What’s your motto? Make it happen!
Okanagan Crush Pad
5 Perfect Wines for Summer
Okanagan Crush Pad founder Christine Coletta shares her top picks. YOUR TOP SUMMER ROSÉ Mirabel Rosé of Pinot Noir ($33). Delicate, beautiful fruit flavours; guava and melon with a citrus twist.
the groundbreaker
Christine Coletta
Concrete eggs
Lionel Trudel
Founder, Okanagan Crush Pad, Kelowna, B.C.
It’s easy to think that wine regions are forces of nature, evolving on their own, constantly maturing and getting better, but the truth is, if it weren’t for dynamic people pushing the envelope, they would remain stagnant and uninteresting, like Switzerland. Exhibit A in this theorem: the dynamic Christine Coletta. In her previous incarnation, she founded Coletta and Associates, the dominant wine branding and marketing company in the province and the key force in changing public perception of B.C. wine from something considered overpriced and underwhelming into a commodity that the buying public could get excited about. But it was when she took Teddy Roosevelt’s advice and “got into the arena” of actually making wine that we saw just how much of a dynamo we had on our collective hands. With husband Steve Lornie, she founded Okanagan Crush Pad, which in short
order became the pre-eminent custom crush facility, letting those who dream of making wine but have no winery in on the game. And if that wasn’t enough, she started her own brands—Haywire and then Narrative—and then populated them with an international roster of experts to set them on a course to making some of the region’s best wine. First up was hiring Kiwi winemaker Matt Dumayne (FOTY 2017), engaging legendary Italian wine consultant Alberto Antonini and then, for good measure, adding Chile’s Pedro Parra, the world’s foremost vineyard soil expert. And the team began to radically move the Okanagan wine conversation forward: organic, concrete eggs, natural wine, wild ferments are all just a few areas that OCP has been at the forefront of. Their recent purchase of the 50-acre Seacrest Mountain Vineyard—bringing their total to 80 acres—shows that this force of nature moves only in one direction—forward.—Neal McLennan
THE WINE TO GIFT TO YOUR BEST FRIEND Coolshanagh Chardonnay ($34.50). Fresh lemon and lime with a very subtle hint of butterscotch. It’s an expression of north Naramata and demonstrates how the Okanagan can stand on the world stage. YOUR GO-TO ALL-AROUND SUMMER WINE Meinklang Grüner Veltliner (from $26). This is a beautiful natural Demeter-certified wine from Austria. BRING THIS TO THE NEXT PATIO PARTY Loveblock Pinot Gris (from $27). Lots of similarities between what Erica and Kim are doing in New Zealand and our own efforts in the Okanagan, and I love comparing. THE SPECIAL-OCCASION WINE Our newly released Haywire Vintage Bub 2013 ($35) sparkling wine. It was quietly hidden away in our cellar in hopes that we would forget about it. Five years later, the result is a toastier, creamier version of the original release. Worth the wait. westernliving.ca / j u ly / a u g u s t
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