It was dark outside, and I hadn’t been able to catch one iota of sleep. I lay there thinking about the epic day ahead, stressing, and knowing full-well that I was going in tired, without any reserves for the momentous task that lay ahead. In the kids play area, outside our bedroom, I could hear Joe hammering his way through a very short respite, his nap amounting to only a couple of hours. He was about to be a far cry away from the football game he’d attended that night, before driving out to Fort Langley to grab a bit of rest before our adventure. In spite of my angst driven fatigue, it was comforting to know he’d made it.
Citadel Landing Cellars is my wine club, although some would argue it’s just a front for me to keep making my own wine. Wine by the barrel, usually two of them per harvest, adds up pretty quickly in one’s cellar. In fact, having seven-hundred new bottles of wine every year is definitely beyond the healthy capacity of two adults (one on extended, baby-having hiatus) to enjoy and consume. Sure, I like my wine, but a quarter of that bacchanalian yield suffices for happiness in our household. However, making a decent vintage depends on a certain economy of scale and anything less than a barrel (225L) isn’t worth the effort -- and for reds, makes the much-needed, extended aging process difficult to control.
Once a year, on the wings of harvest, our club members invest in one or two wine projects, usually a white varietal (varietal just means single grape wine – think Merlot or Chardonnay) and a red. We invite participation on a ‘share’ basis, with each unit equivalent to approximately 1/16 a barrel’s production, or 18 bottles. Our mission is pretty simple: we source fresh grapes from high-quality vineyards along the west coast of North America. To-date, we’ve bought fruit from locations in British Columbia’s South Okanagan Valley, Washington’s Columbia River Valley, and the heart of super-premium red grapes, California’s Napa Valley. We use a variety of means and ways to get the fruit back to metro Vancouver. Weather permitting (i.e., cold!), we’ve crushed on site and trucked the resulting slurry, called must, back home in heavily laden convoys, often in the company of in-laws and other southern European winemaking aficionados. We’ve contracted commercial shippers to bring our prize fruit home via refrigerated tractor trailers, humorously to me known as reefers. Sometimes, when the amount is under ½ ton, or the vineyard is state-side, it’s just easier to drive down, pick up the fruit, and bring it back home for crushing. Tonight, we’re off to southern Washington to pick up fresh Cabernet. It’s going to be one hell of a trip.
Usually, I start calling farmers in the spring, in my annual quest for high quality grapes. Notwithstanding a certain amount of skill on the part of the winemaker (it ain’t about getting in there with your feet anymore…), the most important aspect of a wine that will floor critics like Bob Parker and make you and I think we’ve found nirvana is the grapes. It’s all about the grapes (see earlier blog pontifications on this subject). Somehow, you’ve got to find really ripe fruit, bursting with flavours, that has had much hang time (grown slowly), and has magically preserved its backbone acidity and essential biochemical constituents.
How to find that fruit?
The south Okanagan is the warmest, driest, and best overall environment for premium vinifera varietals (i.e., all the cool, nice reds, you love) north of the 49th parallel. There are a few problems in obtaining good old Canadian grapes for our club, though. The biggest challenges stems from the incredibly small amount of land suitable for winegrowing in the Okanagan. With only a few thousand acres of good red grape vineyards, the chance of any non-commercial winemaker – like me - getting any good fruit is scant at best. The same winemaker often has to accept dregs picked under the table and second to the commercial wineries; and, the prices reflect classic supply and demand theory (exorbitant, even for cash sales!). My Okanagan supply network leverages the connections of my former vineyard owner father in-law. It’s a tough game, though, and your supply and its quality is never certain. I’ve had good luck (2006 Gold Medal Winning Merlot) but have also gotten screwed a few times. I’m pretty much done with BC.
California’s storied Napa Valley is grape Mecca. The low latitude and consistently warm summers ensure that grapes reach maximal maturity, while cool evenings moderated by ocean breezes coming from San Pueblo bay maintain the flavour integrity of the fruit. This environment translates into some of the best North American wines and some of the highest prices, per ton, for grapes. Our club contracted for premium Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon grapes last year at a very hefty price. It will be another year, yet, before we see whether paying five times the price for fruit and the extra costs for cold shipping were worth it. Early indicators show a wine with awesome flavour, and I’m stoked. No one will be disappointed.
