I like talking about wine. I can and do talk about it all day long sometimes. Most of the time, I’m lucky enough to get payed to do that.
Stephen Wyse from the boutique winery Young & Wyse in Osoyoos, BC, likes to talk about wine too. When I got to talk to him in his wine shop recently, the time went by quickly and the result is this podcast which pushes 45 minutes. It’s a great conversation with a guy who knows wine. He also has some great advice for anyone who is feeling a little burned out with their job.
We’ve featured Young & Wyse before – exactly 2 years ago in fact – when Amber, AJ, and I tasted their Shiraz from their first vintage in 2008. Their winery has been on our radar ever since with unique blended wines like the “Amber” (our Amber bought one, of course) and the Black Label aka the “33,30,24,13″. Now with new vintagea of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and a cozy wine shop just outside of town, this is one winery that should be on your must-visit list.
The grapes have been harvested for the season and the winemakers and cellar staff are busy pressing and fermenting. We talk about what goes on in the wineries at harvest time and how those grapes make it into your bottle. Join us with a great bottle of Road 13′s Jackpot Chardonnay!
The grand opening of Hester Creek’s new wine shop and winery took place today in the sun, and then rain, and then sun again near the end.
Let me say just say this – if you visited Hester Creek before, even recently, it will be worth visiting again soon. The wine shop is spacious, the tasting bar is large and brightly lit and they’ve even paved the parking lot!
The tasting room was packed when I arrived, most likely due to the rain that had everyone claiming space inside rather than lounge outside or mill about on the patio. Unfortunately, the first thing that I could smell upon entering the wine shop was a good dose of Calvin Klein or similar blend of fragrance, which almost entirely masked the wonderful scents from the hors d’oeuvres created by Chef Heinz Schmid. (If you don’t already know the effects of wearing too much perfume in general, please don’t douse yourself in anything smelly before going to a wine-related event…)
After a Pinot Gris and some appies, I started to take in the sights. The large main room, with the curvascious tasting bar as a center piece, has many rooms and spaces adjacent to it that will be useful for functions. Off to the right is a private dining room with an entrance to a small, viewable barrel cellar. The dinning room also has its own private entrance and patio outside. The main room has a large, partially covered patio as well which will easily handle the summer (or wine festival) crowds that will do doubt be descending on Hester Creek in the future. There is a viewable demonstration kitchen just to the right of the tasting bar and probably a whole lot of different rooms that I didn’t get the chance to see on this occasion. Perhaps soon.
I’m glad to see that Hester Creek is on the up and up. It was only about six years ago when it would not have been possible to say that. I’m glad to see that this winery will be around for many more years to come. Cheers!
In our third installment, we talk about the two sides of the valley just south of Oliver, the Wine Capitol of Canada. On the west side, the Golden Mile with its history and diversity, and on the east side – the Black Sage bench, with its distinctive terroir. Join us for a tasting of Quinta Ferreira’s Syrah 2007 that you won’t want to miss.
Lots of wine here and the best thing is that it’s so easy to get there. It’s right on the highway and there’s tons of easy parking, especially for those of you traveling in RV’s or with a trailor. Their parking lot looks like it can accomodate at least 4 (probably more) full-sized RV’s or pickups with 5th wheel trailors without backing up or any crazy parking lot tricks. It’s on the west side of Highway 97 and is on the right as you head south from the town of Oliver.
The other great thing about this winery is that there are lots of different styles of wine here for every palate. Crisp pinot Grigio’s (called Mamma Mia) and big, dark, full-bodied reds (check out Maximus). All of that is surrounded by a beautiful large wine shop that makes you forget that the highway is only steps away.
In our second podcast, we talk about the various regions of BC Okanagan Valley. As you drive south on Highway 97 from north to south, we’ll tell you about some of the wineries that you’ll see along the way. Taste along with us as we check out the Amicitia White 2008 from Dunham and Froese Estate Winery.
<Every now and then we get to visit wineries and we’d like to share some of that experience with you. There are tons of things written about (and virtual tours online from) the big wineries in the area (Mission Hill, Peller, Summerhill, Vincor) and so our focus will be on the smaller, artisanal wineries that might not be on everyone’s tour schedule, but we think are worth a visit on your next trip. A large percentage of these wineries are located between Summerland/Naramata and Osoyoos. Hopefully, this will give you a hand in helping to decide which ones to visit on your next trip.>
The Twisted Tree Winery has always intrigued me for some reason. Ever since I learned (probably from a John Schreiner book) that they were planting all kinds of grape varieties that had never at that point been tried in the Okanagan – tempranillo, tannat, marsanne and roussanne and maybe more. The tannat got me especially because I’d really taken a liking to the wines from Madiran, France that use that grape (sometimes blended with cabernet franc) to make their wines.
The Twisted Tree winery is located on Route 3 heading east out of Osoyoos. The winery is on the left after the road turns for the first time just outside of town. (Heads up for y’all who are on motorcycles – they have a loose gravel parking lot.) The wine shop does not face the road and you have to drive around the whole building to park. The reason for this becomes apparent when you step into the wine shop and take in the gorgeous view of the valley behind the tasting bar. High ceilings and large windows give this wine shop a lot of space and more importantly, lots of light to appreciate the wine in the glass.
