Pentâge Winery releases in 2011

 

Photo: Julie Rennie, Paul Gardner



Nine years after Paul Gardner and Julie Rennie opened Pentâge Winery, they finally are close to opening a tasting room as well.

In fact, the city of Penticton had a sign up in July, prematurely, directing visitors to the new access to the winery. The entrance is at 4551 Valleyview Road.

Until now, the winery address was 4400 Lakeside Road. Paul and Julie had considered, briefly, putting the tasting room and wine shop into or near their home, which is below the vineyard. That idea was vetoed, in part because getting there requires driving up a long and steep driveway. The Valleyview Road access is easier.

The tasting room has a better location at the top of the vineyard. The view over the vines and Skaha Lake is dramatic. The tasting room also is next to the remarkable 5,500 square foot cellar that was recently completed at Pentâge. It is a cool man-made cavern dug from the rock, with a thick concrete lid. The huge glass doors at the front, which roll up like aircraft hangar doors, give visitors good views of the barrel stacks inside.

Recently, Adam Pearce, the Pentâge winemaker, led me through a tasting of some of the wines in those barrels. After that, I came away with review samples of the current releases.

 

Winemaker Adam Pearce

Adam was about the bottle several of the wines. There is a 50-case barrel-fermented Rhone blend (57% Viognier, 36% Roussanne and 17% Marsanne), an appealing wine with aromas and flavours of apricots, melons and citrus (90 points).

There is a 50-case barrel-fermented 2009 Chardonnay, with a good core of butter and tangerine flavours and an appealing aroma of citrus and butter. (89).

The barrel sample of the 2009 Cabernet Franc is a lively wine with flavours of blackberry and raspberry and with a little more concentration that the 2008, reviewed below. (89).

The winery has 200 cases of 2009 Syrah Reserve, not yet released. It is a classic meaty, gamey Syrah with the peppery aroma of a delicatessen and with flavours of plum and black cherry. The rich texture adds to its appeal. (90).

Also not yet released in the 2009 Hiatus, a $20 blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. This is an easy-drinking Bordeaux blend with flavours of black currant, with notes of cedar and tobacco. (88).

Other gems in the cellar include a 2010 Malbec, a 2010 Petite Sirah, a barrel-fermented Icewine and 2010 Zinfandel port. There are small quantities of all these wines; and all rate 90 points plus.

If this seems like a long portfolio for a winery now making 5,000 cases, that’s the way Paul Gardner likes it. “I would rather make small lots of interesting wine than big tanks full of wine,” Paul once told me.

Here are notes on the current releases.


Pentâge Chardonnay Reserve 2007 ($20). Here is a wine for lovers of the mainstream California Chardonnay style, with no apologies for giving the wine as much oak as its rich fruit flavours can carry. There is citrus and butterscotch on the nose, followed by flavours of tangerine and butterscotch. The texture has a creamy weight and intensity. 90.

Pentâge Gewürztraminer 2010 ($17.50). This is a textbook example of the dry, rich (almost oily) Alsace-inspired Gewürztraminer. The wine is intense from beginning to end – intense spice and citrus aromas, intense flavours of grapefruit and lychee. The lingering finish could be timed with a stopwatch. 91.

Pentâge Sauvignon Blanc 2010 ($19.50). Crisp and zesty, this wine recalls the New Zealand style (which I happen to prefer). Beginning with grassy, citrus aromas, it has flavours of lime and grapefruit rind. It has a nice spine of minerals and the bright acidity wakes up the taste buds. 89.

Pentâge Skaha White 2009 ($16). Here is a complex but budget-priced six grape blend: 41% Pinot Gris, 30% Chenin Blanc, 12% Viognier, 6% Chardonnay, 6% Riesling, 5% Sémillon. The 2010 blend, already being sold as bag-in-the-box, is significantly different in composition but I did not have a chance for a side-by-side comparison. The 2009 has stone fruits and citrus aromas, with flavours of cantaloupe, citrus and apricot. Its texture gives it good heft on the palate. 88.

Pentâge Viognier 2009 ($19.50). The toasty aromas and flavours of apricots and pineapple, with an undertone of nuts, suggest that the wine may have been barrel-fermented. It is dry and even austere on its own but rich and delicious when paired with food (which is the point, after all). 90.

