St. Hubertus Rises Above The Smoke

Hubertus Estate Winery at Kelowna.

In the summer of 2003, the huge forest fire that consumed hundreds of homes in East Kelowna also destroyed this winery, Leo's home, and left the grapes in the 76-acre vineyard useless for winemaking in that vintage.

Because nearly all their bottled wines were stored in a warehouse spared by the fire, they had a new tasting room open within 10 days of the conflagration.

But to make wine in the vintage that began just weeks after the fire, they had to scramble for grapes from other vineyards. Their purchases included some Bordeaux grape varieties so good that St. Hubertus, under its Oak Bay label, has just released a $35 Meritage from the 2003 vintage.

"This has to be our comeback wine," Andy says.

The story of how they got those grapes is one more example of how adept the Gebert brothers are at turning difficulty on its head.

The grapes - Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot - came from the vineyard at Hester Creek which, in 2003, was slipping towards bankruptcy. Its many creditors included the Gebert brothers, who had done some technical services for Hester Creek.

Hester Creek was in no position to pay its bill in cash. But the winery had grapes to spare in a year when the Gebert brothers had none. The adroit brothers worked out a deal to settle the account with grapes at $2,500 a ton.

When they saw the fine quality of the fruit, the brothers asked their Bordeaux-trained winemaker, Christine Leroux, to pull out all the stops and produce a premium Meritage, aged in the best French barrels they could buy. The resulting wine, the most expensive and most boldly-oaked table wine every produced at St. Hubertus, has just been released.

"I was very happy with the result," Andy says. The winery made the equivalent of about 225 cases, some of it packaged in three-litre and six-litre bottles. "My doctor," Andy jokes," said I can drink only one bottle a day now that I have hit 40."

This lively Meritage, with a jewel-box ruby sparkle, has aromas of currants and spice, leading to flavours of currants and blackberries set against notes of new oak. At this stage in its development, the wine is firm and deserves more bottle aging - a year or two - to reach its full potential. The understated elegance of the label is as notable as the wine: the uncluttered cream-coloured Oak Bay label, with Meritage in red hand-written script, has remarkable eye appeal. My rating of the wine: 88 points.

The fast footwork to that produced this Meritage is not the only example of how the Gebert brothers found opportunity in that fire-ravaged summer of 2003.

They had the option of selling the property, pocketing the substantial insurance settlement and walking away. Instead, they chose to expand. The winery, which opened in 1992, previously was making about 10,000 cases a year. The brothers now are finishing an expansion that will give them the ability to make between 15,000 and 18,000 cases a year.

When they replaced the bottling line that the fire destroyed, they ordered a line capable of closing bottles with screw caps. All of the 2004 St. Hubertus wines being released now -including Chasselas, Pinot Blanc, Riesling and Gamay Rosé - are under screw caps.

The brothers were one of the earliest of Okanagan wineries to move away from natural cork in 1998. In that vintage, they began using synthetic corks to get away from the problem of "corked" wine. (That is winespeak for wines that have picked up dull, musty aromas and flavours from bad corks, an industry-wide affliction that ruins three to five cent of all wines under natural cork.)

The St. Hubertus wines under the winery's premium Oak Bay label still are closed with synthetic corks. The winery may get the courage to go completely to screw cap closures from the acceptance consumers are giving the new St. Hubertus vintages.

"So far, the reaction has been only positive," Andy says. "It has been a non-event."

Their satisfaction with the Meritage led the brothers to try again in 2004 vintage, trading Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer from their own vineyard for Bordeaux varieties from the south Okanagan. The 2004 supplier did not produce fruit quite as good as Hester Creek, and the brothers decided not to make a 2004 Meritage. Instead, the wine was used to make an excellent St. Hubertus Northern Summer, a red blend which usually sells for $12. Andy thinks that the 2004 vintage over-delivers.

However, the winery does have a pair of big reds to be released later this year under the Oak Bay label. One is a Maréchal Foch, a familiar standard for this winery. The other will be a blend of Chambourcin (a red French hybrid planted by the winery a few years ago) and Merlot, both of which still are finishing aging in barrel. Andy suggests the wine will be the winery's answer to Shiraz.

John Schreiner is author of The Wineries of British Columbia.