This year, we’ve decided to make Cabernet again, but from a vineyard in Washington’s Columbia Valley. Washington has tens of thousands of winegrowing acres, so the market for grapes seems to be fair and competitive. The little guy gets a decent amount of respect, and so far all our dealings have been efficient and without issue. Our first foray to the area was in ’07, when a “firm” deal for Okanagan Syrah fell through days before harvest, leaving me and the club in a nasty pinch. Hello America. Washington State has a grape growers fruit exchange, and it only took me half a day to find several sellers, select one and make a deal. Remarkably, even the bureaucracy on this side of the border made it plain and simple to import the fruit. It was 1776 all over again, except this time I was rebelling against the red coat, Okanagan grape growers. In a piece of generosity and irony, our new farmer even gave me a couple of wood fruit bins to haul our grapes - recycled fruit bins from Washington with “BC Fruit Packers “ clearly painted on the side. Nice.
In spring, I wrote our Washington farmer and asked if he could reserve enough Cabernet (approx. ½ ton) for our club to make a barrel of wine. Happy to oblige, farmer Mike agreed to hold our lot and provide crop updates as harvest drew nearer. In early September, Mike opined that the grapes would hit our sugar and acidity targets around the middle of October. With oodles of time for planning, I scheduled a drive down to Washington, rented a truck, and lined up a club member to help with pickup and crush. By the end of September the grape maturity, by analysis of sugar and acid, was almost in the picking zone we wanted. Mike stood by his estimate of a mid-October harvest. I relaxed, content and secure in my advance planning, and concentrated on my parental leave. I was Mr. Dad to a baby and a toddler and also juggling a construction project in our basement. I had it all in hand.
If you’ve ever raised kids, and especially two babies, you’ll know, recall, and cherish that occasional moment, in the morning, where they nap at the same time, and your house – for that fleeting instant in euphoric time – is quiet and calm. As a parent, your blood pressure temporarily drops into the non-medicated readings, and you might just sit and enjoy a coffee, a book, or simply a brief return of your sanity. That was my October 1st, 2009. I was lazily listening to CBC and had tuned into a program on Canadian wine. It was another thinly veiled tribute to BC product, and my mind was only partially engaged as I contemplated whether or not I needed to buy diapers that day or should risk a full trip to the supermarket with both kids in tow. Then the host mentioned the unexpected but welcome, warm September that had graced the Okanagan wine industry in fall (this in spite of a bad, frost ridden, spring). Growers were exuberant to have the late season heat, which had matured otherwise lost grapes and led to an early harvest. The happy farmers were cutting their crops up to three weeks early in some places, including the fabulously late ripening Cabernet Sauvignon.
Huh? My brain absorbed the information vacantly, but involuntarily made a simple and morning-ruining connection. Our vineyard was over 500km south of the Okanagan and weeks ahead in harvest time. It could only be that our grapes were either ready or wasted. I had a sick feeling of apprehension and angst as I quickly banged out an email to farmer Mike. A few minutes later our phone was ringing with a Washington State number on the display.
Mike’s a really nice guy, and I could tell he was genuinely upset that he’d forgotten to call me. He sheepishly relayed that the fruit was fully mature (25% sugar with acid around 5g/L – for you chemistry wonks!) and that I’d be welcome to come and get it as soon as possible. We had precious little time, because the grape chemistry could change considerably in one day of warm weather, and we were already at the limit of my winemaking plan. Amidst my new logistical challenges, there was a ray of happiness, though: when we bought Syrah in ’07, Mike had significantly overestimated the maturity of the fruit. I gambled, and banked on the same for this year.
It was Thursday morning, and I reasoned that if we wanted to make Cabernet that year, he’d need to pick no later than Saturday. Mike mentioned that he had pickers working for Saturday and buyers coming that afternoon – could we come then? His offer would have been well and fine had we been local, but we needed to truck that fruit back 600 km’s to Fort Langley, and it would have to be done while the day was cool. The Columbia River Valley is desert country, and the thought of hauling fruit in 30+ Celsius wasn’t working for me (it was a microbial spoilage nightmare). I needed to pick up the load really early while everything was still cool. The problem, aside from the fact I had no truck, no help, and no plan, was that Mike wasn’t sure he could get pickers on Friday night to cut my fruit – it was harvest and all the vineyards were fighting over the same transient labour pool that picks the grapes. Thirty minutes later, Mike called back. He’d found labour for Friday night. The grapes would be cut in just over 24 hours and would be good, cold and waiting for us at first light on Saturday morning. I had a day to put a plan together.
