Hester Creek Crush Party - Passion in a Bottle!

Last year, I went to the first Hester Creek Crush Party at the winery. It was a brilliant time! This past weekend, I was once again invited to this fabulous event. Everything about the day was enjoyable and very well put together.

We arrived about a half hour early (my wife wanted a good choice of parking so we could easily lug our wine home) and wandered into the wine shop. We were offered a tasting but when we declined, saying that we wanted to save ourselves for the party, the wine shop associate delivered three large glasses of ice water while we waited outside on the sun drenched patio. Nice touch!

A half hour later, we walked into the party, greeted by a couple of people including a friendly guy who I would later find out was the manager. In our tasting wine glass, were 2 coupons for glasses of wine and a sample card for their special release, the Garland, commemorating 50 years.

We walked into the courtyard where the party was taking place and, after getting a pour of their rosé, wandered over to the charcuterie section. There were different cheeses, breads, pepperoni, chilled clams, tomato tapenade, rillette, pickles, olives and host of other wonderful savoury foods, all prepared by Rod Bitters, the mastermind behind Raudz in Kelowna as well as Terrafina at Hester Creek.

We sat down at one of the many tables and enjoyed our food in the shade when my daughter noticed the hot food at the other side of the courtyard. Rod, himself, was one of the people serving up a great selection of food including a wonderful pork sausage, beef meatballs, and coleslaw, all which could be made into a slider. There was also pasta, salad and pizza - nicely prepared and very tasty. It was worth being in the club for the food alone!

There was a fairly strong breeze blowing and when I had returned with my food, I had discovered that my quarter glass of rosé had blown over, splashing my daughter's fancy dress! Luckily, it was a dark dress so was well disguised!

By the way, we are "Loyalty" members - all we had to do was make an initial purchase of a case of wine - and now we are in the club! No fees, no yearly commitment to buy wine (although we manage to purchase some every year), and no unexpected deliveries. Plus, you generate points with each purchase which can be used to buy more wine! It's the best wine club deal I've seen in the Okanagan.

At that point, we decided to go over to the Terra Unica section. Terra Unica wines are only available to wine club members (another good reason to be in their wine club) and we tried two whites that were delicious. The first was a 2016 Riesling - an off dry, flavourful wine with tastes of honey, apricot and pear while the second was a 2017 Semillon - refreshingly dry, it had flavours of apple and peach as well as something more substantial. It would be perfect with a nice fish like grilled halibut or even foie gras.

The first event that we had signed up for was the Cellar Tour. The winemaker, Rob Summers, was great the previous year where his passion for wine was so apparent. This year, Rob again led the tour where we escaped the hot sun into the coolness of the winery cellar.

The first wine we tried was a 2017 Old VinesTrebbiano ($24) - an Italian grape that is usually used for blending. Hester Creek is the only winery in the Okanagan to make Trebbiano and the vines that they grow it from are 50 years old. The wine was very pale and the aroma of pears was subtle. The taste was fruity and light - this would make a wonderful patio sipper.  I commented to my daughter that I could drink this one all day long (and got an eye roll in return).

The other wine that I really liked - and I mean really liked - was their 2015 Block 3 Reserve Cabernet Franc ($29). This wine was spectacular - it had everything that I wanted in a Cab Franc. There was a boldness of taste that the last Cab Franc I had was definitely lacking. It was all there - red fruits, plums, strawberry, black currant, and wonderful blueberries and lots of tannins to give this wine some excellent structure.

Rob definitely talked about the wine but what I enjoyed last year, as well as this year, was the stories he told - and he told a bunch. My favourite was when someone asked about how the winery dealt with animals that affected the grapes like birds (they use sound cannons - other than that, there isn't significant loss) and bears.

He first talked about how bears will eat a few grapes from one vine and then, 'squirrel!", will see the nice red grape of the next vine and eat a few there - and so on until they have eaten some of every plant in the row, compromising all of those grapes!

With Rob Summers, the extremely personable winemaker of Hester Creek

Before Rob was winemaker, the common practice was to shoot the bears - not a difficult feat because once the bear had finished eating, it would lay down and go to sleep in the vineyard, knowing there were plenty of grapes for the next meal. Rob found this to be rather cruel so he spend $10,000 to build a fence around his winery - and got the other two wineries nearby to do the same - and now the bears are not a big problem- most of the time. The occasional bear does wander down the main road (where there is no fence) and, if they get in, will be trapped in the vineyard with all those beautiful grapes! Then it's time to play Shoo, Bear!

After our excellent visit,we tried the Garland, which is their special commemorative once-in-a-lifetime wine as the winery is actually 50 years old! A blend of Cab, Cab Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec, the Garland ($60 - named after the owner, I believe) is a wonderful Bordeaux/Meritage style blend.  I'm not sure where you can get it other than the winery, but it is certainly worth tracking down. The taste I had was wonderfully complex but this wine probably needs to age for five years. I purchased a bottle for the cellar - let's see how long I can keep my hands of it for.