Pentâge Cabernet Franc 2008 Denmarc Vineyard ($26). This wine begins with aromas of red liquorice, spice and raspberries and has flavours of blackberries, black currants and even a hint of cranberry. It is a medium-bodied wine with a backbone of ripe but firm tannins. 88

Pentâge Gamay Noir 2010 ($19.50). Not many wineries have yet released 2010 reds but this wine is ready. It is a lively red, a Beaujolais with weight. Dark in colour, it has aromas of black cherries and flavours of cherries and plums. 88

New life for Lang, Soaring Eagle and Stonehill

 

Photo: Sunset on the Naramata Bench


The three prime Naramata Bench wineries in the bankrupt Holman Lang group are now open or close to re-opening under strong ownership.

The three are Lang Vineyards, Soaring Eagle Winery and Stonehill Winery.

Only Lang Vineyards continues to operate under that name. One of the original Naramata wineries, it was opened in 1990 by Günther Lang. He sold the winery in 2005 to Keith Holman, remaining in management for some months until he and Holman parted ways.

Günther is now back as a consultant to the general manager and winemaker, Richard Kanazawa, and the new owner, Chinese businessman Yong Wang. His company, Bravo Enterprises, bought the winery for $2.2 million in February in a court-supervised auction.

Under the failing Holman Lang group, the winery had run out of cash to bottle wines and to maintain the property. Wang, said to be the chief executive of a mining company, bought what had become a shell. He was attracted to the property because it is beautifully situated, with views across its vineyard over Okanagan Lake and the valley.

 

Photo: Richard Kanazawa

Once he had acquired the property, Wang decided to return it to wine production. In May, he hired Kanazawa, the former winemaker at Blasted Church Vineyards and gave him the budget to re-equip the winery. He has now opened a remodelled tasting room selling, at bargain prices, wine from recent vintages. A total re-launch with new wines is planned for next spring.

Alone among the seven Holman Lang wineries, Lang emerged from the bankruptcy with its brand relatively undamaged. Lang Farm Reserve Riesling was, for many years, regarded as one of the Okanagan’s best Rieslings. “We will continue to make the Riesling,” Kanazawa says. “It is the one wine that has always been successful, no matter what winemaker has come through here. It has always been a really good seller here.”

Kanazawa also is arranging to purchase grapes since the Lang vineyard is relatively small. Depending on the volume of grapes that he purchases, Lang’s 2011 production could reach 8,000 cases and some of that will be exported to China.

The Soaring Eagle Winery has recently been acquired by Paradise Ranch Wines Corp. and is becoming Paradise Ranch. The Soaring Eagle brand has been retained, at least for now, with the recently re-opened wine shop offering so-called Intermission Series wines.

Those are, for the most part, wines that were made under the auspices of the receiver, in part to use the grapes from the 2010 vintage and in part to preserve the winery asset as a going concern. The wines were made by consultant Michael Bartier with Soaring Eagle’s in-house cellar master, Anthony Buchanan.

With this deal, Paradise Ranch has come full circle. The winery was opened in 1998 by Vancouver lawyer Jim Stewart and Penticton doctor Jeff Harries. It was conceived as an Icewine specialist with grapes from the Harries family Naramata Road vineyard, which was called Paradise Ranch.

In 2003 the family sold the vineyard to Mission Hill. The Icewine business and the Paradise Ranch brand were taken over by Stewart. The winery continued to make and sell Icewines, first using the facilities of other wineries and then, several years ago, setting up in a Kelowna building licensed as commercial winery.

Stewart’s long term strategy was to return Paradise Ranch to Naramata Road after buying a small vineyard there several years ago. The opportunity to buy the 30-acre Soaring Eagle property and brand for $3 million this spring accelerated that plan. It also gave Paradise Ranch a more viable land-based winery license.

 

Photo: Jim Stewart and Peter Wille

Stewart brought in a partner: Peter Wille, a 23-year veteran of wine sales with Mission Hill. Born in Denmark, Peter came to Canada as a young child. He began a career in beverage sales with Coca Cola and then Okanagan Springs Brewery before joining Mission Hill in 1988. His posts there have included director of sales for Canada and, for the past three years, director of exports.

 

Photo: Shana and Gavin Miller

The third winery is the former Stonehill Estate Winery which is re-emerging under the proposed name, Upper Bench Estate Winery. This will be the third name for this winery which opened in 2001 as Benchland Winery.

