Brangelina's Success in BC's Wine Industry

I never thought I would be writing a wine column that would place in close juxtaposition Hollywood royals Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with British Columbian wine-growers Ezra and Gabriel Cipes of Summerhill Pyramid Winery. But just as politics makes strange bedfellows, so does wine and this week's tastings.

Jolie and Pitt bought Château Miraval, an old estate in Provence, back in 2008 for a reported 60 million. It's their summer home. So like any reasonable person in southern France, they needed a rosé to get through the heat. But is it by partnering with Perrin Family, well-known Rhone producers and makers of the highly celebrated Château du Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape, that they have set themselves apart from most celebrity wines owners.

Miraval is a blend of grapes - Cinsault, Grenache, Rolle and Syrah - plucked from the Château's best parcels and mixed with a selection of vineyards close to the village of Correns in the heart of Provence. Most of the fruit (95 per cent) is pressed off into stainless steel tanks to retain the freshness and acidity, while the Syrah is partly vinified using the "saignée" or bleeding method to get a bit of colour off the skins into the wine.

The wine (reviewed this week) is very good and frankly if you didn't look hard on the back label to see the "Jolie-Pitt & Perrin" producer names, you would not be able to tell it from any other Provençal pink on the shelf.

Remember the strange bedfellows comment. The Famille Perrin is the leading organic wine grower of the Southern Rhône Valley, which brings me to Alive (also reviewed this week), a tasty little organic red made by Kelowna's Summerhill Pyramid Winery where the farming is off-the-charts environmentally sustainable.

Summerhill is entering its fourth year of biodynamic farming, taking the jump from certified organic grape growing to having its vineyards go fully biodynamic. Summerhill isn't just talking the talk, the vineyards are now certified bio-dynamic by Demeter, one of two institutions certifying biodynamic farms around the world.

In the U.S., Demeter is the most common certifying institution, in Europe, Biodyvin offers certification only for wine makers. Rhone producer M. Chapoutier (and competitor of Perrin) helped to launch Biodyvin hoping to deal directly with such issues as grape growing and crop rotation.

When I asked Gabriel Cipes (in charge of the vineyards) why so many people shout junk science and disparage the concept of biodynamics, his answer was calm. "I think that is a sickness of North America. North Americans are afraid of spirituality and souls because they have lost their connection to nature ." Biodynamics makes the most sense for wine because it is so terroir-based - or so says winery manager Ezra Cipes.

"If we make something unique, with biodynamic fruit, (perhaps a white and red) they will have a better chance on an international scale to find a place in the conversation."

He hopes to meet with Italian biodynamic expert Alberto Antonini the next time he returns to consult at Okanagan Crush Pad to discuss what the possibilities may be at Summerhill.

I didn't even get to the topic of permaculture, another pursuit of the Cipes family. My minimal research led me to Rob Hopkins, an independent activist and writer on environmental issues.

His take on Permaculture is, "it is like a pair of glasses you put on which allow you to see possibilities: that rubble-filled backyard as a food garden, your local community as a sustainable settlement, yourself as part of the hugely complex web of nature and the natural patterns which form the world around you."

Like I said, wine makes strange bedfellows. And maybe it will add to the notion that we can leave the earth a better place.

Now I need a glass of wine.