Stone'd Wines from Stoneboat

Photo: Stoneboat's Lanny Martiniuk

Two new labels from Oliver’s Stoneboat Vineyards brought to mind a rosé that New Zealand’s Kim Crawford Wines produces.

The wine Pansy! Rosé. The back story is that the wine was initially targeted to the gay community.  

The tale was recounted a few years ago by a wine writer in the Marlborough Express newspaper:     

Pansy! Rose has quite a story behind its creation. It was initially created as a wine for the gay community by Kim and Erica Crawford.

One evening a gay friend with an alter ego, drag show hostess Onya Knees, asked why no-one made wine that specifically targeted gays. A few weeks later Kim rang Erica to say he had come up with "something for the boys" blended from Hawke's Bay merlot, malbec and cabernet franc. A few days later the name "Pansy" came to Erica and a new wine was born.

When the wine was first launched in 2005, the parties were in gay bars with all the glitz, glamour, feathers and theatricals that go with such events.

Initially the wine's marketing targeted the gay community and it embraced the wine.

It was launched in New Zealand and Australia - the Sydney gay wine market was estimated to be worth $4.5 million a month, which is a huge amount of money.

The gay market is seen as being quite brand loyal and spend a lot of money on entertaining, so the wine was a bold and brilliant idea. The early Pansy! Rose vintage had 4 grams of residual sugar so it was bone dry. Kim then decided the sweetness needed to be increased for summer drinking and the following vintage weighed in at 12 grams and tasted rather sweet.

Since those heady early days the wine has settled a little. Emphasis on the gay target market has disappeared (in all but name) and the wine boasts attractive Kim Crawford Reserve labelling.

The amount of residual sugar in the wine has decreased to a more pleasing 7.9 grams and the wine's composition is now 63 per cent merlot and 37 per cent malbec. The re-launch is timely, with rose wines gaining in popularity and quality.

This wine meets its aims perfectly - it's all about easy drinking and summer sipping. Lively and luscious, it really is lots of fun and while it may not be a serious wine drinker's rose, it still managed to nail a gold at the NZ International Wine Show in 2013. Not bad for a wine conceived over a few drinks and a random observation.

That story immediately came to mind when two new wines were released last month by Stoneboat: Stone’d Red and Stone’d White.

Clever Lanny Martiniuk, I thought. He and his family at Stoneboat have come up with the perfect for the stoners of British Columbia, the pot hotbed of Canada.

Then I read the winery’s notes: “Our Stoneboat vineyard has stubbornly rocky terrain. By necessity, we enlist the help of ‘Stoners’ to help clear the rockery. It’s a tough job and by the end of the day one is, well, ‘stone’d’.”

Well, that is Lanny’s story and I suppose he will stick to it. But I think there is a better than even chance these wines will be popular with the owners and patrons of Vancouver’s pot dispensaries. And then, like Pansy!, they will appeal to a wider audience, both on price and quality, even if the weird labels don’t have quite the elegance of Kim Crawford.

Here are my notes on the wines.

Stone’d White 2014 ($19). This tasted a lot like Stoneboat Chorus, one of my favourite blends from the Okanagan. That is no accident: its varietal composition is similar. This wine is a blend of 25% Pinot Blanc, 23% Müller-Thurgau, 22% Schönburger, 20% Kerner, 7% Pinot Gris and 3% Viognier. The wine begins with an appealing aroma of spice and tropical fruits, leading to flavours of melon, apple and Asian pear. There is an herbal touch on the crisp, refreshing finish. 90.

Stone’d Red 2013 ($19). This is 58% Pinotage, 42% Pinot Noir, with 13 months in French and American oak barrels (10% of them new). The aroma is a medley of vanilla and black cherry with a smoky note. On the palate, it delivers flavours of black cherry, plum and strawberry with a note of spice. The texture is big and juicy. This is an eminently quaffable wine. 90.

Ruffino: an anchor name in Chianti

Photo: Ruffino chief winemaker Gabriele Tacconi

Since 1919, the Ruffino winery has had just three head winemakers. Gabriele Tacconi, 48, the current incumbent, has held the post since 1997.

The lesson: count on Ruffino wines to be consistent.

Ruffino was one of the 60 Italian wineries at the recent Vancouver International Wine Festival. In the tasting room, the Ruffino wines included perhaps the most iconic of Chianti brands, the Ruffino Riserva Ducale. The brand was created in 1927; the underlying Chianti has been produced much longer.

