Day two also started with a quick trip to JoJo’s for an espressos and then it was off to my first appointment with Black Hills.

Before I get into my visit at Black Hills, let me say that this day was a powerful day. I know I’m getting a little tired (no more than 4 hours of sleep each of the last 4 nights), but so much of the underlying culture of the Okanagan wine industry starting to come to the forefront of my consciousness today. I’m not sure when the process started but I’m certain that it began yesterday with Day 1 (however I am a slow learner).

I did far more listening today, although Pam and Donna at Road 13 may disagree, and what I heard was not a coming of age but a sense that it will be a long time before coming of age will happen. Now I assume that coming of age has the adornments of formal AVA’s similar in nature to that of California, France, Italy or Spain.

I also heard a current that will, hopefully, be what people say about the ‘pioneers’ of our homegrown industry, in 100 years. I heard the rumblings of rebellion against the barometers that the BC Wine industry has been measured. I heard and tasted the foundations of the future statement “are you getting some Okanagan out of that?” For this I’m so very moved.

I arrived at Black Hills and it was raining and miserable but what made the sunshine come out as the greeting I got from Pauline. I walked down the flight of gravel stairs that follow the gentle slope of the vineyards, and arrived at the front door. I walked in and Pauline greeted me with a warming smile and a simple question- “would you like to taste our 2010 Viognier while we walk and talk about the Black Hills story?” Now that is civilized! Wine has always been a glue that formed friendships and in that brief moment I became real friends with Black Hills.

As many of you agents reading this know, I have had my ‘doubts’ about Viognier, and not just BC Viognier but global. I still think that big gloppy, syrupy expressions will derail the potential of Viognier. What I want is a critical mass on the shelves that will allow us to showcase the inner beauty and delicacy of this grape. I love the delicate floral aromas that seems to glide on a breeze of apricot, melon, pear and mineral flavours. The delicate nuances are what capture ones attention much like the gentle lilt of a perfume. I don’t want to be hit over the head with every wine, and this Viognier was wonderfully, right up my alley.

From that first pour we chatted about Black Hills, its history and its future. They will be opening a new tasting room and wine shop (I can’t remember the date of opening- sorry), they will be releasing a new brand that will hit the shelves under $20. Did you know that there are 436 owners of Black Hills? It is a fairly unique ownership arrangement and it intrigued me… primarily because they get first cut and some of the smaller quantity wines.

I left Black Hills enthused and contemplating how to make them a bigger part of our premium offering. I think I have the answer, but I will reveal it after I have completely thought it through.

I had a few extra minutes before my tasting at Stoneboat so I sent a tweet to Christina Ferreria. A few weeks back Shaylene from our Duncan store called to ask about the Quinta Ferreria Chardonnay. It seems that she had received some requests, given that I had a few minutes and the winery was 5 minutes down the road I thought I would try to make the connection. Happily Christina tweeted back that her Dad, John, would be happy to sample me “just pull up and honk the horn and he will come down from the house.” John has a gigantic smile that at first glance is only matched by the size of his heart. We chatted for a few minutes and I immediately felt at home. I wish I could have stayed longer.

I packed up and made my way back down the road to meet up with Lanny Martiniuk at Stoneboat Vineyards. I relish these moments. I first had met Lanny back around 2003 (I may have the exact year wrong). His idea for his winery and brand was just getting started. I’m not sure how it all happened but I was invited to a meeting with Lanny, Eric Von Krosigk (Winemaker at Summerhill) and the team at Suburbia (an advertising and graphics house in Victoria). My most vivid memory of that meeting was Lanny throwing his hands up in the air and yelled “You don’t need technology to tell if a vine needs water… Just get out of the damn office and look at the plant!” I knew at that moment that the Okanagan Wine Industry was destined to make great strides because of independent minds like Lanny, Harry Mcwatters, Sandy Oldfield, Lawrence Herder, and Mick & Pam Luckhurst, who are not afraid to put their opinion out there and stand by it. Catalysts.

The Wine Shop at Stoneboat reflects Lanny’s personality perfectly; it is understated and focussed on the wines and a quality of life that transcends product, labels and tanks.

For those of you that don’t know Stoneboat is what we refer to as a Pinot House. They focus on wines from the Pinot family. At stoneboat they grow and offer Pinot Blanc (personal fave) which is now blended into their Chorus wine, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Pinotage. This is not an uncommon approach in places like Oregon, Burgundy, even the Central Coast of California, but it is unique in the South Okanagan. When I asked Lanny why I unearthed some great treats and pearls of wisdom. Did you know that Lanny and his sone Jay, recent graduate from Food Sciences at UBC, have isolated a strain of yeast that they are pretty sure is unique to Stoneboat? If the final DNA tests confirm this, that is a huge step in releasing true ‘terroir’.

