Event celebrates the science of wine
We all enjoy traditional winemaker dinners and walk-around tastings, but there’s a pretty cool local wine event on the horizon that offers so much more.
Uncorked: A Celebration of the Science of Wine is going down at Science World at Telus World of Science next Thursday (November 14), and it’s jam-packed with fun programming featuring a quintet of British Columbia’s best wineries.
Those five wineries—Mission Hill Family Estate, CedarCreek Estate Winery, CheckMate Artisanal Winery, Martin’s Lane Winery, and Road 13 Vineyards—may all be owned by the modern B.C. wine industry’s pioneering Anthony von Mandl, but they are all run and expressed as unique entities, each with its own focus and character.
The main component is a walkaround affair with tasting stations and small bites from both the Terrace Restaurant at Mission Hill and CedarCreek’s new (and incredible) Home Block restaurant. Beyond that, there are Q & A sessions with each of the winemakers in attendance, plus seminars on everything from the science of blending wine to aging wine to technology to organic farming. There will be a sparkling-wine lounge featuring Mission Hill’s EXhilaration brut rosé, a silent auction, and much more, with proceeds going to Science World’s On the Road education program.
It’ll be a fantastic opportunity to get to know each of the wineries better.
Let’s run through ’em, with a recommendation from each for those who want to brush up beforehand or play a little at-home tasting version.
I’d venture that Mission Hill Family Estate needs no introduction to anyone reading this column.
Established in 1981, the West Kelowna winery has been turning heads for decades, particularly since winning the best-Chardonnay trophy in 1994 at London’s International Wine & Spirit Competition. With vineyards up and down the Okanagan Valley, Mission Hill makes a variety of styles in many tiers, from its Estate Series to its Legacy Collection, which is home to the jewel in the crown: the Bordeaux-inspired red blend Oculus. Mission Hill Family Estate Reserve Pinot Gris 2018 ($21.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) is a well-crafted homage to B.C.’s most-planted white variety, with honeyed peaches and apricots snug against a little nougat, with amiable, mouthwatering acidity.
CedarCreek Estate Winery in Kelowna was founded in 1986 by Ross Fitzpatrick; it was sold by his family to von Mandl in 2014. The winery continues to excel with cool-climate wine styles, with winemaker Taylor
Whelan’s Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Noir especially counted among the Okanagan Valley’s best. CedarCreek Block 3 Riesling 2018 ($29.99, cedarcreek.bc.ca/) shimmers with citrus, Granny Smith apples, and pink grapefruit, with a perfect kiss of sweetness on the lengthy finish.
Winemaker Phil McGahan of Oliver’s CheckMate Artisanal Winery keeps his focus on premium Chardonnay and Merlot coming from local vines upwards of 40 years old. The attention to detail is impeccable: all fruit is hand-sorted, wildfermented, unfined, and unfiltered, each wine a well-built tribute to this land. CheckMate Artisanal Winery Opening Gambit Merlot 2014 ($85, checkmatewinery.com/) is my favourite B.C. Merlot ever, full stop. Aromatics of potpourri and dried blueberries lead to a palate awash with dark cherry, black licorice, espresso,
IChor Leoni, the Vancouver men’s chorus that recently won the prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, is a genuine phenomenon—but that’s not why it’s shifting its annual Remembrance Day and Christmas concerts into the Orpheum.
“To be perfectly honest, the real reason is that St. Andrew’s–Wesley [United Church], our normal venue, is under the knife,” explains the group’s conductor and artistic director, Erick Lichte, in a telephone interview from his East Vancouver home. “I don’t know if you’ve been past it recently, but they’re doing massive, massive renovations on it, so we’re going to be out of there for about two seasons, and this is the first season of that. We do intend to go back to St. Andrew’s—it definitely feels like home for us—but when we knew we weren’t going to be there, we had a major sit-down as an organization, going, ‘Well, where do we go?’ And because of the size of audiences that we get, the Orpheum was our best choice.”
The move from a 1,200-seat venue to one more than twice as large has drawbacks—Lichte says Chor Leoni will miss the friendly acoustics of the West End church—but it offers opportunities as well. “We have a large space,” says Lichte, “so what’s going to create real impact? That was really what the thinking was: ‘Let’s bring in percussion.’ And having made that decision, ‘What are we going to do?’
“The first two stops on my list,” he continues, “were Samuel Barber’s A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map— which is not just one of the great pieces of male choral literature, but one of the great pieces of vocal music in general—and Veljo Tormis’s Varjele, Jumala, soasta, which is where we get the name for the concert. It sets an ancient Finnish prayer, and its title translates to ‘God Protect Us From War’.”
The text for Barber’s piece is a Stephen Spender poem about the brutality of the Spanish Civil War.
and mint, with perfectly integrated tannins and extraordinary finesse.
Back up in Kelowna, Martin’s Lane Winery offers the same level of quality and precision, here solely focused on Riesling and Pinot Noir, handled mighty well by winemaker Shane Munn. The guy comes to the Valley via New Zealand, Burgundy, and Barolo, but these wines are quintessentially Okanagan. Charming as all getout, Martin’s Lane Naramata Ranch Vineyard Pinot Noir 2014 ($100, martinslanewinery.com/) is, for my money (or, ideally, someone else’s), a stunning example of the possibilities of this variety in that region. Layers upon layers of balsamic, clove, blackberry, white truffle, sage, and toasty oak are all in sync, making for a harmonious bottle that will lie down a half-dozen years, easy.
“He always, always, always had just such a fine ear for language and how to set that in extraordinary ways,” Lichte notes. The spellbinding Varjele, Jumala, soasta, in turn, will match Stopwatch for intensity, while allowing guest percussionist Katie Rife a chance to justify Chor Leoni’s move to a larger space.
“It has a couple of moments where the tam-tam [a large gong] crescendoes to quadruple forte, and the instruction is ‘drown out the sound of the choir,’” Lichte explains. “So you don’t want to program it in a smaller place, ’cause you might hurt people!”
He’s joking, but turns entirely serious when discussing our collective need to meditate on the horrors of war that Tormis’s score so viscerally illustrates.
“That moment really obliterates the humanness of the choir,” he points out, “and no recording can do it justice. How could it without blowing everybody’s speakers up? You just have to hear it live.”
Chor Leoni presents Protect Us From War at West Vancouver United Church at 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday (November 9 and 10), and at the Orpheum at 4 p.m. on Monday (November 11).
Finally, Road 13 Vineyards’ stewardship moved to von Mandl in late 2018; however, former family coproprietor Joe Luckhurst is still at the helm as general manager. During the past few years, the Oliver winery has tightened its focus on Rhône varieties like Syrah, Viognier, Marsanne, and Roussanne, working with fruit coming from both the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys. They have a well-deserved full trophy cabinet for wines made from these grapes, but for me a perennial favourite is their sparkling Chenin Blanc. The current edition, Road 13 Vineyards Sparkling Chenin Blanc 2015 ($39.99, road13vineyards.com/), is laden with Asian pear, marmalade, and brioche and comes from a home block of vines that were planted in 1968; that’s plenty of time to build character.
Because of the size of audiences that we get, the Orpheum was our best choice.
– Erick Lichte