Okanagan grapes, French style
In her charming French accent, Penelope Roche tells me how Roche Wines loves using Okanagan grapes to make French-style vintages. “All we do is make elegant wines with little oak and let the fruit speak for itself,” she said.
“It’s French recipe to Okanagan grapes. I miss the limestone soils of France, but Naramata also has amazing soils, our vineyards are organic and the slope orientation and dry climate is just right.”
Such international flair plays through everything Roche does.
Penelope is a 16th-generaton winemaker from France, whose family most recently owned and operated a winery in Bordeaux.
While on a trip to New Zealand in 2005, Penelope met Dylan Roche, a bike mechanic who hails from North Vancouver.
He followed her back to France to continue work as a bike mechanic and learn winemaking, including working on two vintages in one year by following the February-March-April grape harvest in the Southern Hemisphere’s New Zealand with August-SeptemberOctober picking in the Northern Hemisphere’s France.
In 2010, Penelope’s family sold their winery and the couple decided to move to Dylan’s birth province.
They chose Penticton for no other reason than it’s in a winemaking region and the city has a French school for their growing family, which now includes children age nine, seven and one.
Dylan was a mechanic at Bike Barn before moving on to work at Stag’s Hollow and Intersection wineries and Penelope did some vineyard consulting.
They put out 50 cases of 2012-vintage Roche Chardonnay made from grapes they bought from vinAmite Cellars in Oliver.
In 2014, they bought eight acres at 60 Upper Bench
Rd. South on the Naramata Bench, where the winery is today.
And they’ve since leased another 15 acres in Naramata.
Production has hit 4,000 cases a year and the winery’s capacity is about 8,000.
However, Penelope doesn’t see the winery getting much bigger.
“We want to remain family-owned-and-operated and hands on,” she said. “It’s the best quality control.” Over the winter, Roche’s tasting room and wine shop is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and its closed the week of Christmas.
It currently has five wines available.
The 2016 Pinot Gris ($29) is not the usual bland white wine made from this varietal.
The Roche version is an Alsatian-style Pinot Gris with texture from a bit of aging in neutral French oak barrels and layering of pear, lemon and vanilla aromas and flavours.
You’ll get a beautiful apricot-papaya-lemon-and-hazelnut profile in the 2016 Chardonnay ($30).
The Austrian-developed Zweigelt may be used for the 2017 Rose ($20), but the results are French elegant with hints of strawberry, raspberry, pink grapefruit and spring blooms.
The 2016 Pinot Noir ($25) is classic Pinot with fresh and light cherry and cranberry and a whiff of earth.
The 2015 Pinot Noir ($35) is bolder and riper with blackberry-and-forest structure.
Holiday open house
Be the first to taste Township 7’s 2016 NBO ($34) and Reserve 7 reds at the Naramata winery’s holiday open house today and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In addition to the seasonal mulled wine, local cheese and chocolate offerings, you can try the new-release NBO, which stands for North Bench Oliver, which is where the grapes came for this masculine blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
Right off the bat, it’s black currant that mingles nicely with cedar, caramel and sage.
While at the winery you can also ask to enjoy some of the other winter releases with tasting fees waived in favour of donations to the Penticton SPCA.
So, get some 2017 Becker Vineyard Reserve Chardonnay ($27) in your glass for an apple-pineap- ple-peach-and-vanilla-inspired treat.
The 2017 Pinot Noir ($34) is a delicate balance of red cherry, raspberry and vineyard soil.
If you want more robust, the 2016 Cabernet Franc ($34) delivers black cherry, carmel, pepper and eucalyptus.
There are also 1.5-litre magnum bottles and 12, six and two-bottle gift-wrapped packs available at the open house.
Stag’s Hollow reds
Okanagan Falls’ Stag’s Hollow Winery has released two reds it’s touting as ideal Christmas dinner wines as well as perfect gifts for the discerning winer drinker on your gift list.
The 2016 Stag’s Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir ($22) is a fruit-forward Pinot with classic cherry and raspberry backed by a bit of earthy aromas and flavours.
Light enough for turkey, yet rich enough to go along with all the butter and gravy in the meal as well.
The 2016 Amalia Vineyard Syrah ($26) is a more delicate interpretation of the varietal, so it will pair nicely with both light and dark turkey meat.
Expect a blackberry-violet-andpepper profile.
We’ll explore more Christmas-dinner-friendly wines in next week’s column.
Time for Time
Stroll around with glass of wine in one hand and an appetizer in the other while shopping at Time Winery’s holiday open house Tuesday from 4 to 6:30 p.m.
The downtown Penticton winery is offering a 15 per cent discount on all wine purchases over the two-and-a-half hours