Church & State recruits second Burrowing Owl winemaker

Photo: Winemaker Jeff Del Nin

Some of the rising stars among British Columbia wineries have been changing places this summer.

One fascinating appointment by Church & States Wines has that winery plucking talent for the second time from Burrowing Owl Estate Winery.

In 2005 Church & State proprietor Kim Pullen brought Californian Bill Dyer back to the Okanagan as his consulting winemaker. Bill had been Burrowing Owl’s winemaker from that winery’s launch in 1997 until 2004.

Now Jeff Del Nin, the winemaker at Burrowing Owl since the 2006 vintage, becomes Church & State’s new winemaker in September. With Dyer continuing as the consultant, Pullen has assembled one of the strongest winemaking teams in British Columbia.

This season’s winemaker musical chairs was started in May when Kenji Hodgson left JoieFarm to take a winemaking sabbatical in France.

JoieFarm recruited Robert Thielicke whom had been part of Mt. Boucherie’s winemaking team with former banker Dave Fredericks. In 2008 Robert, who had been an assistant winemaker at Mt. Boucherie for five years, took over the senior winemaker slot when Graham Pierce took the winemaker/general manager post at Black Hills.

Dave Fredericks’s new partner at Mt. Boucherie is Jim Faulkner, who moved there in July from Church & State’s winery in the Saanich Peninsula.

Now, Jeff Del Nin is taking over Faulkner’s job, but not in the Saanich winery. Church & State is moving most of its wine production to a leased building south of Oliver, near to Church & State’s vineyards.

Fortunately for Burrowing Owl, Jeff has recently hired an assistant winemaker for that cellar, Scott Stefishen. A Canadian with training and experience in Australia’s Margaret River, he worked earlier this year as an assistant winemaker at Road 13 Vineyards.

Burrowing Owl is a hallowed wine brand in British Columbia but Church & State is coming on strongly. Earlier this week, Church & State accepted a Lieutenant Governor’s award for excellence for its 2006 Coyote Bowl Vineyard Syrah. This is the latest in a growing list of awards, including a double gold at the All-Canadian Wine Competition for Quintessential, the winery’s flagship red blend.

“I basically saw an opportunity with Church & State,” Jeff explains. “Kim has an absolute commitment to making the best wines in the valley, and having the best vineyards, therefore, in the valley. When you have a guy who is absolutely committed to being the best, that’s who you want to be with.”

Church & State currently produces about 12,000 cases a year, roughly a third of Burrowing Owl’s production. However, the winery owns or controls about 120 acres of vineyards, not all in full production yet.

“He’s a keen guy,” Kim says of his new winemaker. One of the details that appealed to Kim, a tax lawyer with a strong scientific bent, is Jeff’s background in chemistry.

Born in Thunder Bay in 1971, Jeff has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Lakehead University and a master’s in chemistry from Queens, where he specialized in plastics and polymer research.

After graduation, he went to Australia on a vacation, married an Australian and found work there. “I worked as an engineer and research scientist for a number of plastics companies, developing plastic products,” he says. “At the same time, I was developing my love of Australia wines. Pretty much every weekend, I was off to a different wine region.”

At one job, he spent two years developing synthetic closures for wine bottles. Here, he observed winemakers from close at hand and the penny dropped: “I started to think maybe I could do this for a living.” After dipping his toe in a course for amateur winemakers, he enrolled in the wine school at the University of Adelaide and did hands-on winemaking at Barossa Valley Wine Estate.

On graduation, Jeff decided to get experience in wine regions elsewhere. He got a job in 2006 with a Long Island winery in New York state but realized after a month that it was ill-suited for making the Australian style-wines that he had come to like.

As it happened, he had done his first-ever Okanagan winery tour on the way to Long Island and had been particularly impressed with Burrowing Owl. So he telephoned the Okanagan winery. By lucky coincidence, Burrowing Owl was looking for someone with his experience to help with the huge 2006 vintage.

