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Scratching the Earth on the Golden Mile and Black Sage Benches
The Dirt on Dirt Part 2:
Scratching the Earth on the Golden Mile and Black Sage Benches
Sandra Oldfield is CEO, winemaker, and co-founder of Tinhorn Creek Winery, which has vineyards on both the Black Sage Bench and the Golden Mile Bench. Both are important sub-regions in the Okanagan, and although they are within sight of each other, they are very different. Sandra is one of the vintners currently discussing an application to define the Golden Mile Bench as an officially recognized sub-geographical indication for BC VQA wine labeling. She was reluctant to be interviewed. She is aware of the political issues involved with drawing a line on a map, and stressed to me that she is not an official spokesperson for the group.
Ezra Cipes: My angle in writing this is to bring awareness to it; to make sure that this ends up being good for our industry long term. If we're labeling terroir, we have to be delivering terroir, and not just empty marketing BS.
Sandra Oldfield: We’re defining our bench because of the uniqueness of the geography, but in the end you can’t escape that this is about marketing. I mean, French appellations are about marketing. It's about making your land more important than your neighbor's, or really just unique from it. The tricky part is where you draw the line. With the Golden Mile, where we draw the line is solely based on science. The primary dictator is soil, and the second is elevation. Alluvial soil spreads right out across the valley floor. The crumbling of Mount Kobau lays out fans of primary material down the various creeks, and they formed these shelves - this elevated bench.
EC: What’s the soil like?
SO: The soil is very rocky with a gravelly loam. It is on the East facing slope of Mount Kobau so it receives the early morning light, but is in shadow hours before Black Sage on the other side of the valley. Tinhorn’s plantings on the Golden Mile Bench are almost all white grapes. We’ve got Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Viognier, Muscat, and Chardonnay planted here, as well as small plantings of Syrah and Pinot Noir.
EC: What about Black Sage?
SO: This is where more and more of our reds are planted. Black Sage Bench is at a lower elevation, and the aspect is South-West. It get more extreme heat in the summer, and cold in the winter. It’s pretty much pure beach sand, and growing grapes there is almost hydroponic farming. My winery is on the Golden Mile, so I won’t be the one to drive Black Sage as an appellation, but that is where all my Merlot and Cab Franc is. Black Sage is harder to define and draw a line around. How big is it? Does it go all the way from Inkameep Vineyards to Osoyoos, or is there some historical precedent for what is defined as the Black Sage Bench?
EC: When you first planted Black Sage, how did you choose what to plant?
SO: It was based on the wines that we wanted to sell. We had everything planted there. We are now slowly replanting, and varieties are finding their home. The Merlot we had on the Golden Mile was always the weakest Merlot, every vintage. We are little by little replanting the Golden Mile to aromatic whites, and reds are going to Black Sage. Once our canopy was established on Black Sage, and the vines were established, the flavours became much more developed and deep. We generally get lower acids on that side, so we often acidify. Golden Mile has higher acid, good fast flavour development, but not as much heat. Having Gris grown on both sides balances out the wine. I don't have to do anything! One side has the sugars, the other has the acid.
EC: You have Syrah in both vineyards. What about that?
SO: Syrah is better on Black Sage from a ripeness perspective. It's more meaty/bacony on Black Sage, more white pepper on Golden Mile. Frost is a major consideration on Black Sage, though, so we’re going to experiment with planting later ripening but frost sensitive varieties like Malbec on the Golden Mile side. Bill Eggert from Fairview somehow manages to make good wine from late ripening reds on Golden Mile.
EC: What has it been like bringing all the Golden Mile vintners together to make this application? I understand that you're not a spokesperson for the group, but are you personally in favour of adopting specific production practices for the sub-region?
SO: We're not talking about any restrictions on varieties, but migration of varieties is inevitable over time. We're not talking about any production limits at the out-set, like max tons per acre, but it may be discussed in the future. I would not advocate stylistic restrictions in regards to production practices.
EC: What about ingredients?
SO: Should processed ingredients be allowed? We haven’t talked about it. I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point. If we had a sub-appellation, I would really like to have a third party accounting for where the grapes grown here are going, to make sure labeling is legit and 100% from the sub-region. A lot of wineries have grapes grown here, and they end up all over. If we get to use Golden Mile on the label, the wine’s got to be 100% from Golden Mile.
