This is the second in our BC Harvest 2021 series. To read about the winemaker’s comments in our first article see Winemaker’s thoughts on BC Harvest 2021.
Many thanks to all the winemakers that have contributed to these articles. Here is the list of wineries contributing to this post.
- Nostalgia Wines
- Black Market Wine Co.
- Kalala Organic Estate Wines
- Niche Wine Company
- Ciao Bella Winery
- Sunnybrae vineyards and winery
- BC Wine Studios / Siren Call’s Wine
- Unsworth Vineyards
- Blue Grouse Estate Winery
Oliver
Gina Fernandes Harfman|Nostalgia Wines
Labour shortages remain the most common challenge for the 2021 season. The vineyards grow at a steady and sometimes quick pace and constant care is required to maintain the vines. This year the intense heat and growing degree days were well above average which increased the vigour of the vine, resulting in difficulty getting our vines tucked and hedged on schedule. Luckily this worked out in our favour; I believe it protected our grapes and vines from sunburn and kept our acids at a nice level come harvest time.
Smoke from wildfires was an issue for 2021, as many of our summer days were hazy. We are working on the offensive as winemakers to hand-sort the crop coming in (pull out leaves, etc.), ensure whites are off the skins as soon as possible and treat the wines to avoid any issues in the bottle. The cold, wet, and cloudy spring we experienced in 2020 influenced the 2021 buds, resulting in below-average cluster counts varied between different varietals. As a result, we saw a reduction in our crop yield. On the bright side, nice varietal flavours are now showing in our wines, plus the grapes all came in showing superb quality.
The fruit harvest times were more sporadic and more manageable in 2021, which allowed us here at Nostalgia Wines to do some experimenting with small lots and be more vineyard site-specific from our grower’s vineyards. We were able to fine-tune our blends and wines using specific yeast components and barrel selections. Some years we don’t have a whole lot of time for this; the last two harvests we were hit with a harsh fall frost and all the grapes had to come in at once. 2021 gave us the luxury of time to play as winemakers.
Now we are dealing with fulfilling our bottling needs. There is a big waitlist and time constraint on getting the bottles from overseas and the domestic companies that produce bottles are overwhelmed and in short supply. Every year there are new challenges, whether in the vineyard, the wines, or running the
business and I always look at these as new learning experiences.
Plans for 2022 Releases
We are excited about our 2019 barrel program reds, which have been getting their beauty sleep. We’ll be ready to release our 2019 Merlot, 2019 Family Collection Meritage and 2019 Family Collection Cabernet Sauvignon in 2022. They were aged for 15 months in barrel, and a further year in bottle before release.
Here is the link to purchase Nostalgia Wine and more information on the 2020 wines – Nostalgia Wines’ Vibrant 2021 Releases
Kaleden
Rob Hammersley | Black Market Wine Co.
2021 is a vintage for the memory books! It was one of the most challenging growing seasons we’ve had since we started in this business almost a decade ago. With a cold snap in February that saw temperatures throughout the valley go down to almost -20C, there was cold damage to the buds on some vines. Spring came early with bud break happening about a week ahead of normal. Then the infamous heat dome of late June brought extremely high temperatures, some days exceeding 45C. Fortunately for our estate vineyard in Kaleden, most of the flowering and fruit set was complete before the high temperatures arrived. We also delayed our leaf thinning, which helped protect the newly formed grape clusters from the intense heat and sunlight. The silver lining on this cloud was that the heat helped control some other normal disease pressures in the vineyard, such as powdery mildew.
Our harvest and crush began on September 15th with our estate-grown Bacchus, which is about 10 days ahead of a normal year. We picked and crushed our last batch of Petit Verdot on October 19th. Although the challenges faced throughout the growing season resulted in smaller berries and lower yields, the quality of the fruit is quite high. This will be a vintage characterized by fresh acidity in the whites, and slightly bigger reds in terms of body and alcohol.