This winery was acquired for $1.6 million by a retired pulp and paper executive, Wayne Nystrom, who, with his wife, Margareta, already owns a small vineyard and an orchard on the Naramata Bench. His partners are winemaker Gavin Miller and Gavin’s wife, Shana, a former cheese maker at Poplar Grove. Miller is the former winemaker at Painted Rock and, before that, Poplar Grove.

The winery, which is at the outskirts of Penticton, has undergone a substantial renovation this summer to accommodate the different business model planned by Nystom and Miller. Cheese-making facilities have been installed in the rear of the winery, in an area formerly used to distil spirits for wine fortifying. (The two stills and the spirits inventory were purchased by Merridale Cidery on Vancouver Island). Shana would like to begin selling cheese this fall.

Next spring, when the winery reopens fully, it will also have a fruit stand marketing the products of Nystrom’s orchard.

“I am really pleased we got this winery,” Miller says. “I always thought it had good bones, this place. It was never used to its potential.”

Burrowing Owl is a model of consistency

Photo: Bertus Albertyn

Since its first vintage in 1997, Burrowing Owl Winery has had a remarkably consistent house style, most notable in the generous, mouth-filling flavours of its red wines.

Part of that is due to terroir. The sandy vineyard here is one of the hottest in Canada. It is hard to imagine any place better suited to growing big, fleshy wines.

The other explanation for the consistent style is the continuing influence of California winemaker Bill Dyer. Even though he left in 2004, the winery has not abandoned his winning formula, even through three successive winemakers.

“If it is not broken, then do not fix it,” acknowledges Bertus Albertyn, the South African who has been the winemaker there since October, 2009. That is a refreshing absence of ego in a profession that usually is not short on ego.

Bertus, who was born in 1978, has an enology degree from Stellenbosch University and a good wine pedigree. While his father was a bank manager, an uncle is a senior viticulturist at KWV, South Africa’s wine giant, and his grandfather was a grape grower.

When Bertus finished wine school, he worked for a major co-operative and then, in 1994, he became the winemaker at a family winery called Avondale, which is about twice the size of Burrowing Owl.

“While I was working in South Africa, I did one vintage in California, at Geyser Peak winery,” he says. “I did one vintage in France at Domaine des Anges in Provence [where the general manager is a South African]. I did one vintage in Hermitage and another in a small cellar near Venice. Winemaking is about experience. The more wine you make, the easier it is to make the correct decisions.”

He came to the Okanagan early in 2009, having married childhood friend who now has a medical practice in Osoyoos. He spent much of that year working on the vineyard that Donald Triggs is developing. Triggs, the former chief executive of Vincor, is planning a winery in the south Okanagan. But since it is a few years down the road, Bertus joined Burrowing Owl to replace Jeff Del Nin, who was moving to Church & State.

The current releases from Burrowing Owl include wines that Jeff made and Bertus saw into the bottle, as well as wines Bertus made entirely on his own. If there was a hick-up in the winemaking style, I have not come across it yet.

Here are notes on the wines.





Burrowing Owl Pinot Gris 2010 ($20 for a production of 4,200 cases). The winery has made a great name for itself with this varietal and it is easy to see why. This is a lovely wine, with aromas of herbs, citrus and tropical fruit and with flavours of spicy ripe pear. It has good weight on the palate and a long finish. 90










Burrowing Owl Pinot Noir 2009 ($30 for a production of 1,086 cases). Pinot Noir were first grapes that Bertus dealt with when he joined Burrowing Owl just as the vintage was getting under way. The vintage produced ripe grapes full of flavour. This wine is dark in colour, with its 14.5% alcohol the result of the ripeness of the fruit. The wine has aromas of spice and black cherries. On the palate, there is more black cherry and red plum, with spice on the rich finish. This may be muscular compared with most Okanagan Pinot Noirs but it is tasty nonetheless. 89.







Burrowing Owl Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 ($38 for a production of 1,456 cases). This would blow away a lot of California Cabernets. It begins with aromas of spice, cassis, mulberries and vanilla. On the rich palate, there are flavours of plum, fig, liquorice, with a dollop of sweet fruit on the mid-palate. This is a very generous and satisfying wine, without any note of greenness. 91.