And the brand is still thriving. In British Columbia, it is listed in 126 government liquor stores and in numerous private wine stores. At $27, it is still good value.

But it is by no means the same Chianti that it was in 1927. The improvements in viticulture and winemaking in Tuscany (as elsewhere in the wine world) have been huge.

“In the last 20 years, all Italian wineries, especially Tuscan wineries including Ruffino, made big improvements in everything: in the vineyard, being sustainable, working, analyzing, selecting the clones; cleaning up all the rootstocks and varietals from viruses,” Tacconi told me in an interview. “A lot of innovation was applied to everything. That was followed by improvements in the techniques in the cellar.”

If your last bottle of Chianti was a thin wine in straw-covered flask (which Ruffino discontinued in 1975), your next one will taste a lot different.

The Ruffino winery, the first Chianti producer to export to North America, was established in 1877 by cousins Ilario and Leopoldo Ruffino. It has changed hands several times since and today is owned by Constellation Brands, the world’s largest wine group. One has the sense that Constellation generally leaves the Ruffino team to run their own show as long as they produce results. Tacconi’s service record suggests he has been delivering.

Ruffino’s founders established a good track record early, winning gold medals with their Chianti at big fairs in 1881, 1884 and 1885. The medals were fundamental to the development of the Riserva Ducale. As the winery recounts on its website:

Why this name? Ducale means ‘duke’ in Italian. Riserva Ducale honors the Duke of Aosta who braved a journey over the Alps to taste the Ruffino wines that he had heard so much about. He was so impressed by the wine that in 1890 he appointed Ruffino as the official supplier to the Italian royal family. In 1927, Ruffino returned some of the honor bestowed upon its wines by releasing its first vintage of Riserva Ducale—named after the Duke of Aosta as an acknowledgement of his esteemed patronage.

The wine brand endures even if the Italian monarchy is long gone. Victor Emmanuel III, the last king of Italy (and the king who had Mussolini arrested), abdicated in 1946 and died the following year in exile.

Today, Ruffino produces eight to nine million bottles of Chianti each year. The company (there actually are six wineries) has a total annual production of about 20 million bottles including a Pinot Grigio called Lumina, an Orvieto and, most recently a Prosecco.

The anchor remains Chianti. The company’s 500 hectares of vineyard include 180 hectares in the Chianti Classico production zone.

The Ducale Riserva brand was extended in 1947 with the addition of a premium Chianti called Riserva Ducale Oro, listed here at $45 a bottle. Recently, when the Chianti Classico producers decided to identify top tier Chianti wines as Gran Selezione, that designation was also conferred on the Oro. This wine, made only in the best vintages, is more intense in flavour and texture than the Riserva Ducale. The quality supports the price.

Ruffino is the only producer among the Constellation wineries that makes wine with Sangiovese. This variety is the primary red in Tuscany. As difficult to deal with as Pinot Noir, Sangiovese is notorious for “not travelling well.” In other words, not many Sangiovese wines made outside of Tuscany are as successful as those made in Tuscany.

Beppe D’Andrea, Ruffino’s senior global brand ambassador, has an explanation why Sangiovese succeeds primarily in Tuscany. “Sangiovese is like an Italian. Italians at 20 or 30 or 60 years old always love Mama. For Sangiovese, Mama is in Tuscany. Sangiovese gives us the best only in that specific place.”

Winemaker Tacconi is not a Tuscan, however. He was born in Modena, about an hour and a half northeast of Tuscany. When he graduated from university in 1995, he spent three months in France and then a year as a winemaker in Sicily. “As soon as a Tuscan winery advertised a position for a winemaker, I applied,” he says. “It was scary at the beginning. I was young and I was coming into a winery with a lot of stories, a lot of well recognized wines. Normally a winemaker wants to do something immediately, just to change or to create. I did not have to do that. The first speech from the old winemaker said to me was, remember, we have a wine and we have a style; do not jeopardize anything.”

It is not surprising that he describes Ruffino as “very traditional.” The Chianti Classico is never a 100% Sangiovese but always a blend. Typically, there will be about 85% Sangiovese together with a small amount of Colorino and a total of 10% Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Colorino is another of Italy’s native grapes. Its small berries and intensely dark flesh adds colour to Chianti. Other producers use a grape called Canaiolo, a juicier varietal with less intensity.

“What I want to keep in this wine is the aroma and color of Sangiovese, and this kind of fruity, cherry character,” Tacconi says. “I always keep the Classico in traditional big oak casks for one year; and two years for the Gran Selezione; but not new oak. I understand it could be amazing with new French oak, light to medium toast, but it would change the wine completely.”