The new plan was pretty tight, if you discounted our departure at 1:30am on Saturday morning, followed by a dozen hours of driving, and completed with a good dose of manual labour needed to complete the crush, once home. Getting a truck rented was more expensive, but not too fraught with difficulty. Rather than hauling the grapes in wood bins, I decided to take empty 225L plastic barrels. I lined up a few of my own and asked my father-in-law for another. No problem. Club member and friend Joe would come by the house after the football game that night. We’d both get a few hours of sleep before driving south. So long as I had Joe back for 6:00pm (he had a dinner date and movie plans) and didn’t drive the truck off a mountain, our wives would be happy and all would be well.
The excitement surrounding our impending departure, as well as the work of getting everything clean and loaded into the truck, ensured that sleep remained elusive when I finally did get to bed. Not a wink.
Loaded with coffee and having an oddly empty road before us, we got underway around 2:00am. In spite of the darkness and the hour, we were both excited and without fatigue. Our first stop was the US border. Usually, crossing is a breeze. Well, usually, finding the right lane to cross is a breeze. Tonight, in the darkness that collection of lanes, inspection booths, and those little red pylons seemed confused. I lost my way and ended up at a kiosk for commercial trucks. Big trucks. Craning out my window, it was almost impossible to look up high enough to see the border guard. He wasn’t very amused, and in a nasal tone that perfectly matched his bookish features, he ordered me to get out of the truck. I felt and must have looked hapless, standing there in a big cement vault, looking at least ten feet up and trying to explain that we’d inadvertently ended up in his lane. He was in no rush and after each of his numerous questions, ducked back inside his booth for lengthy periods of time before emerging, like a prairie gopher, to chip another query my way. I had a suspicion he was crafting some kind of fee or tariff – in spite of my protestations that we were not a commercial winery (what commercial winery makes a single barrel of wine?) – and braced for the worst. I was rewarded with an onion skin invoice and verbal request for $10.75 US; an unexplained but fully amusing export fee. It was my own Woody Allen movie.
Joe thinks we should call the wine 10.75. I think it cost the US government more money to produce that invoice than they collected. Good material for travellers, though. We laughed and joked about our newfound commercial status halfway to the Columbia River Valley.
Crossing the mountain pass that separates Washington’s coast and interior plain wasn’t the jocular experience we’d had at the border. The darkness, mountain road, and fatigue made it the hardest part of the journey. I knew we’d get a second breath when the sun came up; it was just a cold, dark, eternity, before we saw the light.
We arrived at Mike’s winery and vineyard around 8:00am. He farms on a huge glacial tongue of gravel, overlooking the Columbia River, and known as the Wahluke Slope. Wine writers agree the area has considerable potential, and with 75,000 acres of arable vineyard land, it’s only a matter of time before more premium wines are forthcoming from this sub region of the Columbia River Valley. After a kind welcome, with perhaps a bit of incredulity over our early drive, Mike ushered us to a collection of bins overflowing with small purple berries. Cabernet Sauvignon and it looked great. There were no signs of rot, mould, or damage to the grape clusters, and most happily of all, my portable meter told us that the grape sugar had not exceeded earlier targets. A final gustatory “field” analysis” confirmed the outstanding quality of the fruit and provided a concurrent breakfast.
I knew Mike had some science background as he had, during an earlier visit, alluded to working at the Hanford nuclear reservation (Google that for a disturbing history of plutonium manufacture and ecological destruction writ large). So, I was pretty interested when he offered to show us his lab, run some further numbers on the grapes for us, and detail the numerous and post graduate degrees he possessed in now-un-rememberable fields of biology – a scientist winemaker, how cool was that? In spite of the geek appeal, to which I always resonate, the big honour of that early morning was his offer of a tour through the barrel cellar of his winery, complete with a sampling of his latest project, port.
I say port for the purpose of simple product recognition, rather than saying something like “high residual sugar, ethanol arrested fermentation, fortified wine”. Like the French who name their wines (and sometimes grapes) from the respective regions of the their production (i.e., Bordeaux, Sauternes, Chardonnay, etc), the Portuguese, call their national offering port, named after the much storied, coastal city of Oporto, where centuries of port production have and continue to take place. A longstanding and similar, albeit counterfeit, practice of naming North American wines in European manner is slowly being swallowed in various cross-Atlantic legal challenges. It follows that Mike couldn’t really call his creation port.