Burrowing Owl Meritage 2008 ($45 with a production of 969 cases). This is sold out at the wine shop and not available on line but it might be worth calling up a few high-end private stores. This is an elegant and complex blend: 50% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Franc, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1% each of Malbec and Petit Verdot. The alcohol is 14.9% but there is so much concentrated fruit here that you don’t notice the alcohol. It begins with brambly, spicy aromas of black currants and blackberries, with mineral and tobacco undertones. The flavours include currants, truffles and chocolates. The tannins are long and silky, reflecting both the ripeness of the grapes and the 22 months this wine spent in barrel. It is an impressive blend. 92.

Fort Berens hires winemaker Bill Pierson

 

Photo: Fort Berens vineyard in Lillooet


With the first harvest from its Lillooet vineyard expected this fall, Fort Berens Estate Winery has appointed a staff winemaker.

Bill Pierson, who spent four years making wine with Tom DiBello at CedarCreek Estate Winery, anticipates that the Fort Berens vineyard will produce about 35 tons in its ground-breaking inaugural vintage.

“This is the first commercial production of grapes in this climate,” Bill says. “It is a new region. There will be more vineyards planted and it will develop as an appellation.”

The vineyard was planted in 2009 by Rolf de Bruin and Heleen Pannekoek, two former Dutch bankers who emigrated to start a winery in British Columbia. Unable to find reasonably priced vineyard land in the Okanagan, they decided to take a gamble on the Fraser Canyon, encouraged by the results of recent small-scale grape growing trials in the Lillooet area.

With consulting advice from Richard Cleave, a veteran Black Sage Road vineyard manager, Rolf and Heleen planted 20 acres of vines, a block large enough to prove (or disprove) the commercial viability of a vineyard in this area. Climate data indicates the vineyard gets as many heat units, if not more, than Oliver area vineyards.

“The first harvest is exciting but the real excitement will be the accumulated knowledge that they will gain,” Bill says. “That’s the real story – a new vineyard in a new area. Hopefully, it will bode well for the Fraser Canyon.”

One challenge in the Fraser Canyon is finding vineyard sites that are not excessively shaded by the high mountains on either side of the canyon. The Fort Berens vineyard is on a plateau bathed by sunlight which falls through an enormous cleft in the mountain wall to the south. (The Duffy Lake Road to Pemberton goes through this pass.) Fort Berens has another 20 acres suitable for vines once the initial planting has proven itself.

The varieties currently grown here are Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Riesling.

The winery’s two previous vintages were both made in an Okanagan winery with grapes primarily from Harry McWatters’s vineyard on Black Sage Road. The winery will continue to buy at least some Okanagan grapes in the future, to supplement its own production volumes and its selection of varietals.

“There are certain varietals we don’t have,” Bill says. “We don’t have Cabernet Sauvignon; it is not planted there. And the search is always on for more Cabernet Franc. Rolf’s a big fan of it; and that varietal is on the rise.”

Bill will be make some of his 2011 wines in an Okanagan winery and the rest in a temporary facility at Fort Berens, which expects to begin construction next year on a 4,000-case Lillooet winery. This will be the third time that Bill has been involved in winery construction.




Photo: Bill Pierson

Born in Montreal in 1956, Bill studied political science and geography but started his working career with Montreal Engineering in planning and costing projects. He worked on pulp mills and power plants in Ontario before moving to another engineering firm in Saskatoon. After a 1980s downturn in engineering, Bill who was a serious competitive runner, became a sales representative for Nike, first in Saskatchewan and then in Vancouver.

When he and his wife, Julie, moved to Bowen Island in the late 1980s, he switched to residential construction with an architect and builder.

“I got to 40 and thought, what am I going to do with my life?” he recalls. “Do I continue in building or so I look for something different?” He had been interested in wine since growing up with a wine-loving father. So he decided to take the wine programs offered by Okanagan University College.

He eased out of the construction business, doing his practicum at Nichol Vineyards, then doing a few crushes in the Okanagan until, in 2004, he moved to the Okanagan. Initially, he helped plant the vineyard and build the winery for Township 7. Then he moved to Laughing Stock Vineyards in the summer of 2005, in time to help build that winery.