Jeff should be able to apply some of his Australian artistry to Church & State in the current vintage.

He says that “2009 is for me on track to be one of the best years ever for big reds. I have been looking at my accumulated heat units, and we are on track for one of the warmest years ever … warmer that 2003 and warmer than 2006, if this momentum keeps up.”

Alberta regulators throttle BC wineries

Photo: Tinhorn Creek,one of the fine Okanagan wineries with Alberta owners




A potentially devastating blow has been dealt to British Columbia wineries by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC), the importer of wine into that province.

It appears that nearly every winery in British Columbia received a chilling letter, dated July 15, from Gerry McLennan, the chief executive of the AGLC. A similar letter was sent to courier companies.

This is the complete text of the letter to wineries:


Dear Sir or Madam:

Re: Illegal Shipping of Liquor into Alberta

We have recently received a number of complaints regarding one or more British Columbia manufacturers who have been shipping liquor (wine) to Alberta directly to customers in contravention of the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act and the Gaming and Liquor Act and Regulation (Alberta).

All liquor imported into Alberta must be consigned and shipped to the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission. Deliveries of liquor from outside of Alberta directly to any other address are in contravention of the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act and could result in criminal prosecution.

Please govern yourself accordingly.

End of direct quote.

This is the sequel to what happened a year ago when both the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and the Manitoba Liquor Commission sent similar letters to a number of British Columbia wineries, warning them not to continue shipping directly to consumers outside this province. British Columbia liquor regulators supported those moves.

The effect of those moves was to curtail the growing, and significant, volume of sales outside the province through winery web sites.

The AGLC letter delivers the coup de grace to internet selling beyond British Columbia borders. It is a puzzle who would complain: possibly, private wine stores in Alberta who might see direct shipping as competition. More likely, the complainers are other liquor boards.

This is also a blow to wine tourism. Easily a third of the visitors to Okanagan wineries come from Alberta. When they find wines they like, they fill up their vehicles with cases of wine before heading home. Having established relationships with various wineries, they are likely to re-order and then to re-visit.

Technically, it is illegal for private individuals to transport liquor across provincial borders as well. That is rarely enforced but nothing stops the AGLC from asking the police to mount sporadic road blocks. Liquor boards have done that.

This action would have to be especially bad news for those wineries that are owned, in whole or in part, by Albertans. These include Therapy Vineyards, Hillside Estate Winery, Lake Breeze Vineyards, Noble Ridge Vineyard & Winery, Tinhorn Creek, Ex Nihilo Vineyards, Golden Beaver Winery, among others. When their owners, shareholders and friends now order a case or two of wine, they will have to govern themselves “accordingly.”

In fact, this action likely will prove a disincentive to Albertans buying wineries in British Columbia. And there are a number of producers here currently trying to sell.

After the issue of cross-border shipments arose last summer, the Canadian Vintners Association, along with the British Columbia Wine Institute and the Wine Council of Ontario tried to craft a resolution that would preserve internet business.

They made a proposal to the Canadian Association of Liquor Jurisdictions (in effect, the provincial liquor boards). They suggested adopting the policy now in place in the Yukon where consumers fill out the necessary paperwork at a local liquor store, remit the Yukon tax and then have the wine shipped.

The CALJ rejected the proposal, sending the wine industry back to the drawing board. Clearly, the provincial liquor boards all are jealously guarding the stream of taxes they get from wineries. The CALJ’s tepid counter proposal was that liquor boards would seek to streamline the constipated way in which they now handle orders from private citizens.

This is all about tax collection. Direct shipments, for example, to Alberta consumers mean that the AGLC does not collect its minimal mark-up on those wines. Alberta, as we all know, needs more money.

The galling irony of the Alberta action is that it seems to fly in the face of the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, a “freer trade” deal that was concluded in 2006 between Alberta and British Columbia. Unfortunately, the negotiators excluded liquor from its terms.

