MARITIME `COOL' COWICHAN VALLEY EMERGES AS SPECIAL PLACE FOR WINE
Blue Grouse Estate Winery and Vineyard has grown grapes in the Cowichan Valley for more than 25 years. Some varieties are lesser-known to mainstream wine drinkers, like Bacchus, Black Muscat, Ortega, Müller-thurgau, Pearl of Csaba and Siegerrebe. In contrast, Pinot Gris and latecomers Pinot Noir and soon Chardonnay are destined to lead Vancouver Island into the next century and beyond.
The property was selected in 1977 as an ideal site to trial Vitis vinifera grapes by pioneering grower John Harper. Harper's experimental vineyard featured 150 grape varieties, some still in production today. By 1988 the Kiltz Family purchased the vineyard and released the first Blue Grouse wines in 1990. Fast forward to 2011 and the arrival of the Brunner family, Paul, his wife Christina and daughter Paula, and the story of this magical site is only beginning.
The Cowichan Valley is Canada's only `cool' maritime Mediterranean climate with enough growing-degree days to support several vinifera varieties. So which grapes will put Cowichan on the same plane as Central Otago, New Zealand, Willamette Valley, Oregon, the Yarra Valley, South Australia or more local Okanagan Falls, East Kelowna, Carrs Landing or the Naramata Bench? At Blue Grouse, the answer is easy Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and it's reflected in all the plans and recent plantings moving forward.
Cowichan Valley is a special place with a real story about its dirt.
It all began when a sizable rocky land mass slammed into the west coast 100 million years ago. Owner Paul Brunner, a reformed mining engineer trying to make amends for his earlier sins, speaks about the big collision as the event that led to the birth of Vancouver Island. The land immediately began to erode for some 50-100 million years spreading sediment everywhere. Next, the weight of two-kilometre thick glaciers forced the lower portions of the land back under the Salish Sea. Finally, after the big melt, the `Nanaimo sediments' and marine shells sprung back above sea level, forming the soils of Duncan and the area, not to mention the classic definition of terroir waiting to be mined by grapes.
Global warming continues to assist wineries on the eastern side of Vancouver Island to fully ripen their grapes with a high level of natural acidity. At Blue Grouse, the addition of first-rate viticulture practices under John Abbot has quietly taken the property organic, soon to be certified by the gold standard, European-based ECOCERT.
Enter winemaker Baily Williamson a transplanted chef whose creativity in the kitchen has followed him to the winery. Williamson has become a Pinot Noir crusader and will soon be a Chardonnay maker. He will, however, continue to expound upon the charm and electricity of Vancouver Island Pinot Gris and his beloved Ortega.
The newest vineyard's plantings are Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, all of which speak to the future of Blue Grouse and how it will utilize its precious terroir. Paula Brunner represents the next generation at Blue Grouse. If everything works out, the family will be famous for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and a method traditional sparkling wine made with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. The family has doubled its vines on the site to 35 acres and will double that number over the next three years as they further expand their vineyard lands across the street on the journey to create cru Vancouver Island wines.
Ambitious, you bet, but no one ever made it to the top by not dreaming. There is quiet, measured confidence at Blue Grouse and all over the Cowichan; like the once submerged valley, it is ready to o new heights, well above the waterline.
Like all Vancouver Island producers, it is best to visit the property to buy wine or at the very least join the wine club if you want access to the best wines. You will find all the details at bluegrouse.ca.
July 2022 marks the Brunner family's first decade of wine growing at Blue Grouse, and they couldn't be happier to welcome visitors back to the winery.