You don’t want to develop that snob attitude where you know exactly what's going on [and others don't]. No-one knows what's going on in the wine industry. The vines change every year. The weather changes every year. The customer demands something different every year. EAT: What do you like to drink at home? SO: Manny Ferreira [of Le Gavroche and Senova restaurants] has me hooked on some Portuguese table wines that I'm liking a lot. I don't have that much Californian in my cellar right now. We drink a lot of bubble in the summer - some local, some Cava from Spain. I like to drink it, but I don’t like to make it! [laughs]
Tinhorn Creek winemaker
Sandra Oldfield EAT: Do you think it's important for Okanagan wine makers to drink wines from outside the Valley? To gain some international reference points? SO: It's critical. But it's hard. It's not like you can go to your local liquor store in Oliver and buy any of the wines we've been talking about. When you're in Vancouver you have to pick up an interesting bottle of this or that. You have to work at it, and if you're really busy during the year, it's hard to build your cellar and have a good international palate. It's really something we have to work on. We'll do blind tastings at the winery where we'll put our Pinot Gris in a line-up with eight others from around the world. That kind of tasting is really valuable because you know how our wines are priced (under $20 a bottle for the most part). We really feel our competitors are other [wines] we're on the shelf with, not necessarily the winery across the way selling the same wine for $40. Our competitors are the Chilean wines, the South African wines. Everyone says we're under-priced. We are according to our neighbours, but we aren't according to the world market on the shelf. I've always felt that the BC prices are out of whack, and that they'd start to come down. They just haven't. EAT: Isn't that a product of the economics of wine making in the Valley? SO: It's also due to the fact that BC wine drinkers are so loyal right now to BC wines that they're putting up with the high prices. It's really 'in' now to be drinking BC wine, so they'll do it at any cost. That may wear off at some point. You can get really good wines from Alsace for way less money than what you're paying for a good Riesling or Gewurztraminer from the Okanagan. How long is that loyalty going to last? Are they going to be loyal to our prices forever? I don’t know. EAT: How do you reconcile the art of making wine with the business of running a winery? SO: They're not at all compatible. I think I'm lucky in that I'm both a wine maker and an owner. I know what it's like to be a wine maker who is not an owner, and there's always a feud. The nice way to put it is as a "tension" between the production side and the owner side. The wine making side always wants to make the best wine they can, given unlimited funds (which aren't coming out of the winemakers pocket). There are some wineries who are content to do that, because they never plan to turn a profit. And then there are wineries like ours. Our motto is to make good wine, have fun, and make money while we do it. We do want to be a viable business. I think it's always at odds: the winemaker always wants better, newer, and more expensive, while the owners, if they want to make a profit, are always trying to push back at that. EAT: But you're both. SO: Which I think helps, because I see both sides of it. At other wineries there's an 'us and them' attitude. EAT: Let's talk about the Golden Mile. The Naramata Bench Winery Association has been tremendously successful at branding Naramata -- getting that name on people's lips. What would it take to do something similar in your neighbourhood, to start a Golden Mile Wine Association? Are there any plans for it? SO: There's a South Okanagan Wine Association, from Oliver down to Osoyoos. It started a year ago. It's a loose association of 20 or so members. They're doing their first tasting, as a group, in February. I think what's interesting about the S.O.W.A. is that it's made up of a good cross-section of wineries of different sizes and ages. It's not all a bunch of little tiny wineries, it's got some medium-sized ones, too. And Vincor is in it as well. Admittedly, it's starting slow, but I'm glad to see it. EAT: Let's talk about the future. What is the Okanagan Valley going to look like in 25 years? SO: Well I'm going to be 61, so that's what I'm going to look like [laughs]. There will be more wineries, obviously. A lot of the current wineries won’t be there anymore. EAT: What will the wine taste like? SO: I don’t know. Better, I hope. I'm assuming that with the trend of the last 12 years that they'll be better. I anticipate very soon you'll see more investment from American wineries. Big wineries in California are looking at investing in the Okanagan. I think that will add stability to the region. People who really know what they're doing coming in and learning the viticultural nuances of the land, but also bringing with them pretty big knowledge about how to make good wines. I think that will raise the bar. EAT: What about real estate concerns? SO: I say it every year, that there's only so far you can expand in the Okanagan. There's only so much land. But I get proven wrong every year, because more and more land gets converted to vineyards. That probably shouldn't be. The amount of plantable land available is tiny. The majority of the Okanagan Valley is a lake, and you can't grow grapes on that. You can't go above a certain elevation. A lot of the land is owned by First Nations. A lot of the apple orchards are being ripped out on the valley floor [and replanted with grape vines]. But two bad winters in a row will take care of that, and they'll go back to apple orchards. EAT: But you can understand their motivation. Apple farming is a break-even enterprise. SO: It is. And that's why everyone is re-planting. But from my side of it, I come from a county that used to be diversified, and now is monoculture. There are only two things growing in Sonoma right now, grapes and condos. There used to be apples, squash, berries—a real diversity of agriculture. I miss that, and I love that in the Okanagan.
www.eatmagazine.ca MARCH | APRIL 2008
39