Perhaps the industry needs to get this before the courts and test whether the federal act, which was passed in 1928, is really valid. It would seem at odds with the Constitution Act of 1867 which says that “All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other provinces.”

For discussion from a lawyer's perspective, I refer you to this excellent web site: www.winelaw.ca.

Meyer Family: master of Chardonnay

Meyer Family Vineyards, which has just released its two Chardonnays from the 2007 vintage, has begun to establish a track record for producing elegant and sophisticated examples of this varietal.

The winery, which began direct sales last year, is the brainchild of John "JAK" Meyer, an Okanagan developer turned wine lover. He is pictured above with his sisters, Laura and Terry, and (on his left) Chris Carson, his New Zealand-trained winemaker.



Chris joined Meyer before the 2008 vintage. The 2007 Chardonnays, reviewed here, were made by Road 13 winemaker Michael Bartier. Chris has worked with wineries in New Zealand, France and California that specialize in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In the 2008 vintage, Chris made both varieties for Meyer and, as a recent barrel-tasting showed me, did both very well.

Both of the 2007 Chardonnays are from the same 3.1 acre vineyard on the Naramata Bench that JAK bought in 2006 after a two-year search for just the right property. It is his intention to have a showpiece boutique winery built here eventually. That idea was shelved temporarily late last year when JAK bought a second vineyard (14 acres) just east of Okanagan Falls. Meyer is preparing to open a tasting room here this fall.

The Okanagan Falls vineyard, which has several more plantable acres,grows a mix of varieties. It is likely to be restructured, at least in part, to focus on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Chardonnay is JAK's passion and Pinot Noir is his winemaker's passion.

JAK decided to create a winery in 2003. Recognizing that his only experience was as a consumer, he sought the guidance of Vancouver wine educator James Cluer MW. A fundamental decision was to base the winery on a vineyard that JAK would own, not on purchased fruit. The Naramata vineyard's Chardonnay vines are now more than 10 years old. There also are mature vines in the Okanagan Falls vineyard.

With two vineyards and a skilled winemaker, JAK's original dream of a tiny boutique is now being reshaped into a 3,000 to 5,000 case producer.

"We may not make any money at this," he laughs, "but it sure is fun."

In each of the 2006 and 2007 vintages, the winery has produced two Chardonnay wines.

Meyer Family Vineyards Micro Cuvée Chardonnay 2007 ($65)- of which only 141 cases have been released - resulted from tasting and selecting the six best barrels of Chardonnay in the cellar that vintage. This wine is the match of a fine Burgundy, with intense flavours of citrus framed by toasty oak. The wine is finished with commendably bright acidity, giving it a crisp, fresh finish as well as the ability to age. The winery says three to five years. 92

Meyer Family Vineyards Tribute Series Chardonnay 2007 ($30)represents the remaining 399 cases of this vintage. It shares the flavours, aromas and crispness of its big brother, with a texture that seems a bit leaner. Again, the acidity, which is not at all overdone, lifts the fresh fruit flavours and gives the wine ability to develop in the bottle. 90

The wines in the Tribute Series pay tribute to various British Columbia artists. The 2006 vintage was dedicated to Emily Carr. This vintage is dedicated to Bill Reid "for his extraordinary contribution in restoring much of the dynamic power, magic and possibility to Haida art." The winery is donating $5,000 to the Bill Reid Foundation.

Until the wine shop opens, the wines are being sold (in cases of six) through the web site, www.mfvwines.com.

Cassini Cellars - newest winery on the Golden Mile

The Cassini Cellars winery, which had its grand opening earlier this summer, is a good example of how the wine industry is changing the Okanagan landscape.

A couple of years ago, this was the site of one of British Columbia's several lavender farms. In late 2006 Adrian Capeneata (above)bought the highway-side property, sold most of the lavender plants and replaced them with vines. While the vines were getting settled in, Adrian supervised the construction of his grandly conceived winery.

