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WINES
B.C.'s
trophy wines: worth triple digits
If the prospect of a $100 red wine from Canada strikes you as the absurd
fancy of a winemaker who is 11 bottles short of a case, brace yourself.
Here in the majestic Okanagan Valley, triple digits are just over the
horizon.
Last week, Mission Hill Family Estate Winery marked the release of Oculus
2004, the latest vintage of a super-luxury red modelled after the great
cuvees of Bordeaux.
At an eyebrow-raising $70, the price could easily approach $100 in
provinces such as Ontario, where it will roll out in several months and
where a $20 markup on premium B.C. brands is routine.
And at a local price of $70, a 17-per-cent jump from last year's $60 for
the 2003 vintage, Oculus is on track to crack the $100 barrier by 2010, just
in time for the feverish B.C. pride of the Vancouver Olympics.
Oculus may be the most expensive wine to emerge from British Columbia,
but it's just one of a new crop of rarefied B.C. reds vying to become this
country's counterparts to the great three-digit cult wines of France and
California's Napa Valley.
Among the new Okanagan icons are Nota Bene from Black Hills Estate
Winery, Old Main Red from Kettle Valley Winery and The Legacy from Poplar
Grove Winery.
The fast-growing list also includes such coveted big reds as Portfolio
from Laughing Stock Vineyards, Apogée from Le Vieux Pin, La Frenz Winery's
Shiraz, and Osoyoos Larose, a Bordeaux-styled blend from a joint venture
between Canada's Vincor and French producer Groupe Taillan. Never heard of
them? That would be understandable. Few ever see the light of a liquor store
shelf.
Most sell out within months, if not days, of release, scooped up by eager
collectors at the winery door and by high-end restaurants in Vancouver and
Whistler.
"This valley is just flaming red hot at the moment," said John
Simes, Mission Hill's winemaker, referring to the flurry of world-class
wines and capital investments in the sun-drenched Okanagan, a 200-kilometre
valley in the south-central region of the province.
New Zealand-born Mr. Simes has done as much to put British Columbia on
the wine map as anyone.
His first chardonnay at Mission Hill in the early 1990s, a full-bodied,
barrel-aged white, won the International Wine and Spirit Competition trophy
for best chardonnay in the world, a first for Canada.
From his postcard-view perch near Kelowna, at the Okanagan's most
spectacular winery - described by veteran wine-book author John Schreiner as
Buckingham Palace for grapes - Mr. Simes went on to create Oculus, a
merlot-dominated Bordeaux-style blend.
His boss, Mission Hill owner Anthony von Mandl, the magnate behind the
wildly successful, flavoured vodka drink Mike's Hard Lemonade, spared little
expense for his flagship wine.
Hundreds of $1,000 French-oak barrels stacked five high on special steel
scaffold frames greet the visitor to one of Mr. Simes's vast aging cellars.
Nearby is a shiny metal maze of the latest in automated grape-sorting
tables, stem-removing conveyors and computerized basket presses.
Proud as he is of the hardware, Mr. Simes - like most artisans who craft
fine wine - prefers to stress the meticulous grooming of his vineyards,
which are pruned and trimmed by hand to yield small but highly concentrated
quantities of fruit, most of which is grown in south Okanagan between the
town of Oliver and the Washington border.
"Oculus is a pruning-to-bottle program," he said.
Tasting through barrel samples of the 2006 wines destined for the Oculus
blend is a crash course in the blender's art.
The cabernet sauvignon is a blast of cassis and espresso. The cabernet
franc is remarkably sweet and creamy, while the merlot tastes of blackberry,
nuts and toasted bread, and the inky-purple petit verdot of earth and spice.
After a few gargles of the young juice the mouth begins to parch from the
aggressive tannins, astringent tea-like particles contained in grape skins
and seeds.
If you've tasted strong, unsweetened orange pekoe or Earl Grey, you'll
know the feeling.
Named for the small circular hole in the dome of Rome's ancient Pantheon,
Oculus represents a puny fraction of Mission Hill's output - just 3,000 to
3,500 12-bottle cases, depending on the size of the crop, versus more than
200,000 cases in total.
In that sense, it's no different from other B.C. cult wines.
Aside from the high cost of intensive manual labour in the vineyards and
winery, scarcity is the key to the increasingly jaw-dropping prices in the
Okanagan, the province's biggest wine-growing region.
