Jan Nelson grew up in Oliver, but left to travel and experience the world as a young man way back in 1992. He spent many years working in Japan and worked several others jobs, including selling wine in Italy. Nelson has recently returned home after accepting the position as the new sales and marketing manager for Tinhorn Creek Winery. Nelson said he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family and that simply wasn’t going to happen in Japan. So he started looking for work, and it just so happened Tinhorn Creek was hiring. (Trevor Nichols photo)
After initially setting off from the Okanagan Valley in 1992, working for the Japanese government, surviving the tech bubble collapse and selling wine in Italy (among other things), Jan Nelson has finally returned home.
The Oliver native moved from the bustle of Tokyo to return to the relative calm of the South Okanagan late last year, to begin work as Tinhorn Creek Vineyards’ new Sales and Marketing Manager.
“It’s refreshing, but all of the sudden you have six or seven hours of the day to fill,” he said recently, referring to the nearly endless work week expected of him in Japan.
Sitting in his bare-walled office at Tinhorn Creek, Nelson wore a stylish wool sweater and jeans. He answered questions about the last two decades of his life without hesitation, occasionally gesturing for emphasis.
He explained how Japan has been a major part of his life, ever since it captivated him when he won a student exchange there in the late 1990s.
Nelson said the stark difference between that country and Oliver struck him so profoundly as a 15-year-old boy he never really shook it. So he studied Japanese in university and by 1998 was working for the Japanese government helping with international exchange programs.
Before long he was recruited by a high tech firm, where he was tasked with taking talent into ballooning companies.
But that job started “right the year the bubble burst,” and within months he was clearing out whole departments instead of bringing people into them.
When his cushy tech job was made redundant, Nelson headed back to the Okanagan for the winter, where he decided to study winemaking at Okanagan College.
Nelson grew up on a farm and by the early 2000s was seeing more and more grapes planted every year. His decision to study winemaking was partly to pragmatically take advantage of a growing trend in the Okanagan and partly because he loved drinking the stuff.
“I think I was a little naive when I got into it. I had a romantic vision of what selling wine was like, but what I didn’t realize is that so much of the wine business is moving boxes from A to B,” he said with a chuckle.
He decided to open up his own company importing B.C. wine to Japan.
Nelson said his response from winemakers were less than encouraging.
“They said ‘it’s interesting that you want to do this. You don’t have any experience, why do you think you would be successful in this?’”
It didn’t take him long to figure out they were right, so he went to work for a small operation in Washington, doing “basically what I wanted to do with someone else’s money.”
He recalls carrying around topographical maps of Washington to explain to Japanese sommeliers why his product was worth buying.
That was his foot in the door of the industry and where he has been working ever since. But it wasn’t until 11 months ago, when his daughter was born, that he eventually turned his thoughts back to his childhood home.
Nelson said he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family and that simply wasn’t going to happen in Japan. So he started looking for work, and it just so happened Tinhorn Creek was hiring
Now, he said, he has returned to the South Okanagan with his infant daughter, exactly like his parents did when he was still in diapers.
For Nelson, who is now in charge of getting Tinhorn Creek wines into people’s hands, it’s an exciting time to be working in Oliver.
He said the B.C. wine industry isn’t yet tied down to expectations built up over centuries of winemaking history and that means people have the desire and freedom to try anything and everything.
“There’s a lot of different places where when you go there’s an expectation of what’s done there,” he explained. “If you’re a winemaker in Burgundy, you make Pinot Noir or you make Chardonnay. If you want to make Sangiovese there, you can, but it’s an uphill battle the whole time. Everybody is locked into that image, that way of doing things, that flavour, that expectation. We don’t have that.”
In B.C., the industry has only been active for about 25 years and that means winemakers are still, to a degree, figuring things out, he said.
It’s exciting to be a part of, he said, and to be a small part of the changes that will no doubt be coming.
He looks forward to raising his profile – and his daughter – in the beautiful South Okanagan for many years to come.
TREVOR NICHOLS
Regional Reporter
