Reds, Whites and Views

During winter in British Columbia’s wine country, big clusters of bright grapes stand out against the leafless vines like beacons, attracting hungry deer, elk, raccoons and black bears.

“The cutest thing you ever saw is a bear eating grapes,” said Claire Schwartzenberger, tasting room attendant at Hester Creek Estate Winery, as she set out generous samples of ice wine. “He doesn’t hurt the vine. He picks them off very delicately and then sits down between the trellises to eat.”

The longer the grapes stay on the vine, she explained, the more concentrated their sweetness. After the fruit freezes solid on the vines, it’s picked at night, barehanded, and pressed before the sun comes up. Each frozen grape yields just one or two drops of juice.

My partner, Maria, and I had come in June to sample the final product: ice wine, rich and luscious, with echoes of apricot and peach--a dessert wine that really has no comparison.

We were in the glacier-carved Okanagan Valley, which stretches north from the central Washington border near the Coast Mountains and the Cascades. About 200 miles east of Vancouver, it shares the same midnorthern latitudes as the vineyards of France and Germany, with hot, dry days and cool nights in summer, sandy soil and south-facing plateaus ideal for grapes.

The Okanagan’s clear lakes and rivers also make it popular for white-water kayaking, sockeye-salmon fishing or just lazing about on rented houseboats. But wineries have become the valley’s No. 1 tourist attraction.

With 60 wineries concentrated along a stretch of valley about 80 miles long, we could sample only a few during our three-day midweek visit. Most vineyards were under 100 acres, and many were family-run and organic. All were friendly and genuinely welcoming.

We landed at the airport in Kelowna, the valley’s largest city (population 97,000), just after noon. We checked into Manteo Resort, our hotel on Okanagan Lake, and 30 minutes later were at nearby Quail’s Gate winery.

Llane Stewart, 21, was our tour guide. Her family has owned and managed Quail’s Gate for 40 years. Until 1989, she told us as she stood in the shade of the lovely 1873 log house, the family sold its grapes to other wineries. Then Quail’s Gate started making its own wine.

Fifteen years ago, most of the Okanagan vineyards were growing grapes for the cheap table-wine market. But with good-quality imports selling at competitive prices, even the locals turned their noses up at the thin, watery B.C. wines.

In 1988, Okanagan growers began a massive pullout program, ripping out old vines and replanting with chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot gris, cabernet franc and merlot from France, and Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Kerner from Germany. The wineries brought in viticulture (grape growing) experts from California and hired sharp young winemakers from Australia and New Zealand. Different pruning techniques halved and quartered their yields, but with the first harvest four years after planting, they reaped the ripest fruit with the most concentrated flavor the Okanagan had ever tasted.

That vintage gave Okanagan wines international recognition for the first time. In 1994 Mission Hill’s ’92 Grand Reserve Chardonnay stunned the wine world by winning Best of Show in its class at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London.

Money from private investors and the government poured in. Other Okanagan wineries--Summerhill, Quail’s Gate, Hainle, Sumac Ridge, Jackson-Triggs, Gray Monk, CedarCreek and others--began taking home gold and silver medals in international competitions as well. Wine connoisseurs and restaurateurs began showing up wanting to buy, and tourists quickly followed.

Llane led her little tour group to the edge of the 95-acre Quail’s Gate vineyard, which rolls down to the shores of Okanagan Lake.

“The best fruit makes the best wine,” Llane said, standing next to a trellised row of cabernet sauvignon vines whose blossoms were beginning to show. In less than three months, the tiny white points would be fat, sweet grapes.

“We crop very low in our vineyards to obtain the ripest fruit we can in our short growing season. Each of the vines here will produce just six to eight pounds of grapes, and since a bottle of wine requires three to four pounds, that makes about two bottles per vine.”

In the tank room we learned about fermentation, and in the barrel room we learned about oakaging of white wines. Our last stop inside the facility was a small room where the newly corked bottles filed through a labeling machine like little soldiers.

Back inside the tastefully restored log house, Llane and a helper lined up glasses and poured samples, explaining the merits of each wine. As designated driver for the day, I sampled only the Late Harvest Optima and the Riesling Icewine, both luscious dessert bottlings. (Late harvest and ice wines, along with crisp, fruity white wines, are Okanagan specialties.)

Two German women in our tour group told us they’d been in Napa and found the Okanagan Valley just as beautiful, but smaller and more laid-back. And they couldn’t get over the prices: award-winning bottles of Chardonnay from Hester Creek for $8.30, from Quail’s Gate for $11.75, and from Summerhill (organic) for $9.70.

Back across the lake, we visited Summerhill, which produces organic reds and whites, including ice wine. We joined the 4 p.m. “Champagne Tour,” which met on the patio beside a giant fiberglass statue of a champagne bottle.

“We’re totally organic here,” said our tour guide, a wide-smiling woman. “Sparkling wines show flaws quicker than other wines. And organic creates a clear, sparkling wine. We’re known for our sparkling wines.”

Our first stop was the stemmer and crusher deck.

“We only use 65% of the juice here at Summerhill,” the guide said. “The rest, along with the skins, we toss back into the vineyards as fertilizer.”

Our last stop before the tasting room was a huge white concrete pyramid, visible from the road. Here the wines spend six weeks to a year soaking up “pyramid power.” The four-story-tall structure is an 8%-scale replica of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

“It faces true north, has no metal in the structure and no electricity,” the guide said. “Watch your heads. It’s dark.”