At Black Hills, a modernist, flat-roofed, grey block of a building
between Oliver and Osoyoos, visitors last week were greeted with a
heart-sinking sign on the road: "Sold Out."
Mercifully, there are always a few show bottles left of the winery's
flagship $37 red, Nota Bene, for visiting journalists.
The superlative 2005 vintage is silky and brimming with ripe dark fruits
and nuances of cigar tobacco, with an impressively long finish.
The 2006, bottled the day I visited last week, is a velvety wonder of
cherries, chocolate, vanilla and - as winemaker Senka Tennant described its
most intriguing nuance - "pencil shavings."
Another factor helping to fuel B.C. wine prices is what Vancouver-based
veteran wine judge David Scholefield, a former senior buyer for the B.C.
Liquor Distribution Branch, calls the enthusiastic "regional
chauvinism" of B.C. wine drinkers - the envy of producers in Niagara,
Canada's bigger wine-growing region.
"Many people in Toronto feel that Niagara wine isn't worthy of the
same respect as the gilt-edged classics" of France and California, Mr.
Scholefield said.
Mark Davidson, a Vancouver wine instructor with the International
Sommelier Guild who regularly teaches in the United States, says one can
gauge local support for the B.C. industry through the lens of top
restaurants' wine lists.
While many high-end restaurants in Toronto shun Niagara wines, or may
include only a few token bottles in their cellars, "every top table in
Vancouver has B.C. wines."
Not that Niagara lacks its share of worthy new wines that are starting to
push the price envelope, notably a $65 top-end pinot noir made by Le Clos
Jordanne.
But when it comes to producing cult wines based on cabernet sauvignon and
merlot in the styles of Bordeaux and Napa Valley, Niagara is at a distinct
disadvantage.
Those late-ripening grapes demand warm weather and longer "hang
times" in autumn to develop ripe flavours, a precarious proposition in
cool Niagara.
Pick too early in fear of cold weather or frost, and the wine can become
too herbal and high in acidity.
The B.C. cult-wine phenomenon is palpable as you make your way up and
down the Okanagan in search of a precious bottle.
There was no shiraz left to sample at the squat ranch-style tasting room
of La Frenz on the Naramata bench north of Penticton - no matter how hard
one feigned thirst or shamelessly worked the charm with co-owner Niva
Martin.
Her 600 cases had, alas, been spoken for (though I did spy several
gleaming bottles pulled from a back room and discreetly tucked into a box
for another visitor, presumably a member of the winery's exclusive mailing
list).
Prospects improved down the road at Poplar Grove, where co-owner Ian
Sutherland, one of the province's most respected winemakers and consultants,
uncorked the 2004 vintage of his $50 Bordeaux-style blend, The Legacy.
(It probably helped that on this occasion I was visiting with Sinclair
Philip, proprietor of Vancouver Island's famed hotel and restaurant Sooke
Harbour House.)
To be released Oct. 1, the 2004 Legacy is a blend of mostly merlot with
smaller quantities of cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and malbec - a
velvety blockbuster evocative of a top-class Pomerol or St.-Emilion from
Bordeaux.
Unfortunately, there were just 800 cases made, several of which are on
their way to the cellar at Sooke Harbour House.
*****
Tasting notes
Like most renowned wines, British Columbia's finest reds are made in
minuscule quantities. The wineries below also make a range of other
excellent offerings, both white and red.
Black Hills Estate Nota Bene 2005
$37 (sold out)
Silky and packed with flavours of black-skinned fruits, black olive, cigar
tobacco and cedar, set against a layer of fine-grained tannins. Made from
cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc.
Kettle Valley Old Main Red 2005
$35
Reminiscent of right-bank Bordeaux, lean but muscular, with nuances of earth
and cedar. Made from merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, malbec and
petit verdot.
Laughing Stock Portfolio 2005
$37
Rich and velvety, showing hints of blackberry, vanilla and dark chocolate.
Made mostly from merlot, with cabernet sauvignon and traces of cabernet
franc, malbec and petit verdot.
Mission Hill Oculus 2004
$70
Big, chewy and spicy. Notes of cherry and toasty oak. Made mostly from
merlot, with small quantities of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc.
Poplar Grove The Legacy 2004
$50 (to be released Oct. 1)
Powerful and penetrating, with a silky texture and traces of earth, vanilla
and spice, resolving with a firm backbone. Made mostly from merlot, plus
cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and malbec.
- GLOBE
& MAIL 2007 September 12 by Beppi
Crosariol
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