Ultimately, just like every growing region, the two benches have their own advantages and challenges. Terroir is complex, and cannot be simplified by comparing soil types or sunlight hours. This is just scratching the surface. The real trick will be for the vintners on both benches to come to terms with the challenges of their farms, and to figure out how to make best use of the advantages. The Black Sage Bench has the heat, but because of the coarse, deep sand, and all the human intervention needed to grow here, can the wines really be said to have terroir? The soil here must be considered in more detail, as it is a complex subject, and Black Sage has many good qualities aside from the soil. Certainly many fine wines have been grown on Black Sage. The Golden Mile is blessed with a finer textured but stony soil. It is likely that the Golden Mile Bench will be the first sub-region to apply for a sub-geographical indication, and if it is successful, it will then be up to the vintners to make good on the promise of terroir, and to develop the special reputation that the fulfillment of this promise will entitle them to have.
This article was originally published in the Winter 2011/12 issue of Savour Magazine.
Dec 27, 2011 at 2:29 PM
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Be the first to comment on this postHomegrown Terroirists
The Dirt on Dirt Part 1:
Homegrown Terroirists
Why is it that wine is so variable depending on where, when and how it is made? Wine marketers give all sorts of vague answers to this question. "It's all about the dirt," says Road 13; Tinhorn Creek is “Naturally South Okanagan,” and at Summerhill we "Celebrate Nature's Perfection.” All of these statements point to the same thing: that the wine is made in the vineyard, and expresses terroir, a sense of the land on which it was grown. But is it? And does it?
Certainly wine is made both in the vineyard and in the cellar, but to a varying degree that is based on the quality of the fruit and the sensibility of the winemaker. And terroir... what is that again? Well it kind of depends on who you ask. In Europe the definition of terroir is stricter. There, the labeling regulations imposed by the appellation systems (legally defined, protected geographical indicators) are in place to ensure that the noble ideas about terroir are not reduced to platitudes and slogans. In many European countries, even watering the vineyard is considered an intrusion into "letting the land express itself," and irrigation is not allowed for wines that state the appellation on the label. If we eliminated irrigation in the Okanagan, our terroir would express bunchgrass.
But we do have our own concept of terroir, somewhat more liberally applied than in the French definition, and we are lucky that our dry climate allows wine growers to restrict water and create grapes to their own specification (be it for fat, watery ones or small, flavourful ones, as befits the preference and price point). From this example of controlled irrigation, which is just one intervention wine growers and wine makers make, one can see the difficulty in defining terroir within our province when compared to the stricter standards and definition of the word in Europe. One may ask whether the concept is even relevant to New World wine.
But there is a trend for marketing vineyard origin. Just look at Sandhill’s single vineyard program, or at the aforementioned marketing statements of various wineries. So the British Columbia Wine Authority (BCWA) is attempting to give our industry the opportunity to define our terroir, and hopefully make good on our lofty and idealistic promises, with a program for the introduction of sub-geographical indications that could be proclaimed on the front label as part of the statement of appellation.
Currently the only recognized geographical indications in B.C. are larger regions where wine grapes are grown. These include the Okanagan Valley, Vancouver Island, Similkameen Valley, and Fraser Valley. You may recognize these regions on the front labels of your favourite B.C. wines stated as, for example, “BC VQA Vancouver Island” on Rocky Creek’s Pinot Gris. As of now, no sub-region has applied for the special sub-geographical indication status, though a number have considered or are considering applying, including Naramata, the Skaha Bluff, Cawston, the Shuswap, Black Sage Bench, and the Golden Mile. If one is successful, you may see, for instance, “Golden Mile BC VQA” on a bottle of Tinhorn Creek Cab Franc in place of the current “Okanagan Valley BC VQA” geographical indication.
According to the BCWA’s Wine of Marked Quality Regulations, to gain an officially recognized sub-geographical indication these sub-regions must be “geographically distinct areas with clear, defined borders and commercially viable levels of production,” and the wines produced must “consistently demonstrate distinctive characteristics related to shared soil, topography and climate, enhanced by the adoption of specific production practices.” These specific production practices, as well as the distinct borders, would be defined by the producers of the sub-region; in fact, the regulations state that two-thirds of the producers (by production level) have to agree on all of these fine points in order for a sub-geographical indication to be officially added to the regulations. This is probably the reason there are not any recognized yet.
In the articles that follow in this Dirt on Dirt series, we will investigate various sub-regions for the uniqueness of their terroir, and the prevailing wine making styles that predominate in them. My aim is to illuminate various realities of wine making in British Columbia, so that the noble concept of terroir is not bastardized here, and for the sake of helping to realize the magnificent opportunity our industry has to be recognized on the world stage of wine.