The wine shop is especially grand: the primary tasting bar is 10 metres long, enough to host 25 visitors at once. There is a smaller bar at the other end of the room if there is an overflow, as is certain to happen from time to time. This high-profile winery, with its convenient parking lot, is irresistible to bus tours.



Born in Romania in 1960, Adrian is one of those larger than life individuals that winery visitors find engaging.After managing a restaurent in his native land, Adrian came to Canada in 1990, shortly after the collapse of the Communist government in Romania. He started his career here in Montreal, learning French and English, working in restaurants and repairing and re-selling used cars.

He admits to being a serial entrepreneur. Coming to Vancouver in 1993, he began selling fitness club equipment and then set up his own company to build and service such equipment.

His interest in the Okanagan began with a vacation there. Soon, he was fixing up and reselling houses in Osoyoos (his wife is a realtor).

His interest in wine has two roots. His family in Romania had a vineyard, selling grapes to a cooperative. However, his appreciation for wine developed in the years when he worked in restaurants.

In 2006, he decided to develop a winery of his own, buying the lavender farm because of the strategic location and the property's potential as a vineyard.

Having also had a construction business, Adrian took more than a supervisory role in building the winery. By his estimate, he has invested $400,000 of his own "sweat equity" in the construction.

Originally, he wanted to called it Crazy Horse Winery. The potential for confusion with Inniskillin's Dark Horse Vineyard resulted in the current name, Cassini Cellars. Cassini is the surname of Adrian's Italian grandfather.

Winemaking here is done by consulting winemaker Philip Soo (whose other clients include Noble Ridge and Dirty Laundry). Working with purchased grapes in the 2007 and 2008 vintages, he crafted a solid range for Cassini's debut season.

Here are notes on the wines. The white wines are $18 a bottle while the reds are priced in the mid-20s.

Cassini Cellars Maximus 2007 Here is the winery's flagship red blend, made with 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot and 4% Malbec. Dark in colour, this is a full-bodied wine with cassis and chocolate aromas, ripe plummy flavours with notes of minerals and tobacco. The ripe tannins account for the rich texture. The wine has a long, satisfying finish. 90

Cassini Cellars Syrah 2007 This is an excellent, full-bodied Syrah, with aromas and flavours of deli meats, black cherries and pepper (there is a hint of white pepper in the aroma). 88

Cassini Cellars Merlot 2007 Dark in colour, this Merlot has good concentration. There is a hint of cassis on the aroma, with flavours of red berries, chocolate and liquorice. 87

Cassini Cellars Pinot Noir Reserve Plump and ripe, this wine has ripe strawberry flavours that are, at this stage, a little overpowered by the oak flavours. Another year in bottle will benefit the wine. 86

Cassini Cellars Gewurztraminer 2008 A very attractive example of this varietal. The spicy aroma jumps from the glass. On the palate, there is luscious sweet tropical fruit, The finish is rich, in the style of Alsace. 88

Cassini Cellars Chardonnay 2007 This is a fruit forward Chardonnay with subtle oak. Time in bottle has allowed the citrus flavours and fleshy texture to develop.88

Cassini Cellars Mama Mia Pinot Grigio 2007 This wine's whimsical name signals that it is a delicious summer sipper with a touch of residual sweetness. 87

Cassini Cellars Pinot Gris 2008 Light and refreshing, with flavours of pear and citrus, this is the winery's drier take on Pinot Gris. 87

Cassini Cellars Viognier 2008 A lovely unoaked wine, beginning with aromas of citrus and pineapples. The palate delivers those flavours in abundance. The hint of tannin in the finish, giving the wine a nice structure, is due to the fact that Viognier has more tannin in its skins than most white varieties. 88

SouthEnd Farm Winery opens on Quadra Island

The most northerly of the Gulf Islands with vineyards, Quadra Island, once again has a winery: SouthEnd Farm Vineyards opened this month.