We filed in, feeling our way up a flight of concrete stairs. It was dark and cool inside, with just a hint of sunlight from the small ventilation grid at the apex.

“Pyramids amplify things,” she managed to say with a straight face. “Flaws grow worse, good wines get better.”

In the tasting room, the guide reminded us, the finer the bead, the finer the bubbly. She held up her glass, and sure enough: nice, small, fast ones. Tiny bubbles.

On our second morning we drove to the south end of the valley about two hours from Kelowna. It’s a scenic route down Highway 97 along the west bank of boomerang-shaped Okanagan Lake, through the towns of Penticton and Oliver. Dense orchards of cherry, apple and peach line the road, and vineyards form grids on the plateaus. It’s a hotter microclimate, and the vineyards concentrate on big reds such as Merlot.

Just south of Oliver, the Tinhorn Creek winery’s sunny tasting room opens onto a white deck overlooking a display vineyard and an amphitheater that hosts evening concerts in the summer. There is no tour, just short catwalks above the tank and the barrel rooms with explanatory placards.

At the tasting counter, Maria tried a few Tinhorn Creek wines while I raided the refrigerator for some Okanagan-made salami and cheese to take to the patio.

As we paid for our food (about $5), the tasting room attendant, who had a delightful French accent, apologized that she had no license to sell wine by the glass, but she was happy to give us some. As driver, I stuck with sparkling water, but Maria chose a 1998 Pinot Gris, a gold medal winner in early judging for the upcoming 2000 L.A. County Fair. The attendant handed Maria half a glass, smiled and said, “You’re quite welcome to come back for more.”

By the third day we had gotten used to walking into wineries expecting smiles and free samples of wines. (Surprisingly, it did take a bit of getting used to.) After our pleasant visit with Claire at Hester Creek, we stopped in Summerland at Sumac Ridge, British Columbia’s oldest estate winery, in operation since 1980. (An estate winery grows its own grapes.) Sumac Ridge is the only winery that has a restaurant licensed for dinner. The Cellar Door Bistro conveniently adjoins the tasting room.

The restaurant’s ambience was like a romantic, intimate French bistro: small round tables, a stone fireplace, ceiling fans, light jazz. Mark Taylor, owner and sometimes waiter, handed us the menus. He spent years as a sommelier; his wife, Dana, is the chef.

Maria decided on the Wine Lovers Menu, three courses that change weekly, each matched with a glass of wine. I ordered grilled ahi tuna, and Mark suggested an unoaked Chardonnay. “Oaked Chardonnay I tend to match with red-wine foods,” he said.

It turned out to be a delightful dinner: creative food, fine wine, good company and attentive but informal service. When the bill came (less than $70), I decided to pick Mark’s brain. I wanted his professional opinion: What wine goes best with a burger?

He didn’t have to think about it. “Our burgers with Merlot. Big Macs with blush.”

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GUIDEBOOK

A Grape Time in British Columbia

Getting there: From LAX to Kelowna, Alaska and Horizon airlines offer connecting service with a change of planes in Seattle. Canada Airlines and Canadian Regional offer connecting service with a plane change in Vancouver. Air Canada also flies to Vancouver, with a connecting flight to Kelowna on Canadian Regional. Restricted round-trip fares begin at about $390.

Where to stay: Manteo Resort, Waterfront Hotel and Villas, 3766 Lakeshore Road, Kelowna, BC, Canada V1W 3L4; telephone (800) 445-5255, fax (250) 860-1041, Internet https://www .manteo.com. Newly opened with 78 hotel rooms and 14 two- or three-bedroom villas. Pool, docks and clubhouse with separate areas for adults and families. Rooms from $110; villas from $220.

Hotel Eldorado, 500 Cook Road, Kelowna, BC, Canada V1W 3G9; tel. (250) 763-7500, fax (250) 861-4779, Internet https://www.sunnyokanagan.com/el. Old-world ambience in a 19-room lakeside hotel. Summer rates start at $96.

Coast Capri Hotel, 1171 Harvey Ave., Kelowna, BC, Canada V1Y 6E8; tel. (250) 860-6060, fax (250) 762-3430, Internet https://www.coasthotels.com. A good-quality chain hotel with rooms starting at $106.

Where to eat: Old Vines Patio at Quail’s Gate Estate Winery, 3303 Boucherie Road, Kelowna; local tel. 769-4451, Internet https://www.quailsgate.com/oldvines.htm. For lunch, we started with roasted garlic and goat cheese, and an Okanagan organic green salad; we finished with entrees of spring salmon and halibut. The bill, without wine, was $46.

Hotel Eldorado’s restaurant (see above) serves a range of entrees starting at $14.

Cellar Door Bistro at Sumac Ridge Winery, 17403 Highway 97, Summerland; tel. (877) 848-2988. Excellent food and attentive service. Dinner for two, with wine, was less than $70.

For more information: British Columbia Wine Information Centre, 888 Westminster Ave. W., Penticton, BC, Canada V2A 8R2; tel. (250) 490-2006, Internet https://www.bcwineinfo.com.

Thompson Okanagan Tourism, 1332 Water St., Kelowna, BC, Canada V1Y 9P4; tel. (250) 860-5999, Internet https://www.thompsonokanagan.com/wineries.