Here is the link to purchase Black Market Wine and more information on the 2020 wines – Black Market Wine Co. 2021 Releases
West Kelowna
Karnail Singh Sidhu & Tibor Erdelyi |Kalala Organic Estate Winery
Our harvest for 2021 started and finished early. The harvest started in September and finished the third week of October. While 2021 was another hectic year with COVID, heat waves, and wildfires, the grapes had grown strong and healthy. Even though the grapes survived well through the heatwave, smoke could affect them.
As of now, the grape juice is too sweet to determine the effect of the smoke. As the fermentation goes on, we are more likely able to determine any effects. Our white wine is almost all finished with its fermentation and we don’t see any smokiness in any of the juice. Since red wine requires a longer fermentation time, we have to wait till November and see if there is any smoky taste and smell in the wine. Both Pinot Noir and Merlot do not smell smokey so far. Even though the effect of smoke is a concern we have this year, we experienced the same issue in 2018 and everything had worked out wonderfully. This potential issue requires careful attention throughout the winemaking process and meticulously conducting each winemaking step, but we are not too concerned about it.
Here is the link to purchase Kalala Wines and more information on the winery – Kalala Winery for more than Organic Ice Wine
Joanna Schlosser |Niche Wine Company
The Niche Wine Company is a family affair with the winery operated by James and Joanna Schlosser. The estate’s 8-acre “Hugh and Mary” vineyard is located on a high ridge in West Kelowna overlooking Lake Okanagan.
We have been farming the vineyard for over 25 years and collecting serious data for the last 10 years. So for us, the yields are only down about 7%. This is not as dramatic as we thought it would be. We are very happy about the outstanding fruit quality for both our red and white wines. Niche is one of the highest elevations in the Okanagan Valley. There are strong cooling winds that may have helped the grape yields. Also, the bottom part of the vineyard is dry-farmed and the vines are 20-25 years old and very well established.
Niche Wine is completing a tasting room on the farm site. We are excited to be able to host wine club members this winter and the general public in the spring. For the first time, we are making a small lot two-barrel batch of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc. We are also purchasing some hybrid grapes – Marquette and Frontenac Gris.
Here is the link to purchase Niche Wines and more information on the winery – Niche Wine Co. & Reserve Pinot Noir
Roberto P. Fiume | Ciao Bella Winery
The year started with a fairly mild spring, the vineyard with our Pinot Nero is 20 years old and the vines are in their prime. Pruning started mid-February and we were finished by mid-March at which point our focus turned to the new vineyards that we are creating across the street from the Pinot Nero and our wine shop.
Starting with a dryer than normal spring the rest of the season proved just as dry. June presented its challenges as a heat dome formed over the province. As a result summer irrigation practices were implemented early with watering from dusk to dawn. We were planting live nursery-grown vines and the days started extra early as the heat was too much for us humans. Thankfully the vines seemed just fine and seemed to thrive!
The biggest challenge presented itself with a forest fire approx 3km away. Luckily for us here at Ciao Bella, the wind blew the fire and the smoke in another direction. While this did result in a temporary drop in visitors once the situation was stable our customers eagerly returned to enjoy our vino along with some Spuntini (Italian charcuterie) in our picnic area.
The fall was fairly mild allowing the grapes to ripen while still developing flavours and this resulted in our Grigio crop coming in approx 3 weeks before last year and the Nero a couple of weeks earlier. The Grigio was harvested on October 1st and following our heritage we pressed whole clusters limiting grape skin contact and I’m happy to say that as of writing the Grigio is shaping up to be a great vintage with a crisp and dry Italian style wine. The Nero was harvested on October 21st, we had beautiful dark berries with amazing flavours! And while still young this wine is showing a lot of the characteristics of its forebearers! Overall a good year and I’m excited about the wines and looking forward to the finished vino!
Here is the link to purchase Ciao Bella Wine.
Shuswap
James Clark | Sunnybrae Vineyards & Winery
If a textbook vintage even exists, 2021 was far from it! An extremely dry spring led into the heat dome and wildfire smoke that saw temperatures topping out at 42.5ºC here in the Shuswap. Lower vigour in some blocks, that Marechal Foch didn’t even receive its two annual hedging runs.