Ruffino has its own Super Tuscan wine, a blend called Modus, first made in 1997. It is 50% Sangiovese and 25% each of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Modus 2012 is about to be listed in British Columbia for about $35 a bottle.  A few years ago, it was on the Wine Spectator’s list of 100 best wines for the year. Tacconi notes with some satisfaction that many other wines on the list were three or four times more expensive than Modus.

Six wild ferment wines from Bartier Brothers

Photo: Tasting room at Bartier Bros. (credit Lionel Trudel)

The current wine releases from Bartier Brothers Winery comes with an updated media kit about Michael and Don Bartier, the owners, and their philosophy about wine.

“Don’t try to copy Napa, or Bordeaux, or Burgundy; make Okanagan wine,” the brothers advise. “Those places make beautiful wines, but they’re different from what the Okanagan gives, and they don’t have the privilege of working with Okanagan grapes.”

That should put Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in its place!

Actually, one has to admire the brothers for their self-confidence and for the confidence they have in the Okanagan. Their Cerqueira Vineyard south of Oliver does not have Romanée-Conti’s 1,000 years grape-growing heritage but who is to say what is in the future. I am not suggesting that the Bartier Brothers have set the bar that high for themselves, at least not yet.

As for the here and now, one still afford the wines from the Cerqueira Vineyard. It has been a long time since you could say that about Romanée-Conti.

Michael is a well-known figure in Okanagan wine with more than 20 years of experience. I first met him in 1994 at Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards, under awkward circumstances. I had had an appointment to interview the HMV winemaker. When I announced myself at the winery, there was a lot of awkward shuffling until Michael, the assistant winemaker, was produced. As I learned later, the winery owner and the winemaker had parted company abruptly in a falling out still not healed.

But Michael gave an excellent interview – as he has on every occasion since when I have met him. His journey to his own winery (in partnership with brother Don, an accountant) has involved a number of stops along the way. After Hawthorne Mountain, he made wine at Stag’s Hollow Winery, Township 7 Vineyards & Winery, Road 13 Vineyards and Okanagan Crush Pad Winery. As the Bartier Brothers media kit sums it up: “He quickly made a name for himself: first as a maker of white wines, earning two Canadian White Wine of the Year titles within three years, and then as a maker of red wines with several consecutive Lieutenant Governor’s awards for his red wines.”

The first vintage of Bartier Brothers was made in 2009. While the brand was getting established, the brothers were busy tying up ownership of the Cerqueira Vineyard on Black Sage Road. Michael had identified the property some years earlier and bought fruit for his various employers. When the owner retired, he and his brother exercised their option to buy the vineyard. A tasting room was opened last summer at the property’s new address on Ryegrass Road.

All the Bartier wines now are estate grown. The Gewürztraminer comes from a small vineyard at Summerland owned by Don. The rest are from the Cerqueira Vineyard.

The vineyard, planted between 1997 and 2008, is 13.7 acres in size. The varieties grown there are Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay and Semillon.

The media kit describes why Michael believes that the Cerqueira Vineyard is special.

“The site of this vineyard was a cataclysmic flood plain from an event about 10,000 years ago, when a burst glacial dam deposited a lot of glacial debris on the valley bottom very suddenly. This glacial till is highly mineralized, especially with a great deal of calcium. Since the dam burst, rainwater has been percolating through the soil, leaving a limestone precipitate crust on all the stones through its deep profile. Vine roots seek out these stones for the small amount of water to be found on this rough crust surface. It is controversial to say that these vines are ‘feeding’ off these minerals, but that’s exactly what we believe is happening and it shows in the minerality of the wines vintage after vintage.”

I don’t want to push the parallel too far but there obviously is something special also in the soil and terroir of Romanée-Conti (or any other top vineyard).

Here are notes on the current releases. It is worth noting that all the wines have been fermented with wild yeast and the reds are unfined and unfiltered.

Bartier Bros. Semillon 2014 ($20 for 649 cases). This wine has aromas and flavours of lime and lemon. It has bright acidity, giving the wine a crisp and refreshing finish. The spine of minerality that defines the texture clearly reflects the Cerqueira soils. 90.

Bartier Bros. Gewürztraminer 2014 ($19 for 282 cases). The wine is made with fruit from brother Don’s Lone Pine Vineyard at Summerland. The vineyard sits on the flank of extinct Giant’s Head Volcano, benefitting from the volcanic elements in the soil. The wine seems surprisingly delicate (alcohol of 10.6%), with a rose petal aroma. The tropical flavours seemed a little mute, making me wonder if the wine was not just going through a phase. Some wines do that. The wine was more expressive on the second day. 88.

