Okanagan 2011 - La Stella

Salve,

As winter starts to close in on the valley, we finally have had a chance to sit back and reflect on the 2011 harvest.

As spring turned to summer this year, the rains continued un-abated and there was general panic throughout the Okanagan that 2011 could be one of the worst vintages in recent memory. Right around Canada Day, however, everything changed. August brought constant sunshine and perfect temperatures. September and October continued the trend and what looked to be a poor vintage turned into a VERY good one!

Most of the good producers carried a smaller than usual crop load due to the poor spring. Smaller crop loads combined with the glorious late summer and fall to grant fantastic phenolic (flavour) maturity. Simultaneously we have acid levels exactly where we'd like to see them and slightly lower than usual alcohol levels. All in all it turned into an almost perfect vintage!

2011 in 100 words by James Cambridge

Wow! What a year we've had. I can hardly believe it's almost over. I bet six months ago everyone was about to shoot themselves. Early and often rains in May and June had all of us worried, with no end of horrible thoughts creeping into our minds.

But hold on: July rolls in with warm, dry weather, our vineyard team performs timely shoot thinning, leaf removal, and ultimately, and for me most crucially: bunch thinning.

We are harvesting a little later than in previous years, but that's why we have vintages. From July through to harvest we had amazing weather with little rain. This all adds up to a strange but very good crop. Flavours are great, alcohols and ph will be lower and acids are lively, leading to what I think will be a sensational vintage.

For me, the lasting image of the 2011 vintage is that the fruit is the cleanest I have seen in all my years in the Okanagan. There was zero fungal issues do deal with. This makes fermentation much easier and more importantly causes me less stress! People, you should be waiting on this vintage and the resulting wines with great anticipation.

"Outstanding" will be the eventual description of the wines from this year.