This article was originally published in the Fall issue of Savour Magazine.
Chef & Winemaker, Chef-ing and Wine-pairing
An episode of okwineries.com's Fork Knife and Corkscrew, featuring Summerhill's very own Chef Jesse Croy and winemaker Eric von Krosigk.
Lilou Mace interviews Stephen Cipes
Lilou Mace's Juicy Living Tour brought her to Summerhill, where she interviewed founder/proprietor Stephen Cipes. Check it out!
China Photo Journal
Lots of pomp-and-circumstance to open the trade show in Chengdu, including this ribbon cutting accompanied by paratroopers flying overhead and a military band paired with an all-girl drum brigade.
Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with the bearded Canadian man from Summerhill, including these three young ladies who were hired by our distributor to lure customers to our booth at the trade show.
Lolipop-shaped-sausage-on-a-stick. Just one of many strange sights at the trade show.
A large parade of red-armbanded young men marched outside the trade show carrying placards. Were they protesting something? No, they were advertising a website.
Here I am with Kabinett's principles at a gala dinner and guided icewine tasting hosted by the Canada-China Wine Alliance. From left to right is Wong Kwin - marketing director, myself, Yang Wei - chairman & proprietor, and Mr Guo - general manager.
This is the entrance to the tasting room in the Beijing offices of our China distributor, Kabinett Trading Company.
Here's me with a number of the sales and support staff at Kabinett.
On our day off we went to the Great Wall, and then to a show at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. Here's me with Yang Wei's husband Mr Yuan, and their son Rei-Rei.
Here is me with my travel companion, interpreter, and Summerhill's secret weapon in our quest to develop the market in China for our products, Li Zhou, in Tiananmen square. I had really mixed feelings about being there, and at one point asked Yang Wei's brother about the people of China's relationship with Chairman Mao. He told me that Chairman Mao is respected as the father of modern China, but he is not loved by the people, as some other public Chinese figures are loved.
Surveillance cameras and loud speakers at Tiananmen square.
That evening we attended a gala concert celebrating the 15th anniversary of the state television channel Pheonix TV. The concert was held at the Great Hall of the People, which is where China's legislative body deliberates and votes. It was like going to a concert in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, or the Capitol building in D.C. The concert featured a full symphony orchestra playing alongside an electro/acoustic band, with both a grown-up choir and a children's choir, a dance troupe and Kung Fu troupe, and an assortment of Chinese media personalities, singers, and pop groups.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Jackie Chan. He was one of the featured performers at the Pheonix gala. Now there is a public figure who is without question both loved and respected!
China Travel-Blog part 3
By the time we got to Beijing, the famous food of Chengdu (Sichuan province) had caught up with me. It may have been the raw lobster or it may have been the uncommon amounts of oil and spice, but whatever it was for the next two days my diet was restricted to congee, water, and Chinese medicine, until my digestion was back to normal.
Beijing is home to the main offices of Kabinett, our Chinese distribution company. Li and I were to spend these two days in constant meetings with the staff, clients and sub-distributors, and in interviewing prospective PR companies. We told our story again and again as we led some groups through icewine tastings. We told of the beauty and ideal growing conditions of the Okanagan Valley, of the history, philosophy, and achievements of Summerhill, about the benefits of organic winemaking, the precious wonder of Icewine, and what the letters VQA mean. We realized that all of the staff at Kabinett, as well as eventually the sub-distributors, clients, and ultimately end-consumers, would have to know these stories well, and eventually would have to be able to tell them as well as we could.
