Calona Vineyards Profile on the Rise

The mechanic had discovered that Soon worked for Calona, although he did not know that Soon is the senior winemaker. The mechanic volunteered the opinion that Calona's wines have improved a lot over the last five years.

The mechanic's assessment is right on the money, and deeply satisfying since it comes from the demographic heartland of Calona's market. The oldest producer in British Columbia (founded in 1932), Calona has been the unpretentious working man's winery, hardly ever getting onto the radar screen of those wine consumers who like to call themselves oenophiles.

Oenophiles are the sort of people who line up at liquor stores and VQA stores for two-bottle allocations of $40 wines. Chances are that Soon's mechanic will never be found in such queues - but why would he? Calona Artist Series wines are easier to get, cost $12 -$14 a bottle, and overdeliver in quality.

That was not always so with Calona's wines. The very earliest were apple wines that refermented in the bottles. There was a notorious family of fortified fruit wines favoured by adolescents. There have been other rustic wines over the years, creating the paesano image that Calona has had to live down. But, as the mechanic noted, somewhere in the 1990s, Calona Vineyards turned the corner.

The wines have started to attract notice and wine awards at a critical time in Calona's history. This year, new investors are likely to take over the business. Cascadia Brands, Calona's parent company, has been controlled for the last decade by a Swiss business family. Last year, the Swiss company slid into bankruptcy protection due to problems completely unrelated to the Canadian wine business.

The wine business, in fact, is doing well and is in the process of being sold as a going concern. Industry reports suggest that the new owners will be Canadian investors.

Calona was reborn as a winery to reckon with when it began to buy grapes from, and then in 1997 invested in,  the Burrowing Owl Vineyard and its associated winery project. For the first time in his Calona career, which began in 1980, Soon was able to get his hands on quality grapes. Good wine always begins in the vineyard.

The Burrowing Owl Vineyard is on Black  Sage Road, south of Oliver in the Okanagan Valley. The irony is that Calona invested once before in this Black Sage Road vineyard. In the 1960s, when the winery was still owned by the Capozzi family, Calona helped develop one of first large vineyards on the road. The conglomerate that bought Calona in 1971 sold its vineyard investment, figuring there was no need to tie up money in land when it could simply buy grapes.

Most Okanagan vineyards grew mediocre hybrid grapes until the 1988 harvest. That fall, two-thirds of the vineyards were uprooted because the wineries realized they could not compete in the new free trade environment with mediocre wine. The replanting of Black Sage Road with premium European grapes began in 1992.

The Burrowing Owl Vineyard was launched in 1993 when Jim Wyse, a former property developer, bought 100 acres on Black Sage Road. Ultimately, he ended up with a vineyard almost three times that size. When he decided to build the Burrowing Owl winery, he got Cascadia Brands - which had been buying the grapes - to become a joint venture partner.

The partnership was dissolved in 2002.  Cascadia ended up owning about two-thirds of a superlative vineyard that supplies both Calona and its sister winery, Sandhill. The wines for both are made in the big Calona winery in downtown Kelowna but there are plans to build a dedicated Sandhill winery on Black Sage Road.

The Sandhill wines, all of them single vineyard wines, are pitched to the oenophiles, who pay a premium for them (but still get good value).

The Artist Series wines are so called because the labels all feature original art. Calona started using just one artist in 1991 and now has enough painters working for it to fill a small art gallery.

The first Artist Series wine to make a big splash was the 1999 Pinot Gris, a $10.95 wine that was judged best white wine at the 2001 Los Angeles County Fair (oldest and largest wine competition in the United States) and was lauded in the Wall Street Journal. Howard Soon believes that the 2003 vintage of that wine, which sells for $12.99, is a better wine.

That victory in competition was not a one-off event. Last fall at the Canadian Wine Awards competition, Calona's 2003 Artist Series Pinot Blanc emerged as the best Canadian Pinot Blanc. Much of the fruit for that wine comes from Black Sage Road, from vines that were planted, in fact, in the early 1980s. Calona also buys grapes from growers throughout the Okanagan.

The Artist Series whites also include Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer and Sovereign Opal. The reds include Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Pinot Noir, all made to be approachable and enjoyable as soon as they are released. The wines might reward cellaring but practical consumers like Howard Soon's mechanic will wonder what's the point of storing away wines that taste good now.

John Schreiner is author of The Wineries of British Columbia.