I had a full glass of the Cab Franc (did I mention that I really liked this wine?) with my second ticket and then we headed off for our second tour, the Vineyard Tour.

This tour was held by the president, Mark Sheridan. The previous tour had shown a passionate winemaker in Rob Summers and this tour showed how Mark was equally passionate about growing grapes. While we sipped on a tasty 2017 Pinot Gris ($18), he explained the workings of the vineyard, and answered many questions from the group.

Being from Australia, where water has always been a scarce resource, he said that he was initially shocked by the early irrigation practices in the Okanagan where vineyards would basically use sprinklers to water the vines - an ineffective way to do this. Now, with global warming a reality, he has implemented much more eco-friendly practices such as drip irrigation which are effective but also conserve water.

Another topic he talked about was the state of the Okanagan wine industry. I will try to be accurate in my take away although, by this point, I had had a bit of wine and was pleasantly baking in the sun. He said that the great variety of grapes grown in the Okanagan is one of its strengths - that there are so many micro climates and soils types that we can successfully grow different grapes, as long as we are growing the right grape for the terroir.

In the vineyard with Mark Sheridan, president of Hester Creek

The second thing was that the Okanagan wine prices have to be competitive with the world prices for similar wine. He felt that there were wineries in the Okanagan (no, he didn't say who) that charge too much - some, way too much - for their wines, especially when you compare the wines to somewhere like Spain or Argentina. He pointed to Hester Creek's signature blend of Cab, Cab France and Merlot called the Judge.  It has sold for $45 for the past five years - and he said that it can compete with any other $45 bottle of wine from anywhere else in the world. That's both passion and confidence!

After listening to Rob and Mark, I had a whole new appreciation for Hester Creek. What a passionate team! Hunger satiated and feeling good, even if a little baked, we headed for the wine store to stock up on this year's fine release of wines. A marvellous day!

Ageing Wine - History in the Bottle

As I write this, we've had a wonderful Christmas Eve meal of tourtière and have enjoyed a few different wines over the past couple of days. Christmas is a very special time for us, as in many families, as our adult kids come home, and I tend to bring out some of the special wines to celebrate the occasion.

I was very fortunate to meet by daughter's new dog - christened Nebbiolo! Can you tell that my daughter and her new husband are both in the wine industry? Nebbi is a real cutie and has added to our enjoyment of the holidays.

This holiday, I brought up a few of the wines that we had in the cellar. By cellar, I mean the storage locker in the underground garage which is not ideal but remains a fairly constant temperature with slow fluctuations and is definitely cooler than anywhere else. I rummaged thought the nine boxes that we have stacked up behind the Christmas decorations and took each and every bottle out, assessed whether I thought it was a potential candidate, and put aside eight or nine bottles.

There are a lot of opinions about ageing. My WSET course book stated that most wines do not benefit from ageing - in fact, 99% of wines should be drunk within a couple of years of buying the bottle. Interestingly, many of the Okanagan wineries do, in fact, suggest that ageing will be a great benefit to the wine that you are drinking. Winefolly states that most wines are released within two years of being picked as grapes and should be drunk within six months of being purchased.

I know that when I made wine in my basement from juice so many years ago, I found that having the wine sit in the cellar for twelve to eighteen months after bottling helped a lot - but that isn't really ageing - that just got the wine to that 'release' state. I might have aged one or two bottles an additional year but it was a rare occurrence.

When wine is bought from the store after its release, there is definitely a taste of fruit that is enjoyable and that many people desire from their wine. As a wine ages, the fruit flavour dissipates but there are benefits such as lesser tannins, reduced acidity, and an overall smoothness of flavour.

I had first hand experience with three different wines, all from the Okanagan. They were not all the same age and were not aged the same amount of time but this will hopefully give you some insight on ageing.

The first wine that we had was a Pinot Noir from the Hatch in West Kelowna. We bought it in October of 2016 as part of our first wine club purchase. We had originally signed up for the mixed case but then we spotted something unusual. The Hatch had three different Pinot Noir clones as part of their red wine case. We did a tasting of the wines in the case and immediately changed our order.

The different Pinot Noirs all had the number of the clone such as 767 and 777. The 777 clone was amazing! We absolutely loved it and decided that it would make a great candidate for ageing. It tasted of red fruits and had a complexity that seemed to really call out for a few years in the cellar. Looking at the tasting sheet that accompanied the case, it was suggested that these clones would age until 2019 and beyond.

Then, last summer, I was at the Hatch and I spoke to one of the hatchlings about the clones. He said that the clones should actually be consumed my the end of this year! Thus, it ended up on the special wine list last night.