In 2006 he joined CedarCreek, to work under the mentorship of Tom DiBello, then the senior winemaker there. Bill left CedarCreek in the fall of 2010. Tom is now a member of Harry McWatters’s The Vintage Consulting Group. When Tom was making the Fort Berens wines in 2010, he engaged Bill in the project and that led to the winery employing Bill as its winemaker.

“He is very collaborative,” Bill says. “He gave me a lot of responsibility [at CedarCreek] and I ran with it. I had input in virtually every aspect of what we were doing there. We made some good wine in those four years.”

Mission Hill's current releases: strong as always

 

Photo: Mission Hill winery and bell tower

Mission Hill Family Estate Winery is one of the two largest owners of vineyards in the Okanagan, with properties from Kelowna to Osoyoos.

This gives the winemaking team an enviable flavour palate to work with, with quality grapes that support a large and generally excellent portfolio.

The wines are released in four tiers, beginning with the entry level tier, which is called Five Vineyards. Affordably priced, these wines are widely available in government and private wine stores.

The Reserve tier wines are in much more limited distribution, but of sufficient volume that you might even find some in overseas markets.

A further step up, the Select Lot Collection wines are produced in small volume and are available primarily at the winery and in top end restaurants.

Current releases from these three tiers are reviewed here. The winery also has a fourth tier of ultra premium wines, called Legacy. At the very top of its wine pyramid is the flagship Bordeaux blend, Oculus. These wines have a different release cycle, spending more time in barrel and in bottle.

Here are the notes on the current wines.



Mission Hill Five Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc 2010 ($13.99). This wine has been one of the top-selling Okanagan Sauvignon Blancs for several years, and not just because of the appealing price. This is a crisp and refreshing white, with aromas and flavours of herbs and lime. 87



Mission Hill Five Vineyards Rosé 2010 ($14.99). The winery notes don’t say it but this wine likely is the result of bleeding juice from the three varieties in the blend (a classic French technique). The wine is 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 10% Shiraz. It is a light, juicy rosé with aromas of cherries and raspberries and flavours of watermelon and wild strawberries. It is finished with just enough residual sugar (eight grams) to ensure it will be a crowd pleaser. 87.

Mission Hill Five Vineyards Cabernet Merlot 2008 ($16.99) A good red from the winery’s entry-level range, this wine has soft ripe tannins, appealing brambly berry flavours, with an underlying hint of mint. The winery put a lot of work into this wine. The blend is 47% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Franc, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. The wine spent 13 ½ months in American and French oak. 87.

Mission Hill Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2006 $N.A.) Here is an elegant and cerebral wine that reveals itself slowly with time in the decanter. It starts with mint and berry aromas, continuing to flavours of currants, plums, chocolate and tobacco, with a spicy note on the finish. This is no longer in the market. The point of reviewing it now is that, if you are lucky, you have some in the cellar. The current vintage is 2009 and if you give it five years as well, you will be well rewarded. 90.



Mission Hill Pinot Gris Reserve 2009 ($18.99). About seven per cent of the wine was fermented in French oak, giving a biscuity note to the pear and citrus aromas and adding flesh to the texture. On the palate, there are flavours of pear and apple. Almost dry on the finish, this wine is elegantly balanced. 90.





Mission Hill Pinot Noir Reserve 2009 ($24.99). In his 2004 book, North American Pinot Noir, author John Winthrop Haeger wrote that Mission Hill’s management “is at the point of trying to decide ‘whether to get really serious’ about pinot.” Too bad he is not around these days to taste the winery’s Pinot Noir. This wine, well priced for a Pinot, begins with a fine dark colour. It has aromas of cherries and raspberries, leading to flavours of cherry, red plum, spice and vanilla. It has a light backbone of tannin that, with decanting, begins to show the rich and silky texture of this varietal. 89.




Mission Hill Viognier Reserve 2009 ($18). This unoaked white – Mission Hill’s second vintage of Viognier – begins with aromas of herbs, citrus and apricot. It tastes of apricots and peaches, finishing dry but with an impression of honey that shows off the complexity of well-made Viognier. 90.




Mission Hill Select Lot Collection Merlot 2006 ($30) Kudos to Mission Hill for holding a red back almost five years before releasing it. Even at five years, the structure still was firm enough to hold the wine at its peak for another five years. Dark in colour and concentrated in texture, the wine begins with powerful black currant aromas, leading on to flavours of cassis and figs. The flavours are layered; as the wine sat in the glass over time, it revealed more and more layers. 92.




