We'd like to share this great article with you by Richard Watts and photographer Darren Stone of the Victoria Times Colonist who visited Muse Winery.
For American visitors Robert and Kelly Moore, the small vineyard on the Saanich Peninsula felt a lot like home.
The Moores live in Washington, D.C., but Kelly originally comes from
San Francisco, close to California wine regions like Napa and Sonoma.
So, vineyard tasting rooms are familiar. Besides, the two make sampling
unique, local flavours part of all their vacation experiences.
And in their opinion, the two whites they sampled at Muse Winery in
North Saanich — an Ortega called Poetic Justice and a Pinot Gris called
Legally Blonde — were worth the stop.
“It’s two for two,” said Robert.
The couple is part of a growing agri-tourism movement, where visitors
seek out unique local food and drink to sample. And many, like Kelly
with her California background, come with experienced palates; the wine
has to pass some serious muster.
Muse proprietors Peter and Jane Ellman are not only prepared to discuss
wines, they will also talk about local restaurants, locally caught fish
and locally grown meat and produce. But that talk always turns to the
appropriate wine pairing.
“It always comes back to the wine,” said Peter. “The wine has to be the backbone of the operation.”
Climate, soil combine to make local wines unique among peers
There are about 40 wineries on Vancouver Island, with several
reportedly in the process of being sold. They are part of a local
industry reliably producing wines known for their clean, crisp taste and
light body.
But wine-making on Vancouver Island is still a relatively recent
endeavour, according to the B.C. Wine Institute, originally started in
1990 by the provincial government and a voluntary trade association
since 2006.
According to the institute, one Vancouver Island farmer made wine from
loganberries in the 1920s. Another attempted to create a vineyard near
Duncan 50 years later, but serious modern efforts didn’t begin until the
1980s.
That was when the provincial government financed an agricultural trial
to assess which grape varieties would grow well on the Island. In the
trial, nicknamed “the Duncan Project,” agriculturists grew, monitored
and tested more than 100 varieties of grapes between 1983 and 1990.
Pinot Gris and Ortega were identified as promising and both continue to
be widely grown. But vintners are also now growing reds such as Pinot
Noir and Marechal Foch.
John Schreiner, broadcaster, journalist and author of several books on
wine, including the Wineries of British Columbia and the B.C. Coastal
Wine Tour Guide, said Vancouver Island wines come with a distinct
flavour.
Schreiner said Island wines tend to be quite acidic. Whites are lemony,
or citrus scented and flavoured. Reds tend to be leaner and thinner
when compared to wines from sunnier areas like the Okanagan, where reds
are fuller-bodied.
That doesn’t make either set better or worse, he said. It just means they have a different character.
“If you put the Vancouver Island Pinot Gris [white] alongside the
Okanagan Pinot Gris, you will be able to tell the difference in the two
terroirs instantly,” Schreiner said.
The word “terroir,” from the French word terre, for land, is loosely
defined as a sense of place. It refers to the peculiar geography,
geology and climate that combine to create subtle nuances in food
products such as wine.
“It’s all climate and soil,” said Schreiner, adding the climate on
Vancouver Island can be tough for winemakers — possibly the toughest in
B.C.
For example, the growing season might not end in October, but the rains
certainly arrive. In wet weather, vines suck up water and the juice in
the fruit becomes more diluted.
Worse, damp weather encourages mould and grapes become useless.
Vineyards compensate for the climate by doing things like building
tents early in the spring to give their vines a warmer headstart before
October arrives. They will monitor sugar levels closely, sometimes
testing several times a day to see when it might be the right time to
pick.
Schreiner said the most successful winemakers on Vancouver Island are
the ones who pay close attention to all the details. And the result is a
wine taste all its own.
“Because it can be so difficult there, they really have to stretch
their winemaking, so you get some really interesting wines,” he said.
Giordano Venturi, co-owner with his wife Marilyn of Venturi Schulze
Vineyards in Cobble Hill, recalls a quote from a pioneering Okanagan
winemaker who said it takes at least 10 years to really know a vineyard.
“Well, here I would say it takes at least 25,” said Venturi, who opened
his vineyard on Christmas Eve 1993, making it the third to take root in
the area, after Zanatta and Blue Grouse. Venturi calls those early days
“heroic times.”
It was the first time anyone had made a commercial attempt to grow many
of the grape varieties identified in the Duncan Project.
Things like wire and posts to string up the vines were not widely
available. He and his wife even travelled to the mainland to uproot
their first vines from a vineyard and truck them back to the Island.
“It was pretty tough back then,” Venturi said. “Now all you have to do
is pick up the phone and you get all the varietals and all the root
stock in a few days.”
He has also had to learn through trial and error how to get the most
from his vines. He has to intensively trim and manage the vines’ canopy
of leaves to get the best use of available sun.
He stays away from pesticides and herbicides, But he won’t call his
operation “organic” because he believes the word is overused and
meaningless.
At the first hint of rain in October, everything gets picked as quickly as possible, or else the whole crop can be lost.
Cool temperatures, a short sunny season and looming rain make the vineyard business on Vancouver Island a finicky one.
“But it can be an advantage,” Venturi said. “If you can naturally ripen the vines, it will make for incredible flavour.
“With the cool nights, the grapes will keep their acid up and with the
sugar in good years, we can make some incredible stuff,” he said.
“But you have to take your risks and maximize what little bit of sunshine you have.”
Like the Ellmans of the Muse Winery, Venturi said a big part of his business has been about educating customers.
While people on Vancouver Island are now drinking more wine than when
he started, it can be difficult for a small operation like Venturi’s,
with fewer than 18 acres, to compete with big commercial operations in
places like Chile or Europe. But local wineries can offer an advantage
when it comes to education, he said.
“People can learn to appreciate what’s local and learn to see that what
is produced here locally, [and what] will go best with local food.”
rwatts@timescolonist.com
© Copyright 2013