I clearly remembered the wonderful taste of the 777 a year and a half ago. When I tasted the aged wine last night, I was quite disappointed. It had lost its distinctive fruitiness and really didn't have a lot of character to make up for this. It was rather bland and dull and did not show the expressiveness of the younger version.

It was an unusually blah wine as the Hatch usually has amazing wines. Did I wait too late? Would it have benefitted from even more time in the cellar? Was my storage at fault? Or was it a wine that should have been drunk young? I do not know!

The second wine, also from last night, was a 2013 Hester Creek Terra Unica Cabernet Sauvignon purchased last spring at the Hester Creek Crush Pad Party. I bought five bottles at the time and  I still have 3 bottles of the stuff and thought I'd try one to see how it was coming along.

Hester Creek has a great wine club - you don't have to commit to x bottles every year - you simply purchase your wine and get points for each dollar spend which you can use to buy wines at a later date. You also get to attend special functions like the Crush Pad Party

This wine tasted wonderful! We had it with some juicy steaks from the barbecue and the pairing was great. The tannins had settled down somewhat from the spring and there was a smoothness that was very tasty. It was a wonderful wine that had aged somewhat after a fairly short amount of time. I will definitely continue to age this one and try another bottle next Christmas! Kudos to you, Hester Creek!

The last one was the feature wine for tonight. Way back in (I think) 2012, we went to Black Hills and had a fabulous wine tasting. There were three of us and we split a premium wine tasting (it was around $20 each and they were fine with sharing). The host was called a "Wine Evangelist" and did an awesome job of doing the tasting, He talked about the history of the winery and the wines, which you would expect, but also talked about his own personal sommelier experiences all over the world which really added to the tasting. During that visit, we decided to buy a bottle of their flagship wine, Nota Bene, and save it for a special occasion.

What better special occasion then the marriage of my daughter and my new son-in-law? Even though the wedding was in September, we decided that it just worked better to have our drink today. We decanted the wine and let it breathe for an hour and then poured. 

It was a fantastic wine! It had an earthiness and a richness that was amazing! I don't recall exactly what the Nota Bene tasted like five years ago but I was very please with how it had matured over time. This was truly a wine meant to be aged! I only wish that I had bought more bottles as I think this would continue to improve with age. How long? I'm not sure but I don't think it is at its ageing apex just yet. 

So, after trying three different wines that had been aged to varying degrees, there was one miss, one hit and one that was out of the ballpark. Not a bad ways to kick off the holidays!

Wineland at Hester Creek! Okanagan Spring Festival Part 1

This weekend, I was in the Okanagan as my wife and I visited our daughter (the one that works at Meadow Vista...)

It was a great visit - especially because of Saturday - but we'll get there in a moment.

On Friday, we went out for a nice little dinner at Bacaro Kitchen and Drink. They do great tapas, share plates and even meals and we had a nice assortment of chef's board charcuterie, cauliflower curry, prosciutto wrapped portobello mushrooms, Korean pulled pork sliders and duck confit spring rolls. The spring rolls were particularly amazing and the charcuterie is always an excellent choice.

With all of those different kinds of food, it was a challenge to select a wine for everyone. We ended up ordering a Viognier from the Okanagan which turned out to be just about perfect! It was a 2015 TH Wines (from Summerland) Viognier (their 2016 is $25 but I would guess the 2015 is only available in restaurants now).  It paired well with the spicy sliders as well as the rich spring rolls and had enough zip to it to meet the challenge of the meats on the charcuterie board.

Friday night, however, was just a warm up to Saturday.

Our first stop was Hester Creek. Last visit to the Okanagan, we ended up buying a case of their wine which made us a member of their Wine Club. That's it - no commitment, you just have to buy a case of wine.

Now,  as members, we were invited to their 1st annual Crush Pad BBQ party! We thought, why not, and booked a spot at the BBQ as well as a cellar tour. All free, mind you!

When we arrived, it was rather nice - a bit cloudy but definitely warm enough for a BBQ.

There was a fairly good turn out and we were a bit dazzled by all of the options. There were tents and tables set up in the courtyard and a live performer who did some killer covers of tunes by famous oldies such as James Taylor and the Beatles.

We were given a wine glass and two tickets each and headed off to the wine table to get a glass of wine. There was a choice of a Trebbiano white, a Cabernet Franc and a Character Red. I chose the Character for the first glass and it was a nice mix of Syrah, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot. Ah, but I needed to pair it with something....

Why not the giant table of charcuterie?  There were crackers, toasts, bread, sausages, olives cheese, a tone of sliced meats and much more. It was the most amazing charcuterie display - basically a buffet - and was all excellent quality. It also paired well with the Character.