Bartier Bros. Chardonnay 2014($27  for 248 cases). Michael’s wine of the year awards were both earned with Chardonnay, a variety he has some affinity for. A portion of this wine was fermented in two-year-old barrels and a portion was fermented in stainless steel. Thanks to the wild yeast, the fermentation was slow, lasting seven weeks. Both lots were left on the lees before being blended. This wine was also more expressive on the second day, with aromas and flavours of citrus and tropical fruit. I wonder whether this wine is best decanted. 90

Bartier Bros. Cabernet Franc 2013 ($30 for 347 cases). This wine is emerging as one of the Okanagan’s go-to Cab Francs. It is a delicious wine with aromas of cherries and blackberries leading to bright brambleberry flavours and long, elegant tannins. The wine has aged 15 months in neutral French oak. 92.

Bartier Bros. Merlot 2013 ($27 for 451 cases).  This wine begins with aromas of cassis, cranberry and cherry which are echoed in the flavours. The wine has good weight and a firm (not hard) texture. It has a long, spicy finish. The wine benefits from being decanted. 90.

Bartier Bros. Syrah 2013 ($27 for 258 cases). This is certainly a wine that should be decanted. We tasted it over two days, giving its disciplined structure a chance to show an underlying richness. There is pepper in both the aroma and on the finish, along with flavours of plum and chocolate. 90-91.

Majella Wines's Brian Lynn in Vancouver again

Photo: Brian Lynn of Australia's Majella Wines

By his own reckoning, Coonawarra vintner Brian Lynn has visited Vancouver 12 times – including participating eight or nine times in the Vancouver International Wine Festival.

This year, he was one of just three Australian wines at the festival, an astonishingly low number considering that Australia was the winery’s theme region last year.

The Australians participated in good numbers at the 2015 festival, trying to boost sagging sales. Sales of Australian table wine in the 12 months to March 21, 2015, totalled $78 million, down four per cent from the previous year, and dramatically down from $101 million in 2011. Yet just three Australian wineries applied to come to the 2016 festival.

(There is no sales data yet from the last 12 months because the BC Liquor Distribution Branch has not posted a quarterly market report since last March. That is unusual; I have never seen a delay like that before and there is no explanation on the Branch’s web site.)

The head wind encountered by Australian wines in this market likely had something to do with unfavourable exchange rates (a problem now faced by California wines). Since the Australian dollar now has weakened against the US$ in step with the Canadian dollar, the exchange rate disadvantage has disappeared. Producers like Brian Lynn, who are in the market regularly, will be rewarded.

Currently, Majella’s most popular wine – a $20 Cabernet/Shiraz blend called The Musician – is listed in 137 liquor stores in British Columbia. The winery’s $30 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon is listed in 22 stores. These wines also are in private stores. As well, Everything Wine has Majella’s $40 Sparkling Shiraz.

Brian’s latest visit to Vancouver stretched for more than a week. In addition to participating in numerous West Festival events, he also showed his wines to the Australian Wine Appreciation Society (AWAS). And he found time for his first visit to Whistler – not to ski but to touch base with some restaurants. The man is a consummate salesman.

Majella Wines is 25 years old this year. It remains a family winery run by Brian, his brother Anthony, and their families. The succeeding generation is already in the business. The winery is in the Coonawarra, one of the most renowned grape-growing areas in Australia.

“My father bought a block of land in Coonawarra from his great uncle in 1960,” Brian recounted at the AWAS tasting. “Dad was a sheep farmer. In 1960 the Australian wine scene was somewhat different than what it is now. It was small. Coonawarra was 1,000 acres, if that. When we planted a vineyard there, we couldn’t see another vineyard. Now we are in the middle of a sea of vineyards.” (There are about 14,000 acres of vines there today.)

Brian and his brother planted a small block of vines as an adjunct to the farming operation. Over the years six acres grew to 150 acres - but brothers still have 4,000 head of sheep.

Brian began making wine for home consumption. He became accomplished enough at it that a friend suggested he retain a winemaker and produce wine commercially. The first vintage was 1991.

“I had a business plan that we would make wine with half the grapes and sell the other half as grapes,” Brian said. “And then the bottom fell out of the grape market. So then the idea was to make it all into wine, sell half under the Majella label and the other half on the bulk market. Then the bulk market collapsed. So at the moment, everything we grow goes through our winery and gets made into Majella.”