A little while ago Lanny & Jay had a consultant from France who have travelled the world analyzing soils. As they walker the property the consultant (whose name I forget) stopped and in his tracks and bent down to look a rock. The rock was not unique as the vineyard is filled with similar rocks. In fact the combination of Schiste soils, drainage and these particular rocks can only be found, as I understand, on Lanny’s property and on his neighbours immediately adjacent to him. What made the consultant stop, bend down, pick up the rock and, yes, lick it, was what is covering the rock- Calcium. He proclaimed that he had only come across these rocks in specific areas of Burgundy, France and nowhere else in the world. Uh can you say Terroir again! If you want to see these rocks they have a few examples in the wine shop.

Eventually we got to tasting some of the barrel samples. I have to say that I loved the Pinot Blanc and the Pinot Gris. I can see making a bigger play for both this year as those who really appreciate a fine Pinot Gris must buy at least one bottle of this to savour and enjoy. It will be priced in the mid-$20′s and so maybe not be an everyday wine, but it is not meant to be. I think they only produce a few hundred cases and it will be a real treat.

We moved to the Pinot Noir and Lanny showed his prowess once again. He warned me. He said the “Pinot is mad. We disturbed it by doing some filtering, and it is pissed at us.” I love that intuition as it seems to that Mother Nature and Lanny Martiniuk have great long conversations. Lanny continued “I see a lot of people fighting with Mother Nature, trying to control her, I don’t. If you listen the wine will tell you what it wants to do and you will never win fighting Mother Nature.”

I apologize for my following statement as, like at said at the top, we are getting closer to being able to say with full meaning that it tastes like the Okanagan. At present, and hopefully not much longer, I still feel compelled to use other regions as references. The Pinot Noir to me is Burgundy meets Central Coast California. Again a treat and for those that are Pinot-philes, and those that are not, it is necessary to include this wine in any tasting of BC Pinots.

We then moved on to the barrel room for a barrel sample of some Pinotage. A full description of the story of Lanny’s Pinotage I will have to save for a later post at it is a good one…. but a long one. In the meantime I was in for probably the best quote I have heard in a long time and the quote that I will end of my visit to Stoneboat with. I asked Lanny “why be a Pinot house?” His answer will stick with me forever when I think of Pinot Noir. He said that he doesn’t like to drink big bodied wines, he likes lighter bodied wines that show more acidity and elegance. Ready… here comes the quote… “Pinot Noir is like dancing with your wife; unforgiving and when you make a mistake or disturb her rythym, she will get mad at you. Merlot and big bodied wines are like dancing with a whore.”

On to Adrian and Cassini Cellars…

Adrian is a very interesting fellow. He is pretty straightforward and we got right down to business. I liked that. We took a few minutes to go over his background and how he got here. Turns out that he was born in Romania with Italian Roots and came to Vancouver about 20 years ago with his family. He got into the fitness equipment business and was quite successful. So successful that he bought a lovely lavender farm immediately off Route 97 and started to design his vision for the wineries building and the wines that he would eventually make.

I wanted to meet with Adrian because his Pinot Noir was one of the great wines that I almost missed last year. What I know about myself is that I’m distractable and prone to overworking myself. Adrian’s rep for the Island, Benjamin, has the uncanny ability to call me up to taste Cassini just when I was feeling over burdened and overwhelmed. One day in August he came to the office and said you have to try this. Fortunately I was leaving the next day for a week of vacation. I took the bottle home and after getting everything packed up I poured myself a glass.

Sometimes, who am I kidding, often I make snap decisions completely based on the hedonistic appeal of a wine. The Cassini 2010 Red Carpet Pinot Noir was no different. I tasted it and went WOW! “No way! Have I been an idiot this long? Don’t answer that?” After a couple of glasses I had to text Benjamin “is he juicing this up with anything?” Response “no 100% Pinot Noir.” I had not tasted a Pinot Noir priced under $20 from anywhere, let alone BC, that had generous fruit, fine acidity and tannin, a full mid-palate and a silky, sensuous palate , like this wine had. “Can I get 50 cases this week?” was my next text.

“How many cases are there?” Benjamin replied  a few minutes later with “sure and don’t worry there are at least a thousand cases.” All of a sudden I felt as if I had a huge part of my Thanksgiving and Christmas plans done.

Over the coming months I asked Benjamin when I saw him how the stocks were holding out. The answer was always “fine, no problem.”

“So I’m guaranteed 60 cases for Christmas right?” I would ask. “Yup… don’t worry”

In early November I sent a text to Benjamin “Can I get the 60 cases now?” no response. So I would ask again. No response. Finally I texted “Hello! anyone there?”

I received a phone call a few minutes later “I’m really sorry, I’m not sure what happened, but there is no more stock.”