Owners Jill Ogasawara and Ben McGuffie take pride is being the youngest couple currently with a winery in British Columbia. He was born in 1977, she in 1976. On the winery website, they joke that they are starting their retirement project 30 years early.

In a business filled with second careerists, it is rare to find two young people launching a winery. In the entire history of British Columbia wineries, only Walter and Gordon Gehringer were younger (barely) when they opened Gehringer Brothers in 1986.

SouthEnd Farm is the only winery on Quadra (the large island just off the coast from Campbell River) but not the first. Marshwood Estate Winery opened on Quadra in 2004 and closed two years later when the owners sold the business. The Marshwood vineyard, now called Nevermore Farm, still produces grapes, some of which have ended up in SouthEnd wines.

Ben McGuffie grew up on Quadra. His great uncle managed the island’s roads and is believed to have homesteaded the 12.5-acre farm that is now home to the winery and a small vineyard. Ben is an engineering graduate from the University of British Columbia. In recent years, he has been an engineer and manager at Catalyst’s pulp mill in Campbell River (a 10-minute ferry ride from Quadra).

Jill grew up in a logging community near Campbell River and met Ben in high school. She has a forestry degree and has qualified (but not practised) in landscape architecture.

They became interested in wine over a bottle of domestic plonk called Rotting Grape. Soon they were visiting Okanagan wineries and dreaming of their own. After buying the family farm from his parents in 2004, Ben and Jill began developing a vineyard, planting four acres of primarily Maréchal Foch, Petit Millot and Siegerrebe, with a little Leon Millot and Bacchus. Next year, they intend to add some Cabernet Foch (one of the disease resistant Swiss-developed red varieties already grown by several Vancouver Island producers).

They have also provided a market for the grapes from Nevermore and from another vineyard on Quadra.

SouthEnd Farm (guess which end of Quadra the winery is?) intends to be an estate producer only, with no imported grapes from the Okanagan.

While some winery couples divide the duties – for example, at Garry Oaks on Salt Spring Island, Marcel Mercier tends the vineyard while Elaine Kozak makes the wines – Ben and Jill share all duties, from vineyard to winery. Or almost all the duties: on their wine labels they acknowledge the help of the “Nevermore crew and our parents.”

Two of the debut wines – a white and a rosé - were sent to me from Quadra. I can report it is an impressive start.

SouthEnd Farm Ortega 2008 ($18.40) is crisp and refreshing, with clean citrus flavours and the impression of having a slight bit of effervescence. With only 10.6% alcohol, one can drink this wine all day. It is finished dry but the balance is very good. There is none of the searing acidity that I have found in some 2008 wines from the cool 2008 islands vintage. 88 points

The winery has also released an off-dry Ortega and an off-dry Siegerrebe.

SouthEnd Farm Bara 2008 ($18.40). Bara is the Japanese word for rosé, so I am told. The wine, made with Pinot Noir, has a lovely rose petal hue, with aromas and flavours of strawberries and cranberries. Again, it is well-balanced with just enough residual sugar to offset the acidity. This is a delicious, juicy summertime rosé, made all the more accessible because the alcohol is only 10%. 88 points.

The winery has also released a red wine, Turan 2008 (another name for the Agria grape) and Sutil 2008, a dessert wine made from Agria.

SouthEnd opened with about 6,000 bottles of wine. The website promises two other wines but there are no details so far.

These are excellent wines from a very difficult vintage. The 2009 vintage on Quadra Island, Jill reports, is shaping up to be far better, with riper grapes. Nevermore Farm tented its Pinot Noir this spring. Ben and Jill are planning to make a red wine this fall from these grapes, assuming the season continues to be warm and dry and ideal for the vines.