Twisted Tree’s first vintage was 2005 with a modest collection of reds and whites. In 2007, the viognier-roussanne blend was introduced for the first time. The 2008 is out now and it was the first wine that Stephanie poured for me on my visit there this past August. If you are interested in a white wine with lots of peach, flowers, and honey aromas and flavours, and that transitions to lush tropical fruits on the beautifully long and lingering finish, then YOU MUST TRY THIS WINE!! It was a most beautiful wine that will surely sell quickly.
2007 is also the current inaugural vintage of their Tempranillo, a grape that I am seeking out these days after trying D’Angelo’s Tempranillo earlier in the summer. To me, this tempranillo had pleasant cocoa, earth, red fruit and floral aromas with more of the same on the palate and a medium finish. It was delish.
It was also an interesting comparison between the two growing regions of Naramata and Osoyoos. Assuming that D’Angelo’s tempranillo is grown in Naramata (there’s no real way of telling for sure where anyone grows anything in this valley at the moment), there are noticeable differences between the two wines. The Twisted Tree temp is darker and has more weight to it with more fruit and chocolate flavours while the D’Angelo is more earthy and complex. Different wine making styles? Different oak treatment? Different terroir? Probably all of the above. Very interesting though and something that I hope to investigate more with different varietals on a future podcast sometime.
My only beef about this wine is that it is priced a little aggressively - $28 (their most expensive bottle) for a varietal that most people don’t really know about seems a bit high to me (especially compared with D’Angelo’s at $15). Regardless, I bought mine and plan to enjoy it around Christmas. Cheers!
We mostly hear about wines being over-priced. Sticker shock when browsing the shelves, especially for BC wines, is very common. This wine will still shock you, but in a much better way – it is only $15.00 and it delivers.
The color of this wine is relatively light, more akin to a pinot noir. It’s nose suggests ripe cherries, bricks and earth. The palate has lots of red fruit, leather, earth, and vanilla, but nothing dominates – it is pleasantly balanced and smooth. Drink it on its own or as a perfect match with pork (pork tenderloin on the grill perhaps) or chicken.
Tempranillo, the grape, is more often associated with Spain and hasn’t really been seen very much in BC. Inniskilin Okanagan on the Golden Mile, south of Oliver, and Twisted Tree in Osoyoos are the only other wineries that I know of currently that grow it. Inniskillin makes an icewine with theirs while Twisted Tree has a dry red, which I’m itching to try. Their offerening (at $28) is almost double the price of D’Angelo’s, which makes this dry wine a pretty sweet deal. Cheers!
… are all being worked on as we speak. We will be recording the pilot of our podcast soon and will be starting with more reviews and opinions on all things related to the BC wine industry very soon. There’s a lot to say about it at the moment and I’m itching to get started.
There’s a lot going on in the industry right now and it seems like it’s a pivotal time in the history of our wine region. There are new wineries coming online every year, new varieties and styles, and new ideas about what the Okanagan and BC wines are capable of achieving. The most interesting thing about it at this point however, is that most of that growth has happened in a bit of a bubble. And with the current changing economic picture, what will happen to the industry and how it has been built / regulated / sustained? The wine industry in BC has been sheltered so far (especially regarding the world oversupply of wine, although it also seems that other regions are not taking that problem seriously either) and we have been content with editorials that continually call into the question the use of the cork over the screw cap as the closure of choice, as if that will solve the problem of wine quality once and for all.
Honestly, there must be more pressing concerns to write about in magazine and newspaper wine columns. And by the time screw caps do become completely accepted (which I argue will never fully happen) the bottle itself will be a thing of the past in favour of the Tetra-Pak at the middle to lower price points. (Cork and glass bottles will become a luxury for those who can afford it.) Oil changes everything, even wine. As soon as the cost of producing and transporting a glass bottle (even with a screw cap) becomes more expensive than a current $8 bottle of wine, Tertra-Pak or other similar packaging will be the only economical way. Glass bottles will be only for the expensive good juice and the whole debate about screw caps will be a quaint little question in some future version of Trivial Pursuit.
Of course, it is easier to dedicate editorial space to easy targets like screw caps and not to wine quality. Most tasting notes are usually full of pleasant descriptors about what each wine offers without any indication of the quality of the wine. Is it good? What does 89 points mean? Is it really that much better than 88 points? Is it good? What about the crap? Surely there must be some crappy wines, why aren’t they reviewed anywhere in the reviews. Oh, maybe it’s because they’ve payed for the full page advertisement on page 3? Things that make you go, “Hmmm…”
And then there’s VQA…
So there are only a few things with which to get started. For our podcasts, we’ll be tasting a couple of wines each episode and discussing a theme with our panel of local wine lovers. Please tell your friends who are interested in BC wine to get ready for a new generation of wine discussion. Cheers!
I like talking about wine. I can and do talk about it all day long sometimes. Most of the time, I’m lucky enough to get payed to do that.