“What… expletive, expletive, expletive…” and so the conversation went on. If you are an LRS operation you will know the feeling. You know the system innately provides for insecurity, so, perhaps wrongly, you latch on to promises of stock. You count on them. When they go sideways you have to drop everything your doing to fit that hole that was just created. I have to say that I fielded at least 200 calls asking for the much touted Pinot Noir as “Sounds perfect with Christmas dinner!”

So there I was with a gigantic hole in our Christmas plans…. but that is not the story here. The story is I was finally able to tell the supplier of the wine my frustrations. Adrian, to his credit, simply said “Yup, sorry, we have to get better at that and we will. So would you like to taste some wine?”

I tasted almost every tank and there are a number of them that I found impressive. Each were straightforward and seemed to have little smirk on the finish… just like Adrian. He asked me a great question “what do you think that is worth?” I have to say that that is the first time any supplier has ever asked me that and I loved it. It seemed that in that moment I had met someone who was willing to step across the table and ask about what our customers needed. More of the stuff that will give the Okanagan its eternal identity… I think so.

On to Road 13…

I was excited about my visit here. We haven’t done a lot with Road 13 in the past, and not because of a quality question, but because of representation question. I drove up the road and was greeted by my first indication as to how Pam and Mick approach their wines. As you approach the winery you see a huge stone slab stuck upright in the ground proudly displaying the wineries name Road 13. What is said to me is “the buck stops here.” Not unexpectedly this statement could be one used to describe the vision and approach that Mick and Pam have as they move forward.

I walked into the tasting room to the sound of a great creeking as the huge wooden, almost medieval door, opened. I think Pam was a little taken aback by it, but I honestly thought it was great. It was like entering a different world where the world I left had been washed off me and it was time to immerse myself in Road 13nia.

Pam came forth to introduce herself again to me (we had met for the first time the previous weekend at EatDrinkTweet) and it was good to see her smiling face again. She then introduced me to Mick, her husband, who immediately reminded me of Sam Elliot and had the handshake to prove it.

We exchanged some small talk while another fellow, Tony, came in and got Mick to sign some paperwork. Turns out I witnessed them buying some more planted vineyard land. They had just bought a 5 acre piece that sits at the base of the Tinhorn Creek Winery and in-between Tinhorn and Gehringer Brothers.

From there we went to the very impressive tasting room that overlooks the South Okanagan. As we spoke and got ready to taste, I found out that is was this neck of the Okanagan that Pam and I shared a vision of. There is an ‘it’ to some places in the world that makes you feel you could, even want to, live there. This part of the Okanagan has the ‘it’.

We were joined by Donna, the GM and started to taste through a number of the wines. The wines are very well crafted and if you really want an idea as to how good they are get yourself a bottle of the Stemwinder White 2010. This is a blended white and shows the quality of the vineyard and the winemaking for carrying the vineyard to the glass. There isn’t much left, so if you can find it do so and have it with some Wild BC Salmon, Spot Prawns, and free range chicken dishes, but savour it, you will be glad you did.

We turned to the reds and I got my first ever taste of the Pinot Noir. As I sit here are write this I am still enjoying it. In fact, to get the real soul of the wine, leave it open for an entire day and it will be so rich, textured, elegant and seductive that you will not be able to stop at one glass.

A description of Road 13 would not be complete with tasting a wine that I found absolutely breathtaking. The 2009 Syrah. If you love Cote Rotie, Gigondas or Cornas from the Rhone you are genetically required to seek out this wine, buy a case, and come back to it at least once every year to 18 months. I guarantee you that once  you take in the smoky charcuterie and spice, you will be forever enthrolled and happy you have case and very reticent to share it with others. It will be a wine that only bring out for those that are a part of your soul.

Perhaps the most defining moment came near the end. We tasted the 2009 Rockpile. A very nice wine that got my blood to boil and showed the fiercely independent character of Pam and Donna not to mention a huge sense of justice.

Turns out that a tiny producer in Ontario was using the name Rockpile. When the winemaker JM contacted the guy in Ontario, as they were acquaintances, ‘it did not turn out well’ so Pam did what anyone who had trademarked a name and invested thousands in promoting it, would do, she had her lawyer send and Cease and Desist order. Well to make a long story short this guy in Ontario was able to prove that he had used the name earlier insuring that Pam and Mick’s trademark had absolutely no value.

Anyway they are faced with having to rename Rockpile by the end of December 2012, and so we set about brainstorming to come up with names. I’m certain that if you have an idea or two they would be welcome.

With this it was time to go and perpare for Day III which sees me start at See Ya Later Ranch, then onto Wild Goose, Painted Rock, and finally a visit with Michael Bartier at Okanagan Crush Pad.