Andrés Buys Red Rooster

is adding another British Columbia winery to its stable with the purchase of Red Rooster Winery from founders Beat and Prudence Mahrer.

The acquisition is expected to close by October 31. No price has been disclosed for the winery, located on five acres (two under vine) on Naramata Road near Penticton. The Mahrers had invested about $2 million in the two-building winery complex, which was designed by Penticton architect Robert Mackenzie. It opened in 2004.

This is the second winery to bear the Red Rooster name. The Mahrers opened the original Red Rooster in 1997 near Naramata. When it reached its capacity of 10,000 cases a year, they relocated to the current winery, with a capacity of 30,000 cases. Their former winery was sold to a group of Alberta investors, reopening this fall as Therapy Vineyards.

The purchase of Red Rooster is part of a continuing consolidation in the British Columbia wine industry that began in May when Andrés paid the equivalent of $51 million to buy Cascadia Brands, the owner of Calona Wines and Sandhill Vineyards. Red Rooster, which makes both white and red table wines including a $50-a-bottle Bordeaux red called The Golden Egg, will continue to be operated under its own name.

In a series of unrelated acquisitions, Penticton fruit grower Keith Holman has accumulated four Naramata Road wineries since his 2003 launch of Spiller Estate Winery, a small fruit winery. Subsequently, Holman opened Mistral Vineyards and purchased the neighbouring Benchland  Vineyards winery, now renamed Stonehill Estate Winery. Last month, Holman acquired Lang Vineyards, one of the first wineries to open (in 1990) on the Naramata Bench.

He is planning a fifth winery on a Naramata Bench vineyard he began planting this spring.

Naramata Road, about 15 slow and twisting kilometres with vineyards on both sides, runs north from Penticton along the eastern shore of Okanagan Lake. With 20 wineries open or under development, it has become the hottest address for wine tourism in the Okanagan Valley. Vineyards are changing hands at California prices. (Potential California purchasers also looked at Red Rooster.)

The Mahrers, after their short but spectacular run in British Columbia's wine business, concluded this is a good time to cash in. They have retained 20 acres of vineyards but they have also agreed to a non-compete clause in their sale to Andrés.  There is an expiry date on the clause but Prudence Mahrer says they have no intention to start another winery. They have agreed to be available as consultants to Red Rooster if Andrés asks for their help.

"I am 52 years old," she says. "I do not want to have another five business in my life." She and her husband are both pilots (she has a commercial license) and they intend to spend more time on that interest and on travel.

The ever-faster pace of the wine business had been giving them little free time. "We tried hard this spring to let loose," she says. "During the summer, we did not have a single day off."

The couple are natives in Switzerland where they owned several fitness salons. They also sold that business into a hot market for fitness salons, something they seem to be repeating in the wine business.

They immigrated to Canada about 1990, purchased an apple orchard near Naramata and, against the advice of neighbours, decided the following year to plant about 10 acres of vines instead. "We had a gut feeling that grapes would do well here," says Beat. It was a prescient move, for the apple business has been in a long decline.

They opened their first winery to add value to the grapes they were growing (Merlot, Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris). They dubbed the winery Red Rooster because of a peculiar affection they have for chickens. In Switzerland, they kept chickens because they had no time for other pets. In the Okanagan, they stocked a chicken coop beside the vineyard driveway.

The senior chicken was a red rooster named Prince Charles. When the winery opened in 1997, the Mahrers said that Prince Charles would attend the grand opening. The real prince, likely not aware that a bird would stand in for him, declined in a polite letter than had pride of place on the tasting room wall.

The new, larger Red Rooster winery is an architectural showpiece set at one of the most prominent bends on Naramata Road. The tasting room's second floor includes a gallery where local artists display and sell their works of art.

Enthusiast art lovers, the Mahrers earlier this year purchased a controversial nude male sculpture and installed it in the Red Rooster tasting room. Called Frank the Baggage Handler (because the work includes sculpted suitcases), it was originally installed in front of a Penticton art gallery. It outraged some of the citizens to the point where vandals chopped off the statue's penis.

The owners of Red Rooster acquired it, had it repaired and gave Frank a safe home. And the winery released a fast-selling red called Cabernet Frank.

John Schreiner is author of The Wineries of British Columbia.