Every one of the 25 vintages has been made from estate grapes and by the same winemaker, Bruce Gregory. He was working at another winery where the early vintages of Majella were made. In 1998, when Majella built its own Coonawarra winery, he joined the company.

Coonawarra is known as great terroir for Cabernet Sauvignon. Brian thinks it is the best in Australia but concedes that Margaret River might make a similar claim. Brian believes that Coonawarra also grows good Shiraz and he backed that up with two wines.

One is the Sparkling Shiraz, “Australia’s gift to the wine world.” The wine is fermented in bottle in the tradition Champagne method. But instead of riddling the bottles, the wine is emptied into a pressure tank, remaining under pressure until a “port” dosage is added and the wine is bottled. In the glass, this is a wonderfully frothy and festive wine, fruity on the palate and reasonably dry on the finish.

“What I like about the Sparkling Shiraz is that we can use it as an aperitif or as a digestive after the meal,” Brian said. “It goes with nearly everything. It goes with charcuterie, it goes with Italian food and with Asian food. It will handle chili. That little bit of sweetness there will balance out the heat of the chili. It is the only red wine that will go with blue cheese, once again because of the sweetness. And it is the only red wine you can put with dark chocolate and strawberries.”

He also brought a 2005 Majella Shiraz to the AWAS tasting. “Coonawarra Shiraz is the next big thing,” he quipped, “but it hasn’t happened yet.” The Majella style is restrained and elegant.

He showed two vintages of Majella Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon: the gloriously evolved 2002 and the delicious 2012 which is drinking well now but has potential to age. The one in B.C. Liquor Stores is (or soon will be) the 2013 at $30 a bottle.

A big part of the Majella portfolio rests on the classic Australian blend of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. When Australians began making Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1960s, they had none of the other Bordeaux varietals to fill the “hole” in the middle of a Cabernet blend. They have them now but have learned that Shiraz blends as well, if not better, that the Bordeaux varietals.

Top of the line at Majella is an $80 wine called Mallea (“green pastures” in an aboriginal dialect), with production of only 500 cases a year. Brian showed a 2000 vintage and a 2009 vintage. To make this wine, the best parcels of grapes each year are fermented in small lots to produce about 80 barrels of wine. After a year, the very best barrels are selected for Mallea. “We generally want nine barrels of Cabernet and eight barrels of Shiraz – which gives us about 55%/45% in the blend. It is the best of the best. The wine is put back into brand new French oak and left there for two years.”

The other Cabernet Shiraz blend at Majella – typically about 60% Cabernet, 40% Shiraz – is The Musician. The wine was created when a sommelier in Singapore asked for a good value Australian red that could be served by the glass.

“It is our version of a Barbie wine, an entry-level wine, a quaffing wine,” Brian says. He is being overly modest. This is a delicious red. Robert Parker Jr. gave 91 points to a recent vintage and I scored it 90.

There is a sad story behind the name. The wine is a tribute to one of Brian’s sons, Matthew, who was a rising guitar talent until, at the age of 20, he was killed by a drunk driver. There is an image of a guitar player on the label.

There is also a story behind the winery’s name. “When my parents went farming just after World War Two, they needed a name for the farm,” Brian said. “My mother, being a very good Catholic lady, had a devotion to an Italian saint named St. Gerard Majella, the patron saint of pregnant women. So she called the farm Majella. When the vineyard was on the property, it was called Majella vineyard. When we came to release a wine, we called it Majella because we could not think of anything else.”  

Arneis and its nearly lost friends

Arneis champion Luca Currado

Arneis, a white grape varietal from Piedmont, is one of rising stars among Italian varietals now also being planted elsewhere.

Arneis wine is being produced not just in Italy but in Australia, New Zealand, California, Oregon and in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley by Moon Curser Vineyards.

In the 1970s, the grape was almost extinct. This is a familiar story in Italy where hundreds of wine grapes are grown. For centuries, most ended up in local blends of red or white wine. Only in the past generation or two has there been a concerted effort to identify and make wines from the best wine grapes. Italy now has become one of the most dynamic and interesting wine country in the world.

This was celebrated at the recent Vancouver International Wine Festival with particular attention given to Italy’s indigenous varietals in three seminars led by Ian D’Agata, the author of an acclaimed 2014 600-page book, Native Wine Grapes of Italy.