Burrowing Owl, Quails' Gate launch a wine agency of their own

Photos: Jim Williams and the Burrowing Owl Estate Winery



This is the move that the wine industry has been anticipating: Burrowing Owl Estate Winery and Quails’ Gate Estate Winery have launched their own marketing agency, Appellation Wine Marketing Ltd. of Vancouver

The agency is being run independently by Jim Williams, a sales executive with 15 years of solid experience with both Vincor International and Mark Anthony Brands.

He spent the 18 months to June 1 away from the wine industry, managing the western Canadian division for Johnson & Johnson, the health care products company. Now, Jim is back to build a boutique wine agency, representing not just the two Okanagan wineries but eventually a portfolio of premium import wines as well.

There is a lot of corporate history behind this development.

In 1996, an investment by CedarCreek Estate Winery launched another boutique Vancouver agency, Medallion Wine Marketing Inc. Subsequently, Quails’ Gate and Hardys Wines of Australia also became partners in Medallion.

Hardys was taken over in 2003 by Constellation Brands, the New York-based giant wine company that acquired Vincor in 2006.

Two years later Constellation decided to streamline its Canadian wine marketing business by buying Medallion and folding it into the Vincor Canada sales organization. That is how Vincor in April 2008 became the agency for CedarCreek and Quails’ Gate.

Industry peers knew it was only a matter of time before those two wineries extracted themselves from an awkward situation where their biggest competitor, Vincor, was also selling their wines.

In March this year, CedarCreek named Free House Wines + Spirits Ltd. of Vancouver as its new agency.

Quails’ Gate, meanwhile, went back to the original strategy of investing in a new agency, teaming up with Burrowing Owl to create Appellation.

Burrowing Owl has also moved itself from the shadow of a major competitor. Ever since the winery was launched in 1997, Burrowing Owl’s agency has been Grady Wine Marketing. That representation stayed in place after Grady was acquired by Calona Wines, and then after Calona was acquired in 2005 by Andrew Peller Ltd.

Peller is the largest Canadian-owned wine producer, the third largest vineyard owner in the Okanagan and an emerging competitor in the premium wine market to Burrowing Owl. For example, there is a long range plan to build a winery next door to Burrowing Owl for Peller’s top premium brand, Sandhill Wines.

Burrowing Owl decided to move to Appellation as part of a strategy to keep its profile high in an increasingly competitive market.

In a news release, Quails’ Gate president Tony Stewart was diplomatically frank about the logic behind the move. “With Appellation Wine Marketing, we hope to enhance our customer relationships by providing excellence in service and communications that is best achieved with a smaller ‘boutique-style’ agency that intimately knows our wines.”

In Jim Williams, Burrowing Owl and Quails’ Gate have found a marketer with extensive big winery experience. He started his career with Vincor just as that company was inaugurating its Jackson-Triggs brand. He helped launch one of the most successful of Canadian wine brands.

When Vincor bought the Sumac Ridge and Hawthorne Mountain wineries in 2000, Jim became the national marketer of those brands in close collaboration with Sumac Ridge founder Harry McWatters.

“It gave me that exposure to a family business,” he recalls.

When those brands were moved over to Vincor’s growing sales team, Jim joined Mark Anthony Brands as national wine director. This gave him experience in dealing with import wineries.

Jim also spent three years as Mark Anthony’s sales director in Western Canada, looking after a vast portfolio of brands that included Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Corona beer from Mexico. When Corona dropped Mark Anthony in 2007, Jim downsized the sales team – including himself.

He says that his stint with Johnson and Johnson gave him insights into that company’s successful methods of developing its staff. Some of those methods, he says, will be useful in recruiting and training his team at Appellation.

Current releases from Twisted Tree Vineyards & Winery

Photo: Twisted Tree's Chris and Beata Tolley

Chris and Beata Tolley, the owners of Twisted Tree Vineyards & Winery in Osoyoos, have a strategy to make them stand out among the growing profusion of Okanagan wineries: make wines with varieties that are rare in the valley.