After two days of meetings we had a day off. Li and I were invited to Yang Wei and Mr Yuan's home outside the city where the family was celebrating the engagement of their eldest daughter. We went with the two families to a nearby restaurant. The feast featured such delicacies as jellyfish, cow-stomach, and sea cucumber (a slug by any other name is still a slug, despite the appetizing cucurbit euphemism). After lunch Yang Wei and Mr Yuan, along with their four year-old son Rei-Rei, brought Li and me to the Great Wall for the view, sense of history, and obligatory photo-op, and then to dinner at a famous restaurant renowned for their contemporary version of Beijing's traditional Roast Duck. First small plates of duck bits and innards (feet, stomach, liver, and tongue) along with salads and pickles were presented, followed by the main course: two beautifully plump, golden-red birds. These were sliced to bites in front of our eyes, and served alongside rice crepes, crispy hollow sesame buns, and a tray of condiments, sauces, and julienne vegetables. The traditional first bite was dipped in sugar, and then the procedure was to fill the crepes or hollow buns with duck dipped in sauce, vegetables, and condiments, and prepare your own mini wraps and sandwiches. Totally delightful. Joining us for dinner that evening was Mr Yijun Song, trade counsellor for the province of Ontario, as well as a small group of musicians. Mr Yuan had told us last month in Canada that when we came to Beijing he would bring us to see the musicians who played traditional music for dignitaries visiting China, including American presidents. But as they weren't performing anywhere, and as Mr Yuan desired very strongly to keep his word, he brought them to see us instead. We had a private concert in our private dining room with two master musician playing the traditional two stringed Erhu and a Russian Bayan respectively. Well the sound of the Erhu was enough to bring me to tears. The depth and nuance of the articulation, and the ease and fluency of the player were breathtaking. The Bayan player was also a virtuoso, and little Rei-Rei came to bounce on my knee when she struck up a tango. The evening was accompanied by my first taste of home grown Chinese wine, which seemed to be Cabernet Sauvignon, and which was surprisingly acceptable. The vintage was 2001, and although the label instructed drinking it young, at 9 and a half years old the color was still medium purple and the flavours developing nicely.
The last day was strategy sessions with Yang Wei and Mr Yuan. Launching our brand in this new market will be like going fishing, they said. We joked that we ought to go with a boat and a net.
In the end there were a few things I never got used to in China, like the way no one stands in line. You must assert yourself to get to, let's say, the water-cooler. Or the smoking in restaurants. There were times when I'd inhale deeply after a particularly spicy bite, only to be suffocated and overwhelmed by the smoky air. But these things are minor compared with the positive things, chief among them the warmth of Yang Wei, all of her family, her employees, and most everyone we met. Even though wages are lower in China than in Canada, and the cost of living is perhaps almost as high, the people we saw, everywhere we met, seemed as happy. I was warned before I left Canada to only go shopping with Li, as I was likely to pay more if without a translator. In fact, when I wandered out to find an internet cafe, but failing that entered a small print shop and asked to use a computer, not only was I graciously allowed, but my money was refused.
It will require a significant investment to establish our brand here, especially in a burgeoning, not yet established category where we need to educate our potential customers. Myself and other representatives from Summerhill will have to come here multiple times per year, especially in this initial phase. And as we cannot quite afford a trawler, there are no guarantees that our fishing expedition will be successful. But we are fortunate to have great partners, and to have a great batch of stories to tell with a twenty year history. It is a golden (and red) opportunity.
China Travel-Blog Part 2
It seems that Chinese people do not drink very much white wine, and I have been told that they really don't like sparkling wine very much (except for the young people). I find this strange as white and sparkling wines, especially those with a little residual sweetness, pair much better with the often oily and spicy local cuisine than the tannic reds that are embraced here. But Chinese people prefer red over white by the largest margin, and I have been told it is to do with red wine's health giving properties.
In every wine store in Chengdu the shelves are dominated by France. Bordeaux Superiore and the top Chateuxs fill the shelves. There is a little Rioja, a decent selection of Australian reds, and a smattering of Californian, Italian, and German wines, but by and large, France owns this market. Strangely enough, there is virtually no Champagne. The good people of China are just beginning to appreciate wine, and France, especially Bordeaux, has done a marvellous job embedding itself as the top choice. France has a great story to tell filled with rich tradition and heritage, and they have told it well.
The other night, Li and I had dinner in a private dining room atop an upscale wine shop. There was a greater selection of labels in this store than any other I'd seen, with wines from all over Europe and the new world, but still none from Canada, and still only two labels of Champagne (a rose and a blanc de blanc). Leonard Cohen's 'Ten New Songs' played on repeat the whole evening, and a clerk personally attended to each customer. It was really a nice place. At the table with Li and me were a small group of well-to-do friends, including our host Yang Wei, who is the owner of Summerhill's distribution partner in China, and her old classmates, who are a lawyer and a realtor by trade respectively. I was charged with going downstairs to choose three bottles to have with dinner. I wanted to play it somewhat safe by choosing two reds, but mix it up with a white to start, and a sparkling white at that. They stocked a very elegant bottle of Moscato d'Asti, which in my books is a safe bet and always a crowd pleaser. For reds, I consciously avoided Bordeaux, but honoured old France, somewhat selfishly (I love Pinot Noir), with an AC Bourgogne. Third had to be new world, and I found what looked to be a very good bottle of California Zinfandel.