Mission Hill Select Lot Collection Sauvignon Blanc Sémillon 2008 ($21.99). This wine, which is 79% Sauvignon Blanc and 21% Sémillon, involved exceeding complex winemaking and should probably sell for more. A portion of the wine was fermented in and aged sur lies in new French oak. The result is a rather cerebral wine, with aromas of oak, butter and citrus, with buttery tangerine and pineapple flavours and a rich texture. This is a wine I might pair with a good Cuban cigar. 88-90.

Class of 2011: Heaven's Gate Estate Winery

Photo: Andy and Diane Sarglepp

Summerland’s newest winery, Heaven’s Gate Estate Winery, had its grand opening last week and that is good news for rosé lovers.

Most of the other 10 members of the Bottleneck Drive Wine Route (the name for their promotional association) are running low on rosé. Heaven’s Gate still has some, but only because it took the winery a few extra months to jump through all the regulatory hoops before opening.

In addition to the rosé, Heaven’s Gate opened with four other wines, all from the 2010 vintage. Available in the tasting room is a Merlot, a Gewürztraminer, a Sauvignon Blanc/Sémillon blend and Pinot Gris.

I tasted the whites and the rosé from the tank this spring. The Gewürztraminer is a juicy, off-dry crowd pleaser. The Sauvignon Blanc/Sémillon had a honeyed not to the flavours. The rosé was dry and tasted of cherries; I am told that finished wine is not quite as dry.

I was particularly impressed with the Pinot Gris with its intense aromas and flavours of lime and grapefruit. The wine is a 90 pointer in my book.




Photo: Wine shop mural

The proprietors of Heaven’s Gate are Andy and Diane Sarglepp. Until 2008 they grew peaches, operating as Triple A Orchards. If peaches have a cult following, Triple A had such a reputation.

“I had customers from day one, right to the end, when I quit after 20 years,” Andy says. “They would only buy from me because I had almost unsurpassed quality. I would grade harder and get rid of any flaws among the peaches. If you reached into one of my bins, you did not have to look at the fruit - it would be perfect.”

Andy was born in Haney in 1965 and in adulthood began working in logging and sawmilling. His Estonian-born parents – his father had become a successful construction contractor in Canada after arriving impoverished after the war – bought this Summerland property about 25 years ago. Andy was asked to help develop the peach orchard. He fell in love with the Okanagan and stayed.

He may have been good at growing peaches but somewhere along the way, the business lost its appeal. The orchard was “all peaches, of different varieties, so I was picking from the middle of July to the middle of September,” he remembers. “I was busy picking peaches for two months straight.”

He says he stopped eating peaches about 15 years ago. Diane says that peaches are not allowed in the house.

In 2008, they decided to replace the orchard with 5 ½ acres of grapes for a winery. “I wonder if the same thing will happen with wine,” Andy says, asking rhetorically: “Will I dislike wine as much?”

The building formerly used as cool storage for peaches turned out to be well-suited for making and storing wines.



For the wine shop, Andy and Diane have completed very elegant renovations to a log building that once served as summer accommodation for visiting friends and relatives. The tasting counter is Brazilian granite. A large mural and antique farming and logging tools decorate the interior walls.

The patio in front includes a fountain and is bordered by rock work, some of it – along with the baronial pillars at the front gate - done by Andy’s late father. The view from the patio is a panorama of vines in the foreground and Okanagan Lake in the distance.

“We want to keep our patio uncramped,” Andy says. “I have a big bird feeder there and I will sit here sometimes and just watch the little guys.” And they hope that visitors will take time for the same pleasure, with a glass of wine in hand.

The grapes in the vineyard include two acres of Gewürztraminer, a variety very much at home in the Summerland terroir. Andy has also planted Merlot, Gamay and Sémillon; a planting of Sauvignon Blanc did not survive an early winter freeze. The vineyard’s first crop will be harvested this fall.

To get started, Andy purchased grapes last year. With the help of consultant Christine Leroux, he made 13,000 litres (about 1,450 cases) in 2010, about two-thirds of it white. The volume of red is likely to be increased in subsequent vintages.

“This being first year, I did not want to max out my capacity of my cellar,” Andy says. “I wanted to go half throttle, learn my system, figure out the bugs if any. Next year, it will be game on, full steam ahead.”

