This year has seen exceptionally good weather for wine production and local winemakers are hoping it stays that way.
“As long as we can hold out another three weeks, I think it will be sensational,” said Chris Tolley, owner of Moon Curser Vineyards. “In 2009 we had minus eight around Thanksgiving. That’s the kind of thing that would not be welcome.”
Tim Martiniuk, president of the Oliver Osoyoos Winery Association and general manager at Stoneboat Vineyards agrees.
“This year’s harvest has been going really, really well,” said Martiniuk. “My dad has been growing grapes here since 1983 and he figures this is one of the nicest if not the nicest season he has seen in all the 31 years he’s been growing grapes.”
Martiniuk also remembers with caution the early cold snap in 2009.
“Nature always throws curveballs at you,” said Martiniuk. “You don’t count your chickens. When everything is off the vines and in tanks, then you can breathe a sigh of relief, but there’s always potential for something to come down the line.”
This year has also seen many varieties harvested about two weeks earlier than usual.
Severine Pinte, the winemaker at LaStella Winery in Osoyoos and Le Vieux Pin near Oliver said this is the earliest season in the five harvests since she’s been in Canada. Picking started on Sept. 1.
With different grapes maturing at different times, some wineries are just starting out and for others the harvest is well underway.
“For LaStella I’d say we are about 75 per cent done and for Le Vieux Pin we are maybe 25 per cent done,” said Pinte.
The difference is that LaStella grows lots of Merlot, which is one of the earlier grapes. Le Vieux Pin grows a lot of Syrah, which has not yet been picked.
For Moon Curser, which doesn’t have any Merlot this year, the harvest is only about 10 per cent done, said Tolley.
“We have a lot of late varieties, so it’s looking really good, but we haven’t done that much,” he said.
Syrah is the variety that Moon Curser does the most of and it comes later in the season than Merlot and some of the whites.
Martiniuk said about 20 per cent of Stoneboat’s crop is off the vine.
This year’s weather has been exceptional, the winemakers agree.
“We had a pretty good spring and then a very nice summer,” said Tolley. “All we need is an adequate fall and it will be a really good vintage.”
Martiniuk pointed to the lack of precipitation with the exception of several days of rain last week. “The heat has been consistent,” he said. “Warm and dry from June onwards.”
The weather has also helped to produce good flavours this year, he said.
“Especially with the red varieties you’re going to see some really great flavours develop and a lot of nice big bold reds coming out this year,” said Martiniuk.
The recent rain slowed things down and was enough to cause some vines to pull up more water, knocking back the sugar levels, he said. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because sometimes sugar levels go too high before flavour develops.
“You don’t really want to pick unless you’ve got that flavour,” he said. “This balances things out a little bit.”
Pinte said the hot summer made her afraid that the vines would be too stressed, but with proper irrigation the vines were brought to a good balance and the grapes matured well.
“What we have in the cellar is really good,” she said. “It’s very balanced and has a very nice flavour and was not too high in alcohol, which is very good.”
Pinte hopes that the next few weeks continue to be decent weather in the 20s with some sunshine.
As Tolley points out, if temperatures drop below zero for a protracted period, the vines lose their leaves and nothing ripens after that.
As the harvest progresses, winemakers have more leeway if the weather does turn bad, Martiniuk said.
Richard McGuire
Special to the Chronicle