“Italian wine is a fascinating subject but unfortunately, it is a very complicated one,” he said. “It is country where the government recognizes 461 grape varieties. They just admitted another 10 to the national registry, so that would be 471. In reality, I think there are at least 548 that are genetically distinct varieties. There are probably a lot more. Various professors estimate that are up to 1,000 wine grapes in Italy.”

This certainly sets Italy apart from other major wine-producing countries.

“Ninety percent of all French wines are made essentially from 15 grape varieties,” Ian said. “Ninety percent of all California wines are made from nine or 10 grape varieties.”

He has made it his mission to explain the native varieties of Italy. He believes it is easier to understand Italian wine by understanding the varietals than by getting to know the regions. In fact, neither approach is easy but it is important to make the effort. Any consumer who likes novelty will find it in the flavours and aromas of the many Italian varietals.

“You are all comfortable when you pick a Merlot because you know more or less what it is going to taste like,” Ian said. “I think the key for Italian wines is to get people to feel as comfortable with Vermentino or Pigato or Nasco.”

He noted that the study of native Italian grapes is comparatively recent. “Most of Italy’s native grapes have become subject to study just in the last 20 years,” he said. “Sangiovese, which is our most planted red grape, really only became a subject of scientific study in the 1960s, and of accurate study in 2000. You can’t say that this or that native vine is not a great grape because it has not been studied. Nobody knows anything about the best rootstocks, the ideal exposure, the best soils. It is all a matter of conjecture with about 95% of Italy’s grapes.  We are only learning about that now.”

Consumers now drinking Arneis, a subtly aromatic dry white with a hint of pear on the palate, owe a debt of gratitude to an Italian wine grower called Alfredo Currado. His son Luca, who runs Vietti, the family winery, related how his father saved the variety.

“In the 1960s, my father and my mother were looking to make a white wine, but they did not want to plant international varietals,” Luca said. “My father remembered there were many antique grape varieties planted in Roero [the region in which the winery is located].”

One of those was Arneis, of which about 4,000 vines remained, scattered among many growers. The challenge was to get grapes for a winemaking trial.

“My mother had an incredible idea,” Luca recalled. “A good friend of hers was the priest in one of the main villages in Roero. She said, ‘Why don’t we ask the priest if we could get the introduction to the farmers to get this grape?’ In Italy, the farmers are very suspicious. If you don’t get a good introduction, they can shoot you in your ass.”

It was months before they got a response from the priest. “Then in 1967, during the harvest time in September, during the Sunday Mass when all the farmers were in Church praying to have the best weather for the harvest, the priest started to talk about wine,” Luca recounted. “This priest was well known for his love of wine. The farmers looked at each other and they said, ‘Oh, he is worse than usual. He is already drunk at 10 o’clock in the morning.’ But the priest spoke of my family and their work in the Barolo region. Then he said, ‘Next Sunday, before you come to the church, you need to harvest the Nebbiolo Bianco [an old synonym for Arneis] and somebody will buy your grapes’.”

The following Sunday, when Alfredo Currado drove his tractor into the village square, there were 35 growers waiting for him. “Some had just one basket of Arneis or two buckets,” Luca said. “We have a picture at home of one farmer dressed to go to church, arriving with his bicycle and one case of Arneis on the front of the bicycle.”

The trial lot of dry white wine proved, after a winter on the lees, to be “fantastic,” Luca said.  “So my father planted his very first vineyard in 1968. Other growers took cuttings from this vineyard and planted more vineyards. The university selected a clone from this vineyard to make the modern clone of Arneis. From that started all of the modern Arneis.”

The story is entirely typical of how Italian varietals have been – and continue to be – rediscovered.

Vespaiolo is an ancient white grown just in the province of Vicenza, near Venice. It seems to have survived because growers banded together at a co-operative in 1950. Perhaps 300 acres are under cultivation.

Ribolla Gialla is another ancient grape grown in this corner of Italy, perhaps with similar acreage. The rising popularity of the variety today likely is due to the decision of one of Tuscany’s great wine families, the Frescobaldis, to invest in Fruili and make white wine.

Pecorino is another white varietal that found a sponsor in the 1980s. Ian D’Agata told the story this time: “In the Marche, a producer, Guido Cocci Grifoni, had heard of this old variety growing high in the mountains. He went to see it, liked what he saw, and decided to replant it in his own vineyards and this was in the late 1970s. That has how the first modern Pecorino wine was born.” There were 200 acres growing in 2000 but experts believe plantings have increased since.

Glera is a widely grown Italian white that was more commonly called Prosecco. It emerged from that shadow in 2009 when Italy decided to elevate Prosecco into a protected wine brand (like Champagne).