Heaven’s Gate Estate Winery
8001 Happy Valley Road
Summerland BC
T 250.809.7099

B.C. closes in on 10,000 acres of vines

Vineyard acreage in British Columbia continues to rise, although the rate of growth has slowed significantly.

This emerges from the most recent vineyard census, just released by consultants Lynn and John Bremmer, who operate Mount Kobau Wine Services in Oliver. The census is done with the backing of the B.C. Wine Institute and the B.C. Grape Growers.

The 2011 census is the fifth since 1999. That census counted 1,693 hectares (4,184 acres of wine grapes). The 2011 census tallied 3,964 hectares (9,866.52 acres) in 2011.That compared with 3,626 hectares (9,066.32 acres) in 2008; and 2,653 hectares (6,632 acres) in grapes in 2006.

They also surveyed planting intentions and projected that another 376.37 hectares (930 acres) could be planted in 2012 and 2013.

The area under vines in British Columbia has experienced eight-fold growth in the past two decades, although the rate of increase is now slowing, largely due to a shortage of suitable sites.

British Columbia’s vineyard area is still small compared with other regions. Ontario has about 6,070.5 hectares (15,000 acres) of vineyard; Washington State has 16,166 hectares (40,000 acres) and California has 261,514.5 hectares (535,000 acres).

These are the regions the grapes grow.

Region Hectares Acres
Oliver 1,433.92 3,543.18
Osoyoos 610.94 1,509.62
Kelowna/West Kelowna 377.07 904.46
Penticton/Naramata 363.31 897.74
Similkameen Valley 279.82 691.44
Okanagan Falls 218.05 538.81
Vancouver Island 174.77 431.87
Peachland/Summerland 143.53 354.67
Fraser Valley/Lower Mainland 106.62 263.45
Lake Country/Vernon 74.49 196.43
Gulf Islands 46.80 115.64
Kaleden 46.65 115.29
Spallumcheen/Shuswap 39.25 97
Kamloops 26.81 66.25
Lillooet/Lytton 21.93 54.20
Kootenays 27.84 68.82
Other B.C. regions 7.13 17.65

These are the mostly widely planted red varieties. Just over 52% of all the grapes are red.

Variety Hectares/acres % of reds % of total grapes



Merlot 647.88/ 1,600.90 31.15 % 16.23 %
Pinot Noir 383.94/ 948.71 18.46 % 9.62 %
Cabernet Sauvignon 305.61/ 755.17 14.69 % 7.65 %
Syrah (Shiraz) 221.16/546.50 10.63 % 5.54 %
Cabernet Franc 209.41/ 517.45 10.07 % 5.24 %
Gamay Noir 66.21/ 153.73 2.99 % 1.56 %
Maréchal Foch 55.56/137.30 2.67 % 1.39 %
Blattner Reds 39.37/97.29 1.89% 0.99%
Malbec 38.83/95.96 1.87% 0.97%
Petit Verdot 26.54/65.58 1.28 % 0.67 %

These are the most widely planted whites.

White variety Hectares/acres % of Whites % of total grapes

Pinot Gris 431.27/1,065.67 22.54% 10.80%
Chardonnay 370.98/916.68 699.88 19.39 % 9.29 %
Gewürztraminer 285.97/706.64 14.95 % 7.16 %
Riesling 177.77/439.27 9.29% 4.45%
Sauvignon Blanc 158.92/392.70 8.32% 3.98%
Pinot Blanc 107.61/ 265.92 5.63 % 2.70 %
Viognier 82.56/204.01 4.32% 2.07%
Ortega 28.69/70.90 1.50% 0.72%
Ehrenfelser 28.54/ 70.52 1.49 % 0.71 %
Blattner Whites 25.36/62.66 1.33% 0.64%


Within the white varieties, Viognier plantings have increased 24% in the past three years, followed by a 19.6% increase in Riesling plantings and a 14.8% increase in Pinot Gris plantings.

Decline acreage is reported for Sauvignon Blanc, due to winter kill. And sadly, that reliable workhorse, Pinot Blanc, has suffered a 28% acreage drop, likely because consumers consider it a bland variety.

Among the reds, Cabernet Franc plantings rose 32.3%, followed by Pinot Noir (up 19.6%), Maréchal Foch (up 12.9%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (up 10.9%).