Justin Hall, winemaker at Nk’Mip Cellars, speaks about two new Meritage wines released on National Indigenous Peoples Day last Thursday. At left is Okanagan artist Linda Anderson, whose painting of a raven adorns the label on the bottles. (Richard McGuire photo)

National Indigenous Peoples Day at Nk’Mip Cellars was a chance to celebrate local First Nations art, music, food and of course wine.

The event at the winery next to the Spirit Ridge resort on Thursday, June 21 was used to introduce two Meritage wines – a red and a white.

Adorning the labels on the bottles is an image of a raven painted by artist Linda Anderson, of the Osoyoos Indian Band, who was also present along with two acrylic paintings.

The other painting, Flicker Dreams, was used on previously released Meritage wines. Meritage is the Canadian classification for Bordeaux-style wines.

“My inspiration is from the Okanagan wildlife,” Anderson said in an interview as the two paintings bookended four bottles of the wine, which is known as Mer’r’iym, which is the Okanagan (Syilx) word for “marriage.”

“Also the pictographs for me are a connection to my ancestors,” she said referring to symbols incorporated into her painting that might have been painted onto rocks thousands of years ago.

While the raven is easily identifiable, the flicker is more dreamy, or abstract, but Anderson points to the colour of the feathers, the grey-blue on the face and a spot that is a characteristic of the male bird.

“I love ravens,” she said, when asked about the painting used on the new bottles. “To me they are really spiritual. I just started painting the ravens in the last couple of years, but I’ve always been photographing them. I just feel a connection with any corvids – ravens, flickers, crows – I just love them.”

These birds, just like other animals, appear in stories of the Okanagan people, she said.

Anderson, who said she’s been painting all her life, sells her art at the Nk’Mip Cellars winery store, including paintings she does right onto feathers.

She also paints other animal subjects such as bears and wolves.

“Once in a while I do people, but not very often,” she said.

After introductions, the event kicked off with drumming by Dyawen Louis, an interpreter at Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, who played the Okanagan Song, which he described as being like his people’s anthem.

“We sing the song at the beginning of our events and gatherings,” he said, “to let the land know who we are, to let the animals know who we are and to let the people know who we are.”

The Josie Tyabji, of Arterra Wines Canada, spoke of the partnership between her company and the Osoyoos Indian Band that is behind Nk’Mip Cellars.

“Everything that we do across the whole resort is about celebrating the culture, telling the stories and celebrating a language and all of the things that the Osoyoos Indian Band have shared on this land for generations,” she said.

The Mer’r’iym name of the wines, she said refers to the marriage of a selection of the best vintages of their lots.

Winemaker Justin Hall followed with the story of the wines, as well as his own story of being a confused youth who started as a “cellar slave” and knew within four days what he wanted to do for a career.

The red Meritage is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc, he said.

The winery doesn’t use Petit Verdot, a variety commonly used in classic Bordeaux blends, because of difficulty ripening it at the vineyard sites in the valley.

The white Meritage this year is 67 per cent Sauvignon Blanc and 33 per cent Semillon.

The Semillon adds body, he said, while the Sauvignon Blanc gives it a sort of fresh, grassy character, with some tropical aromatics.

The first vintage of the red was in 2008 and the white followed in 2016 – both using the Flicker Dreams label.

The white vintages are mostly grown at the Sam Baptiste vineyard just north of Oliver where the slightly cooler weather and different soil tends to be more suited to growing whites.

The reds are mostly grown around Osoyoos, where the hotter temperatures and clay soils are more suited to growing juicy, ripe reds.

Hall’s own story is one of a young man discovering his dream and then pursuing it.

As a youth, he worked in a variety of OIB businesses – construction, the campground, the golf course – and he also travelled to Montreal, where he lived for a few years.

But he tired of seasonal work, and approached the chief, who advised him to speak with Randy Picton, now the senior winemaker. That was almost 15 years ago.

He soon realized he wanted to pursue winemaking as a career, and he enrolled in Okanagan College, even though they were reluctant to let him start his program in the middle of the year.

Now 37, Hall was promoted last year from assistant winemaker to winemaker. The new position means he’s in charge of the white wines, while Picton continues to oversee the reds.

It’s also meant he’s taken on many more responsibilities for planning and ordering.

Picton, he said has been a mentor to him.

He notes that the winemaking team of Picton, himself and Aaron Crey, the cellar supervisor, is unusual for the time the three men have worked together.

“I don’t know any winemaking team that’s been so tight that long together,” he said, adding that Picton recently observed the team is just starting to hit its best strides.

“It’s not like we’ve made terrible wines in the past,” he quickly adds. “We made very good wines. But it’s just refining it and growing it and learning.”

And the numerous prestigious international awards they’ve won is proof that it’s working.

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times

Nk’Mip Cellars marked National Indigenous Peoples Day last Thursday by unveiling two new wines — a white and a red Meritage, or Bordeaux-style wine. The label on the bottles uses a raven image (right) by artist Linda Anderson of the Osoyoos Indian Band. An earlier wine release used another of Anderson’s paintings, an abstract representing another bird, the flicker. Both paintings draw from local First Nations culture, both in their portrayal of birds and the use of pictographs. (Richard McGuire photo)

Derek Bryson, marketing manager at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, played guitar at Nk’Mip Cellars’ celebration last Thursday of National Indigenous Peoples Day. (Richard McGuire photo)

Dyawen Louis, an interpreter with the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, beats a drum as he sings the Okanagan Song, an anthem of local First Nations. His performance was part of ceremonies celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day at Nk’Mip Cellars Winery last Thursday. (Richard McGuire photo)