Obviously, Italian wines are perfect for those still stuck in the “anything but Chardonnay” rut. Of course, some Chardonnay also grows in Italy. Ian says, somewhat unfairly, that no one “in his right mind” would drink Italian Chardonnay.

  

New winemakers at Osoyoos Larose, See Ya Later Ranch

Photo: Osoyoos Larose winemaker Jean-March Enixon

New winemakers have been announced for both Osoyoos Larose Winery and See Ya Later Ranch.

Mathieu Mercier, the general manager and winemaker at Osoyoos Larose since 2013, has just announced that he and vineyard manager Julie Rapel are returning to Bordeaux at the end of March 2016. Groupe Taillan, which owns Osoyoos Larose, has asked him to manage several of the company’s estates in France and handle other projects.

His successor is Jean-Marc Enixon, another Bordeaux-trained winemaker who sold his small winery last year as part of a decision gain winemaking experience beyond France,

“I will still be involved in Osoyoos Larose project, tasting and making blending decisions from Bordeaux, with all the Groupe Taillan winemakers team,” Mathieu says. “It has been a wonderful ride for Julie and me, where we have spent all our time to continue elevating the quality of this exceptional estate, Osoyoos Larose.”    

Benoit Giroussens, a vineyard manager from Bordeaux, will be replacing Julie (who also returns to Groupe Taillan).

During their three vintages at Osoyoos Larose, Mathieu and Julie initiated trials in barrel-fermenting red varietals, with a view to taking the estate’s wines to the next level of quality.

They also initiated plans to build a tasting room at the vineyard. Currently, Osoyoos Larose still makes its wines in a separate area at the Jackson-Triggs winery near Oliver. There has never been an Osoyoos Larose tasting room there. Construction of the vineyard tasting room is expected to begin this summer.

Jean-Marc Enixon is a native of Bordeaux where, as he says in a biographical note, he was “born in the heart of the wine world,” spending time in the vineyards with his father. Passionate about winemaking and its alchemy, he has a Master’s in Viticulture and Enology from Bordeaux University. He has produced wines in several regions of France as well as in California. In 2004, he took on the responsibility of managing the family estate, Château Puy Guilhem, in the Fronsac appellation.  

Mathieu and Jean-Marc began working together in the 2015 vintage.  “During a wine tasting organized by Groupe Taillan, Jean-Marc was impressed by the quality and the potential of Osoyoos Larose wines,” Mathieu said in his statement. “The richness and the complexity stimulated his curiosity.”

Photo: SYL winemaker Dave Saysomsack (courtesy Constellation Brands)

At SYL, Dave Saysomsack succeeds Dave Carson, now the senior winemaker at Jackson Triggs Okanagan.

Born in Laos and raised in the farming community of Abbotsford, B.C., Dave was a passionate hobby winemaker for more than a decade before he decided to turn professional. He went back to school to complete an honors degree at Brock University in Oenology and Viticulture. 

He has worked in Ontario, California, Washington State, Oregon, New Zealand and now the Okanagan. In British Columbia, his previous winemaking stints have been with Pacific Breeze and Burrowing Owl Estate Winery.

At See Ya Later, he takes over one of the most historic wineries in the Okanagan Falls region. It opened in 1986 as LeComte Estate Winery. It was renamed Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards after being acquired by Sumac Ridge founder Harry McWatters.

The winery is now owned by Constellation Brands who renamed it See Ya Later Ranch, inspired by a story, possibly apocryphal, about Major Hugh Fraser, who owned the property for about 45 years from the end of The Great War. It is said that the Major brought a British war bride with him. After a few months, she found Okanagan Falls so remote that she returned home, leaving a note for the major that read “See Ya Later.”

The more probable explanation is that the major was a prolific letter writer in the habit of signing See Ya Later on his letters.

What is not in doubt is that the major was a great dog fancier and buried a dozen of his pets on the property with headstones. These are now gather in one spot in from of the wine shop. The names of several of the major’s dogs are now on the labels of the wines here, including Ping, Nellie, Belle, Rover, Hunny and Jimmie My Pal.

Upper Bench's Yard Wine and Friends

Photo: Gavin and Shana Miller

Gavin and Shana Miller, the operators of Upper Bench Winery & Creamery, have had the tradition of making a barrel or so of red wine for themselves and to share with family and friends.

They called it called, simply, Yard Wine. This year, for the first time, Upper Bench has released a vintage of Yard Wine to their consumers.

