The New Okanagan

It seems incredulous that a wine industry as young as British Columbia's would want to consider calling itself the New Okanagan, yet the slogan is catching on among a band of youngsters and oldsters up and down the valley. The more you come to learn about the quiet evolution of our wines the more the phrase "New Okanagan" makes a lot of sense.

In my view, there have been three Okanagans. The original, historical Father Pandosy version and the planting of vines in the Kelowna Mission District in the 1850s. Next was the important Becker project back in the 1970s when we first tested the mettle of German vinifera grapes and crosses such as Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Ehrenfelser to see what would survive and ripen. In 1993 when the first plantings of red grapes went in on Black Sage Bench in the south Okanagan, the third era began. Now two decades later, the fourth milestone to make super-premium wines that reveal the terroir of British Columbia may be the beginning of the New Okanagan.

When we say super-premium, we mean the absolute best. It is the kind of wine that competes globally and, if successful, may not be seen so frequently here at home. Dragging established producers forward to a whole new level won't be easy. The notion of great wine, wine that turns heads globally is a huge stretch for some, especially those who are selling all the wine they can make right now. But in a wine world awash in commercial wines, made at prices we could never sustain for long, super-premium is likely the only wine that will survive the test of time. It won't be easy.

At the current top end of wine, there is a quiet style evolution running through the international wine world where the top producers are chasing the less-is-more mantra. Some have been beating that drum for years but it has taken a new generation of wine growing to really support the notion that growing grapes naturally, with as little intervention as possible, and following that through in the winemaking is the way to go. Loud is out and contrary to current commercial trends of more sugar and big flavours, the best wine in the world is slim or is slimming down to best reflect its natural origins.

At Okanagan Crush Pad, a complicated Summerland, B.C. project, the goal is just that. The winery was built to make a variety of small-batch wines for a number of small vineyard owners in B.C. who don't want to build a winery.

To that end, Okanagan Crush Pad (OCP) is working with two world-renowned wine consultants who have fallen in love with the Okanagan: Chilean Pedro Parra who studies terroir and geology around the world and Alberto Antonini who makes wines with a sense of place on some of the most important terroirs on the globe.

Last weekend, I returned to the Garnet Valley in West Summerland to catch up with Antonini, Parra and OCP majority owners Chris Colletta and Steve Lornie along with more than two dozen Okanagan winemakers/viticulturalists and winery owners invited to visit the next evolution in B.C. vineyards. OCP, on the advice of Parra and Antonini, have purchased 300 acres of gently sloping land just above Giants Head in the Garnet Valley about 10 minutes north of Summerland's Highway 97. The plan is to make super premium Pinot Noir.

"The only way to make super-premium wine is to have a great site," Antonini says. "If you look at the super-premium wines of the world and what they are about, they are never about special winemaking, special technology or special wood. They are always and only about super-premium unique terroir.

My job is just to interpret a great place and try to make, out of the grapes, the truest wine without changing its character and its freshness."

To do that end Antonini needs a great vineyard; enter Pedro Parra. Parra left his native Concepción, Chile as a humble wine student and musician and spent six years in Burgundy trying to find someone, anyone, who could to tell him how terroir really worked. It took time and trust before he finally began to get the information he needed.

Two thousand, three hundred calicatas (trenches) later, Parra is an expert on interpreting sub-soils and what they may mean to any wine. He is building a global reputation for knowing how a certain soil type translates into quality wine and what quality that might be and how to link it to certain clones, or grape vines and then to a rootstock to release its quality.

"Here we have something unique," Parra says about the Okanagan.

"We are in the desert, but we have snow: that means 'cold desert' which is really unique in the world of wine. So we have the chance to do something really special, to make Pinot and Chardonnay that no one has seen before."

Similarly after three years Alberto says, "I really love this project ... in my career making wine all over the world that is not always the way. But I really love to be here. I believe we can achieve what we want -- to find the soul of the place."

These are big statements.

The pair are also fans of bio-dynamic agriculture, a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals: a self-sustaining system that emphasizes a sustainable approach to agriculture.

