Arrowleaf Cellars

A loss for milk drinkers is a gain for the rest of us. On May 31, the Zuppiger family formally opens its Arrowleaf Cellars (located near Gray Monk Estate Winery) with a range of solid wines. The star is the 2002 Gewürztraminer (89 points). Made from the Alsace clone, this wine has a ripe, spicy aroma, sumptuous fruit on the palate and a clean, dry finish.

The Zuppiger family is Swiss. A farmer by avocation, Josef brought his family to Canada in 1986 after a dozen years running a rented dairy farm and orchard in his native land. Switzerland's stratospheric land prices discouraged his continuing there as a farmer. However, he could afford a dairy farm with 80 head of cattle in northern Alberta.

His family did not find dairying all that appealing. "I wanted to stay in agriculture," Zuppiger says. "We travelled once to British Columbia,  saw the vineyards and liked them."  When Manuel, one of the Zuppiger sons, showed an interest in viticulture, the dairy farm was sold and in 1997 the Zuppigers took over a producing vineyard near Okanagan Centre (now Lake Country).

"Because I was an orchardist in Switzerland,  I had an idea how to do it," Josef says.  "I knew how to prune trees. I also learned it from books and took a course, so I knew how to do it." He quickly figured out that grape growing would provide an adequate living only he also developed a winery. Accordingly, Manuel was sent back to Switzerland to train as a winemaker at the renowned Wädenswil research station.

The vineyard, now 6.5 hectares in size, had been developed in 1986 as a supplier to Gray Monk. In fact, Gray Monk provided some of original vines, including the fine Gewürztraminer clone that the Gray Monk owners imported a decade earlier from Alsace. The Zuppigers have continued to sell some grapes to Gray Monk, notably Bacchus for that winery's best-selling Latitude 50 white wine.

Although it is at a slightly higher elevation on Camp Road than Gray Monk, the Arrowleaf vineyard has a similar aspect. It slopes steeply to the southwest, catching reflected light from Lake Okanagan to the west. Like Gray Monk, Arrowleaf has a dramatic view over the vineyards toward the lake. The vineyard was growing only whites - primarily Gewürztraminer, Bacchus, Pinot Gris and Auxerrois - when the Zuppigers took over. They completing the planting with Merlot, Zweigelt, a few vines of Dunkelfelder and some Vidal for icewine or dessert wine, depending on the winter.

Manuel, who was born in 1976, spent three years at Wädenswil, where the enology course emphasizes actual experience. Most of his time was spent working at a winery in Zurich, punctuated by several intensive 10-week theory sessions at the school. It was exactly the practical experience that the Zuppigers think a winemaker needs.

"A lot of people go to university and don't find out what hands-on really means," Josef says. After graduating,  Manuel worked the 2001 vintage  in the Barossa Valley with Grant Burge, one of Australia's most awarded winemakers. Back in British Columbia, he also worked briefly at Tinhorn Creek before  beginning to make Arrowleaf's wines in 2001. Burge wanted him back in Australia for the 2002 vintage but, with the new winery under development, he could not spare the time to go.

The debut wines all are estate grown. The 2001 Merlot and the 2001 Zweigelt, both barrel-aged reds, are wines with generous, juicy berry flavours. "We basically focus on the fruit and complement it with a little bit of oak," Manuel says. "There is a lighter structure to the fruit flavours in the northern Okanagan,  so we don't want to drown it with oak."

There also is a barrel-age white, a blend of Pinot Gris and Auxerrois called Barrique. It seems designed to occupy the place of Chardonnay, which Arrowleaf does not produce.

The other whites, all from the excellent 2002 vintage, were aged in stainless steel, with the result that, like the Gewürztraminer, all show crisp, clean fruit, the result of excellent winemaking.

The winery's total production of its debut wines is slightly less than 3,000 cases. Arrowleaf's success seems assured - if only because every visitor to the hugely popular Gray Monk winery (annual production 55,000 cases) drives right by Arrowleaf's compact tasting room at 1574 Camp Road (telephone 250-766-2992).

Arrowleaf gets it name from the yellow-blossomed Okanagan sunflower which, with arrow-shaped leaves, is in full flower now all over the north Okanagan.

John Schreiner is author of the recently-published British Columbia Wine Country