After the charcuterie, we crossed the courtyard to the BBQ station. The guy beyond the grill was Rod Butters of RauDZ in Kelowna and now runs Terrafina, the Hester Creek restaurant. He was cooking up some mussels, cheese flatbread, wild boar meatballs, and chorizo. It's a barbecue, so I wasn't expecting perfection but I found the mussels a bit bland. On the other hand, the meatballs and chorizo sausage were outstanding - and also paired well with the Character.

I was feeling that this was like a Wine version of Disneyland with food, wine, more food, more wine, music and sunshine. It was the Happiest Wine Place on Earth!

Next ride - the Library tastings!

The Library wines were all part of the Terra Unica series and were only available to Club member on the day of the BBQ. There was a Gerwürtztraminer (floral, nice wine), a Petit-Verdot/Malbec (good wine, fairly complex) and a Cabernet Sauvignon. I fell in love with the Cabernet Sauvignon - it had great complexity, medium tannins, and a great, one finish. I ended up buying 5 bottles ($32.95 each) and will drink a couple now and age the rest.

As if things couldn't get better, it was time for our Cellar Tour. This was guided by the two winemakers, Rob Summers and Mark Hopley. Incidentally, Rob was the person who gave us our wineglass and tickets at the beginning of the day!

We received a tour of the cellar including the giant tanks and the many, many barrels of wine. Then we gathered around one area of the cellar and began a vertical tasting.

Here come da' Judge!

A vertical tasting is when you taste the same wine by the same winery but with different years. The wine we were tasting was the signature Hester Creek wine, the Judge.

Cheers!

We started off with the 2011. It was good but actually tasted a bit young or at least not stunning. The second one was a 2013 and it was amazing. It actually tasted like it was older than the first one! It had a roundness and smoothness that the 2011 didn't have. I ended up buying a bottle of that vintage ($45). Interestingly, the 2011 was $65 but I thought it was not nearly as good. Finally, we tasted a 2014 that was going to be bottled in August. It was definitely fruit forward and a bit young but it was easy to see that it had great potential.

After the Cellar Tour, I had my second glass - a Cabernet Franc. I really enjoy Hester Creek's Cab Franc but unfortunately I couldn't drink the whole glass as I had to drive. Spitting and dumping wine was something I did all day as it is the only way to make it through a number of wineries.

We had another winery to visit so, after I grabbed a cracker and chunk of cheese,  we went to the wine shop, made our purchases, and headed on down the Golden Mile to our next destination, Road 13.

My wife and I wandering the vineyards of Hester Creek.

A Fine Rosé

My wife and I went on a lovely trip with our two (at the time) teenage girls to Europe for a grand tour of six weeks in the summer of 2005. It was a great tour, with the first three weeks in the UK visiting friends and relatives - I had completed a year long teacher exchange in 2001 and this part of the trip provided closure.

The second half was a house exchange with a family in Nîmes, France. We had a wonderful time while we stayed there from the first night where we spent the evening with our exchange family (it's funny how much my French improved as I drank more wine) to a day at the Chateauneuf du Pape wine festival to seeing a multitude of ancient bridges, aqueducts, buildings and statues to enjoying the wonderful food and wine in Southern France.

At this point in our lives, we had started to drink better - not just the crappy stuff I used to make in my basement. But we were a bit snooty about white wine. "Sorry, we're red wiiiine drinkers (you poor ignorant twit)!"

Nîmes was really hot. Like 40 degrees Celsius hot. Like over 100 degrees Fahrenheit hot.

Have you ever tried to drink a bold red wine in the heat? Forget it.

Drinking a fine rosé on the patio of our exchange home.

So we figured out what everyone else did. They drank rosé, so we drank rosé.

We unabashedly bought wine at the hypermarché (supermarket) and it was really, really good! We sipped on our chilled rosé in the evening on the patio of our exchange house while we ate the most wonderful food - little lamb savoury pastries, bull sausage, fresh, hot baguettes, a French cake with wonderful filling and sugar bits stuck on the outside, foie gras (yes, I felt bad for the goose but it was overwhelmingly delicious), and a host of other foods. And with it all, rosé and more rosé!

After that wonderful summer, we decided that rosé would be our summer drink. Since then, I have gotten over my prejudice against white wine but I still have a fondness for rosé.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we were in the Okanagan. We stopped at Hester Creek and had a wonderful wine tasting with Sarah.She poured a nice range of wines and the one that we liked the most was their rosé. We also like Sarah as she was particularly friendly, knowledgeable and welcoming.

When it came time to choose a wine to accompany a turkey at our house for our family dinner, I thought about the rose and served it.

The 2016 rosé (currently on sale at BC liquor stores for $15.99) is made from Cabernet Franc, a grape that I don't usually associate with rosé. It was very drinkable - still fairly dry but also quite fruity. It was crisp and clean on the palate and paired well with the turkey. It would pair even more favourably with a hot day on the deck....