"All of the great wines of the world are wines of place but while 'wine of place' is the market concept that everyone is talking about, most are not really doing it," Antonini says.

He explains that if you want to make a "wine of place," you must do three things: find the best place (hunt for the best terroir); preserve the place or the terroir (or else you will only make wine that has a sense of a destroyed place); do nothing that might diminish the sense of place. This means that winemaking must be clean and simple. The use of enzymes, commercial yeasts and nutrients must be avoided, and the wine handled as little as possible or it will be a homogenized product with no sense of place.

The first pieces of the puzzle are coming together in Garnet Valley. The project will be a haven of bio-diversity, in fact less than 20 per cent of the land will be planted, and the rest will be left to cactus, indigenous grasses along with the birds and assorted wildlife that were there long before any of us.

Antonini has come to learn that "the biodynamic approach, building a holistic pyramid of biodiversity that includes the native habitat surrounding the vines, creates wines that contain much greater vitality. It is just common sense, they are more vital because they come from a place which is richer and deeper in terms of biomass."

The New Okanagan may be a seminal moment in B.C. wine but like the Becker Project and the bold move to plant red wines in the south Okanagan in 1993, we will need at least two decades to know for sure.

Lagaria Pinot Grigio 2011, Veneto, Italy

Price: $15 (Everything Wine, FireFly) | Score: 87/100

UPC: 726452001173

Ripe pear, apple skin, lemon, matchstick, floral aromas. Round, dry, elegant but slightly lean with almond, honey, red apple, citrus and lees flavours and a juicy finish. Solid effort here.

Tantalus Riesling 2012, East Kelowna, Okanagan Valley

Price: $23 (winery direct) | Score: 91/100

UPC: 626990067412

The Tantalus Riesling is at the extreme end of freshness and acidity most years, all in a good way. Expect a pureness of fruit with electric mineral floral citrus and tropical fruit notes perhaps slightly tempered in 2012. The attack is crisp, the flavours exact and vibrant, offering a mix of lemon, honey, lime and tangerine notes. Always a juicy, mouth-watering style that excels with food.

Terravista Fandango 2012, Naramata Bench, Okanagan Valley

Price: $29 (Everything Wine) | Score: 90/100

UPC: 00627843135265

Winemaker Senka Tennant launched this unusual Albariño/Verdejo blend last year, and year two is equally tasty. She tells me it's not easy to sell; to which I say help her out. This is one of the most delicious white wines you will taste from B.C. this year. It's aone-of-kind blend in Canada and a possible game changer for the Okanagan. Fandango has a sense of electricity and freshness, juicy minerality and subtle floral, melon and sage aromas and flavours.

Drouhin Vaudon Chablis Premier Cru Vaillons 2011, Chablis, Burgundy, France

Price: $42 | Score 89/100

UPC: 0012086323614

Light honey, nutty lees, green apple, nettle, grassy, citrus, matchstick aromas. Round, fresh, elegant, soft palate with grassy, herbal, honey, butter, citrus and apple skin flavours with a bit of seashell. Good ripeness and finesse for early drinking.

Blue Mountain Sauvignon Blanc 2011, Okanagan Falls, Okanagan Valley

Price $18 | Score 88/100

UPC: 00626452801110

Love the open, bright, grassy, nettle, grapefruit nose here flecked with lemon and light passion fruit aromas. The palate is dry, fresh and juicy with more lemon, grassy, nettle, bell pepper and grapefruit flavours. Elegant, excellent vibrancy and balance to pair with lighter fish dishes. One of the best Sauvignon styles from the valley, it's a mix of 70 per cent fermented in stainless steel and 30 per cent in barrels.

Mission Hill Limited Edition Viognier 2011, Okanagan Valley

Price: $22 (winery direct) | Score: 89/100

UPC: 776545028259

Wonderfully aromatic with green apple, orange blossoms, tangerines wafting from the glass. Expect soft, supple inviting textures, yet fresh and juicy. Love the lemon/peach notes and its long, fresh creamy just-off-dry finish. It is a perfect match for spot prawns.