Spring Prep
A vineyard in winter can be stunning, ours was covered with a beautiful blanket of snow for what seemed like months this winter. Thankfully there were many blue-sky days when we caught the snow crystals sparkling like a blanket of calm over the vines. With the snow now melting, we dream of warmer days and the lush rows of summer to come. But in the meantime, there’s winter work to do like pruning and bottling. The first photo below shows a glimpse of the pre-bottling filter prep and the second photo shows the bottling line.
We bottled a handful of wines in mid-February, with the help of student volunteers from the Vinica Education Society.Sending a big shout-out to María José and Sara for helping us out.
Before heading out to the vineyard to prune with our returning vineyard team, we check the health and survival of the fruiting buds and canes. We experienced a significant cold snap in December and are certain that some of the primary fruiting buds were killed. Rickard & Ann have been working through the strategy to keep vines healthy and manage the vineyard with a smaller than normal crop. Below is a simple sketch over a Foch vine. We use images like this to communicate best practices with the team. It doesn't have to be high tech to work.
We recently bottled our natural, organic Amber Pinot Gris, as pictured above. It’s available for pre-order now with a 3-bottle minimum requirement. Shipment is planned for April. Pinot Gris whole clusters and stemmed grapes ferment together with wild yeast in vat, similar to red winemaking. It undergoes wild malolactic conversion, taking sugars and malic acid to complete dryness. We press the must and settle, rather than fining or filtering, and do not use additives, such as sulpites to give you a pure expression of the complete Pinot Gris grape adapted over 20 years to our site. You can read more about orange wines in this Vitis Magazine article.
This past weekend was exciting for a couple of reasons! We are now open on Saturday and Sunday from 12 pm - 5 pm. It was wonderful to welcome guests back to the winery and pour wine for them. This weekend was also Open That Bottle Night. This happens annually on the last Saturday of February. It’s a chance to dig into the depths of the cellar while providing a reason to open a special bottle - not that we ever need a reason! Rickard and I (Jill) opened up a bottle of our 2010 Old Vines Foch Reserve for movie night and it was so good! It has held up beautifully. We also enjoyed a bottle of our 2013 Old Vines Riesling which was stunning. We paired it with baked steelhead trout. We are inspired by the ageability of BC wines. We love to explore our aged wines and have back vintages laid down for our Wine Club members and special offers. We’ll tell you more in future newsletters.
If you’re looking for wines to enjoy now and want to explore our portfolio a bit, you’ll want to check out this 6 bottle mixed-pack that we currently have on offer for $145. These wines are great to enjoy with friends at the ski hill for your weekend away, or alongside your pizza take-out or charcuterie platter. Have a look and order the bundle here.
If you're looking to get your hands on our newly bottled wines, joining our wine club is the best way to ensure you will see those bottles delivered right to your door before they sell out. We hope to welcome you to the winery soon!