The food was magnificent and strange, and at times masochistically spiced. The Moscato d'Asti was a perfect match. It cut the heat of the mushroom and jellyfish soup, and refreshed the palate after the spicy eel and noodles. A large, ornate blue lobster was presented to the table just as the Asti, too soon, ended. (The lobster was later served raw on ice.) The Pinot Noir, as can happen, disappointed. It took us the rest of the meal to finish the bottle, and, bigger disappointment, we never had the chance to try the Zin.
I thought this all to be an interesting illustration of the state of wine culture in China. The thirst for knowledge and new experience is there, but so is an acceptance of the dominant wisdom (which can be summed up in three words: France, France, and France.) If I may generalize an entire culture, the Chinese people seem to have excellent palates. My table, quite rightly, identified the Pinot Noir as being too tart, with a somewhat bitter aftertaste. So much for the dominant wisdom (not to dismiss all French wines... I'm just sayin'.)
There is great potential for Canadian wine in China, especially icewine. But it will require some special effort. The Canadian industry needs to band together to tell our collective story. Our country is home to the largest icewine production on the planet, with strict standards and international awards to prove our icewine's superiority. To this end, officials from China and Canada have organized with a group of Chinese distribution companies specializing in Canadian wine to tell the story. It is going to take a constant string of tasting seminars and promotional events to reach the tipping point for Canadian icewine, and establish ourselves, as France has done with red wine, as the world's best at what we do. And we better do it quick! Already the market is saturated with 'Ice Wine' (note the space between the words) and 'Iced Wine', and an enterprising group is planting thousands of acres of vines brought from Ontario around a splended lake in a northern Chinese province, with their own, somewhat less strict set of standards, and with the goal of producing icewine cheaper than we can in Canada.
Now off to Beijing.
China Travel-Blog part 1
I started learning mandarin on the plane ride over. 'Wu' means 'I' and 'shu' means 'am', but 'shu' is not as ubiquitous a word as its english equivalent. When asked 'Ni hau ma' ('How are you?' but literally 'You good, right?') the answer is 'Wu hen hau.' (literally 'I very good'.) The abbreviated grammar makes it somewhat easier to learn, as do some phonetic tricks, like the word for 'no' (bu shu) sounding a lot like an english phrase for bovine scat, which also means, in a way, 'no'.
'Ni' is 'you'. 'You' is 'have'. 'Mae you' is 'don't have'. 'Shu' is not only 'am', but also 'yes', hence 'bu shu' is not only 'no', but also 'am not'. 'Wu shu Ezra Cipes Ja na da ren', means 'I am Ezra Cipes, a Canadian'.
Our Chinese distribution partner Yang Wei, who recently bought the rights to distribute our brand here from our friends David and Mandy in Hong Kong, unexpectedly rendevoused with my travel companion and interpreter Li Zhou and me at the Beijing airport, and we all flew together to Chengdu for today's tradeshow. Yang Wei's husband, who I call 'Yuan chien shung', literally 'Mr Dollars' (apparently his real name) and his driver met us at the Chengdu airport, where I breathed my first lungful of the local air, which is thick with pollution.
On the ride to the hotel, we literally bullied our way through traffic, ceaselessly weaving, braking, and accelerating, honking our horn and flashing our brights to let other traffic know we were coming through, and veering onto pedestrian filled by-roads to get around traffic lights. All with no seatbelts. Li leaned over and told me that our car had special military plates, which apparently entitled us to drive like maniacs. When we got to the hotel, the car slalomed two 'no parking' signs to stop right on top of the sidewalk in front of the lobby.
In the room, the bed was hard, and felt like a giant, taut drum. (I woke myself this morning with a fart, which reverberated and echoed through the bed). There is no WiFi in my room, so I am typing this from the hotel lobby, where facebook is mysteriously blocked from the server, and where the search engine is in the oriental pictoral characters.
Now I'm going upstairs to put on my fancy dark blue suit with the little Ja na da ren flag pin (which I wear less than once a year in BC, but which I will don almost everyday while I am here in the People's Republic of China), and go pour some fine organic wine from pristine British Columbia for the good people of Chengdu. I'll let you know how that goes in another post.
(P.S. spellcheck is also in pictoral characters, so please excuse any spelling mistakes!)
Summerhill Wines Enter the U.S.A. for First Time
After 20 years of making internationally acclaimed organic wines in Canada, Summerhill will now be offering a selection of its organic wines featuring label artwork by Canada's national treasure artist, Robert Bateman, in the USA. Stephen Cipes shares his enthusiasm and vision in this introductory video.
Click here to order Summerhill wines if you live in America.
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