blue Mountain’s vineyards came through last winter better than many Okanagan vineyards. “There is bud damage, and I would anticipate 60% of a normal harvest at this point but it is also very difficult to evaluate with the heterogenous nature of the vine growth and fruit,” winemaker Matt Mavety told me recently. “We do not have much vine death. There is some, but very minimal and usually on plants that likely had another stress before the cold.” Judging from the specification sheets for these three wines, I believe that good viticultural practises got Blue Mountain through the 2022 vintage a lot better than most growers.

The reason: the harvests at Blue Mountain were early enough that the vines were into dormancy before it got too cold. The Pinot Gris grapes were picked September 30, October 6 and October 8. The Pinot Blanc was picked October 12. The Sauvignon Blanc grapes were picked October 1 and October 16. “All the fruit was picked by the 20th of October and all the vines showed good signs of hardening off for the winter,” Matt says. Those timely picks in a late vintage are not surprising, considering that Ian Mavety, who runs the vineyard with his son, Matt, has been farming this vineyard since the early 1970s.

“I would like to claim savvy viticulture but we also must accept there is luck at play with the autumn weather,” Matt says. “Crop load, picking dates, irrigation management and general vine health would be some of the factors that we had some control over during the 2022 growing season. For Blue Mountain, our absolute cold temperatures in December of 2022 were not as cold as some vineyards in the South and North parts of the valley.” I accept his modesty. I also recognize that Blue Mountain does not grow late-ripening Bordeaux or Rhone grapes. However, there is no doubt that the Mavety family are intelligent and experienced farmers – and it showed in 2022.

Here are notes on the wines.

Blue Mountain Pinot Gris 2022 ($26). The wine was fermented 38% in stainless steel, 45% in 500-litre French oak barrels and 20% in an oak cask. The oak added complexity and texture without noticeable oak flavours, for this is still a lively, fruit-forward wine. It begins with appealing citrus aromas leading to flavours of citrus, pear and spice. 92.

Blue Mountain Pinot Blanc 2022 ($26). The fruit is from 37-year-old vines (the Pinot Gris vines are a year younger). Fermentation was similar to the Pinot Gris, with a little more neutral oak, and the wine was aged six months on the lees. That gave it a rich texture, complementing the aromas and flavours of apple and stone fruit. 91.

Blue Mountain Sauvignon Blanc 2022 ($26). The fruit is from a high-density vineyard planted 15 and 16 years ago. Fermentation was done with indigenous yeast (as were the other wines) in a combination of stainless steel tanks and large format oak, with five months aging on the lees. Aromas of herbs and grapefruit are echoed on the palate. 91.