The back label explains the tradition. “Our Yard Wine is a tribute to a wine we lovingly made for years, from the tiny vineyard at our old home in Naramata. A blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon, all picked on 25^th October [2013] and co-fermented – exactly the way we used to make it.”

Even the label looks like it was sketched on the kitchen table with an HB pencil on ordinary buff stock. It could be the label of an amateur winemaker. Gavin is hardly an amateur, but the market will tell him if it is willing to pay $30 for a bottle of wine with such a homely label.

The label did not bother me but it did upset my tasting companion – until the wine was tasted. This is a pretty good wine. Appreciate the label for the whimsy it is.

As I said, Gavin is not an amateur. Here is an except from John Schreiner’s Okanagan Wine Tour Guide:

The winery has undergone a profound transformation since 2011 when Gavin, backed by a silent partner, businessman Wayne Nystrom, acquired what was then known as Stonehill Estate Winery in a bankruptcy court auction of the winery and its three hectare (seven acre) vineyard.

Rebranding the winery, which is within Penticton’s city limits, has enabled Gavin and Shana to make a new beginning with high quality wines and cheeses. “I am really pleased we got this winery,” Gavin says. “I always thought it had good bones, this place. It was never used to its potential.”

 Born in Britain in 1965, Gavin was a sales manager in London when he came to Penticton on vacation in 1995 and met Shana. They lived in London for a year before returning to the Okanagan in 1997. Drawn to wine after a year as a sign maker, Gavin took Okanagan College courses. That launched him on a career that began in the vineyard at Lake Breeze, the cellars at Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards, the tasting room at Sumac Ridge and then winemaking, first at Poplar Grove and then at Painted Rock, where he made award-winning wines before leaving after the 2010 vintage.

Shana, a Nova Scotian, was working in Montreal when, on a whim, she decided to move to the Okanagan. “I was 25 at the time and had a pretty stressful accounting job, which I hated,” she recalls. Travelling with four cats, she needed to stay on a farm. Ian and Gitta Sutherland, who were just planting the vineyard for Poplar Grove Winery, welcomed her. When Poplar Grove subsequently added a cheese plant, Shana acquired the art of cheese making. “Cheese is like wine,” she says. “It is all made the same way.”

Here are notes on the winery’s current releases. I am including the Upper Bench cheese pairing recommendations for each wine, as made by Shana.

Upper Bench Riesling 2014 ($22 for 94 cases). This wine begins with aromas of citrus and pear with a hint of petrol. On the palate, there are flavours of lime and apple. The wine has good weight. The bright acidity is nicely balanced with a touch of residual sugar but the finish is dry. Cheese: Upper Bench French Gold. 89.

Upper Bench Pinot Blanc 2014 ($19 for 128 cases). This is a straight-forward treatment of one of the Okanagan’s most underrated varietals. It has aromas and flavours of apples with a hint of guava on the palate. The acidity is moderate but the wine still is refreshing: Cheese: Gold, Italian Gold, French Gold and Brie. 89.

Upper Bench Chardonnay 2014 ($25 for 235 cases). The wine begins with lovely tropical aromas of citrus and pineapple with a hint of toastiness from the oak. On the palate, there are flavours of grapefruit, apple and guava. This was fermented with wild yeast and that perhaps accounts for the sense of terroir in this complex wine. Given the bright acidity, this wine will age well for a few years. Cheese: Gold. 91.

Upper Bench Merlot 2013 Four Shadows Vineyard ($30 for 320 cases). This is a bold and concentrated wine that should be decanted to let the aromas and flavours develop in the glass. It begins with aromas of black cherry, vanilla and chocolate, going on to flavours of plum, coffee and chocolate. The wine has been aged 18 months in second and third use French oak barrels. Cheese: King Cole. 91.

Upper Bench Pinot Noir 2013 ($28 for 281 cases). Here is the wine for those who don’t care for feminine Pinot Noir. This is a robust wine that has been boldly oaked (16 months in French oak – 30% new). It has aromas of black cherries, prunes and spice, leading to flavours of cherry and raspberry. With breathing, the wine shows a classic velvet texture. Cheeses: Okanagan Sun, Grey Baby and Gold. 90

Upper Bench Yard Wine 2013 ($30 for 292 cases). The wine begins with aromas of cherry, cassis and plum. On the palate, there is a medley of red berry flavours, including blueberry and black currant leading to spice, chocolate and dark coffee on the finish. The long ripe tannins give this an ageable structure but, with decanting, it is drinking well now. Cheese: King Cole. 90.