For example, they currently have two vintages of Tannat and one vintage of Corvina aging in their barrel cellar.

To the best of my knowledge, they are the first to grow these varieties in the Okanagan. Tannat is a red variety that produces big, firm wines in Uruguay and in the south of France. The variety’s reputation to be overly tannic likely explains why it is not often found elsewhere.

Twisted Tree has not yet released a wine, in part because Chris is still learning how to deal with the variety. In the Okanagan, high tannin seems not to be the issue. He has found that the variety, grown on his sandy site, comes in with normal tannins.

However, the variety has an unusual sugar composition which caused fermentation to stick in two barrels in 2007, the first vintage. Chris learned what the problem was after having a sample analyzed in a California wine laboratory. He then took the necessary action to get fermentation complete in those two barrels. That wine has a different flavour profile than the other barrels.

Chris has talked an Okanagan laboratory into acquiring the technology for analyzing the sugars in Tannat. The ferment in 2008, as a result, was normal.

Both vintages, tasted from barrel, are quite interesting. The 2007 is a muscular and pleasantly rustic wine while the 2008 has a more elegant structure and attractive cherry flavours. Undoubtedly, the variety will yield good wine in the Okanagan. But until Chris dials in the style of Tannat that he wants, he is likely to blend these two vintages and release them under Twisted Tree’s other label, Second Crossing.

Corvina is the Italian red grown to make Amarone. Twisted Tree has only 500 vines. So far, Chris has just the 2008 vintage in barrel. In the classic fashion, the grapes were air-dried in the winery, reducing the cluster weight by a third, before fermentation began. That technique concentrates sugars and flavours. The barrel sample of the unfinished reveals a rich, plummy red with some residual sweetness. This will be an exciting red when released.

Chris says that Twisted Tree has “a few other experiments” in its vineyards as well. Twisted Tree produces mainstream varietals, such as Merlot, from purchased grapes, reserving its own vineyards for cutting edge varietals, often Rhone varietals.

He also has a small plot of Carmenère, one of the few in the Okanagan with this late-ripening red. He is unlikely to expand his plot. Because the variety is late, it must be cropped at uneconomic yields in cool years. “I don’t think I would want to have 10 acres,” Chris says, even though the barrel sample of his 2008 is quite tasty.

The current releases show both strategies – wine from exclusive estate varieties and wine from purchased fruit.

Twisted Tree 2008 Viognier Roussanne ($21.90). The estate-grown wine is a blend of 47% Viognier, 46% Roussanne and 7% Marsanne. This is a delicious wine with good weight. Floral and citrus on the nose, it has honeyed melon and apricot favours with a crisp, dry finish. 88

Twisted Tree 2008 Trio ($21.90). This is 50% Marsanne, 36% Viognier, 14% Roussanne. This somewhat exotic white also has honeyed melon flavours intertwined with grapefruit. The fresh acidity gives this wine a tangy finish while the mineral structure adds richness. 88

Twisted Tree 2007 Six Vines ($24.90). This is the ultimate of Bordeaux red blend: 25% Malbec, 23% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Carmenère, 10% Petit Verdot and 6% Cabernet Franc. This is medium-bodied with aromas of berries and cassis and flavours of plum, cherry and cocoa. The firm texture suggests the wine will age well for several years. 88

Twisted Tree 2007 Merlot ($24.90). This is a full-bodied version of Merlot, aged 18 months in oak (50% American). It begins with aromas of vanilla and plum, with flavours of plum, cherry and chocolate. The ripe tannins contribute to a rich, generous texture. 88

Twisted Tree 2007 Syrah ($24.90) A wine of considerable elegance, this begins with inviting aromas of black cherries, plums and pepper. The palate follows through with flavours of cherry, chocolate and vanilla, set on a texture of soft tannins. The wine has 14.7% alcohol but yet has a generous, satisfying finish without any alcoholic heat. 90