Whatever the nomenclature, the making requires high-proof brandy in significantly greater-than-the-bottle quantities. Recently in the US and Canada, it became possible and legal for small, independent craft distillers to produce and market specialty spirits, including vodka’s, gins, and brandy’s. Yes, for a few bucks and a bit of training, you too could be licensed to have your very own still. Brandy in hand (well, maybe not), the process for “port” essentially involves fermenting very high sugar red grapes, and while said fermentation is still bubbling along, adding ethanol (brandy) to kill the yeast, stop ferment, and raise the overall alcohol content. You are then left with a sweetish, weighty, and high alcohol wine. If you are a bonafide producer of port, complete with British backing and Portuguese blood, you might declare a vintage (labelling with a specific year of production), on those occasional times when the grape harvest is of sterling quality, but not too often, lest one dilute the mystique (i.e., price) of port, generally.
Back in Washington, Mike was buying brandy from a producer in Ellensburg and trucking the goods back to the winery for the required alchemy with his Syrah grapes. Apparently his brandy guy was none other than Rusty Figgins, a well known wine making consultant with such notable successes as the Okanagan’s darling, Nota Bene, from Black Hills Estate Winery. Go figure.
There we were, at the crack of 8:30am, standing around numerous barrels, quaffing high proof “port” on mostly empty stomachs, a complete absence of sleep, and trying not to anticipate the privation of our looming return trip. It was quality product, except I kept finding flavours and aromas that weren’t in Mike’s monologue, or worse the opposite. After extolling his weaker product and then denigrating the flagship “I think this one tastes thinner…”, I took some longstanding advice from my dad and shut up.
Five hours of Washington highway were largely sucked into the vortex of my sleep deprived brain, and I have little memory of the trip back except one stop for gas & food, and our comical transit through the Canadian border.
Our “get hard on crime” Canadian government recently decided to arm its border guards – this in spite of reservations from the real law professionals, the RCMP and other police forces. I had my first taste of this new border reality when we arrived at customs.
It had often been an amusing experience, crossing into the States, when, on occasion, I needed to enter the customs office for further discussion, and bore witness to numerous guards, milling about, performing clerical duties, but well-armed with imposing automatic handguns strapped to their sides. It made me reflect how my own office’s 65 year old receptionist would look sporting a big, shoulder-holstered pistol, for all arriving to witness and respect. The Americans were, however, always and unfailing polite to me.
Usually the patriot in me stirs in that warm, homey way, when I return from abroad, see our red and white colours flapping in the wind, and read the slightly dorky “Welcome to Canada” banner, usually featured prominently above the customs booths. Something was lost from the experience, this time around, as there were guys in blue smocks, polarised sunglasses, and sporting big guns, waiting to “greet” me. On the one hand, it looked like someone had given my local mechanic a sidearm, but on the other I was kind of embarrassed as a Canadian. Our reception, and cargo declaration, was met with a contemptuous sneer, and barely more than a grunt to proceed into Canada. Incidentally, with the Olympics fast upon us, the Vancouver Olympics Organising Committee (VANOC) has become something of a totalitarian authority, effectively ruling most aspects of metro-Vancouver life. If VANOC ever knew the “happy welcome” tourists were getting at our ports of entry, I’m sure someone’s boots would be knocking in the air.
We’re not too far from the border, and after a short cruise through the southern reaches of the Fraser Valley, we arrived at Fort Langley. Still paranoid about the warm temperatures, and our precious cargo, my mind was pretty much focussed on getting to the garage, crushing the grapes (forget the foot stomping pictures, it’s all mechanical and motorized), and getting the resulting must safely into our 200L stainless steel fermentation tanks. No winemaker rests until the wine is in the tanks, and some modicum of analytic process control becomes possible. My wife, of course, had other ideas mainly centred on providing good hospitality to Joe and making sure we were well fed upon arrival. To my pride and horror, a full pasta supper, complete with table settings, was ready upon our return. Rather than processing the grapes, we sat down to a genteel gathering, broke bread together, and drank some wine. We did need and enjoy the break, but I never lost sight of Joe’s commitment to be home by 6:00 and my worry that we’d not finish our work beforehand.