It was a very much welcomed week of precipitation in September despite its timing, just after veraison, which set in 14 days earlier than 2020. The smoke finally parted and we were gifted with 2 weeks of classic, late-summer Shuswap weather: clear, sunny afternoons in the low to mid-20s, with a cool gentle breeze flowing down off Bastion Mountain in the evenings.
This saw harvest kick-off on time in mid-September and we captured that hard-to-get acidity in the Siegerrebe which is coming out with some beautiful balance and fruity profiles. After a short lull, we spent the last 3 weeks of October bringing in the Ortega, Kerner, Marechal Foch and Pinot Noir. The Kerner which usually comes in with higher acidity, saw more balance this year and I’m excited to see what this will bring to the vintage. The reds saw increased ripening, comparable to the 2016 growing season, bringing with it some rich colour and bolder wines.
All in all a disastrous start to the growing season with a seemingly happy ending. We paid special attention to our processing this year due to the wildfire smoke. It made for long days but we all know what harvest is like! The fruit came in clean (where did the wasps go this year?) and the weather and harvesting windows were rather forgiving!
Here is the link to purchase Sunnybrae wines and more information on the winery – Sunnybrae Vineyards & Winery for Redneck Red
Okanagan Falls
Mark Simpson |Winemaker at BC Wine Studio and Creator of Siren’s Call Wines
This harvest is certainly one the most stressful in memory. With heat domes giving way to widespread wildfires, we had no idea what to expect while the summer progressed. The dry weather and heat certainly gave us low disease pressure and lots of heat units, but all the smoke had us sitting on pins and needles wondering what to expect come harvest.
So, going into harvest I spent time reading up on smoke taint protocols and discussing the same with fellow winemakers. Surprisingly, we were blessed with good fruit and very nice quality from our growers, who luckily were not harvesting from hot spots for smoke that were closer to the fires. Not all wineries were so lucky. For sure all the heat early in the summer impacted fruit set and as such yields are down about 15 % on average for most vineyards.
High Brix, good sugar/acid balance and clean fruit showing up on our crush deck, so overall we are thinking 2021 will show great quality. We enjoyed great weather for most of September and October so we could take in fruit in an organized but slightly compressed time frame. The highlights in the cellar this year will be co ferments and some extended maceration on whites, which although riskier, can bring great rewards. Farming is never dull, that’s for sure!
Here is the link to purchase BC Wine Studio and Siren’s Call wines.
Vancouver Island
Chris Turyk | Unsworth Vineyards
The most prolific question regarding the 2021 growing season surrounds the late June heat spike and subsequent impacts on this harvest and overall vine health.
A warm and dry June with gentle breezes provides an ideal situation for a bountiful and pristine quality harvest, which is exactly what we got this year. With flowering complete at June’s end, temperatures spiked hotter than many of us have experienced in this valley. Vine biological mechanisms engage around 35 Celsius which halt metabolic activity. Below 35C, vines happily continued around the clock growth at a breakneck pace. The Cowichan Valley contains excellent soils for retaining moisture. Without these moist soils providing vines with precious water required to continue evapotranspiration during heat waves, vines may have suffered.
Advanced ripening led to earlier sugar accumulation and phenological ripeness resulting in sparkling destined fruit arriving at the winery earlier than last year. At Unsworth we let the fruit for still wine hang until early October. This meant the fruit was on the vine through a very wet second half of September. Clusters didn’t suffer for it, any more rain would have been worrisome but they weathered the rain well and we processed quite healthy and ripe fruit. We are musing vintage similarities to 2016 with regards to a warm year with rain determining harvest windows.
Here is the link to purchase Unsworth Wine and more information on the 2020 wines – Unsworth Vineyards 2021 Releases
Bailey Williamson | Blue Grouse Estate Winery
Our growing degree days were higher than historical in the Cowichan valley which contributed to the great quality of fruit, so we are excited about the wines for this vintage. The picking was condensed due to impending rain events in September and early ripeness. Some of the challenges included finding enough people to be part of our picking crews, as there was a shortage in labour this season. But our leaner vineyard team was able to work efficiently and pick all 30 tons of grapes before the rain set in.
Here is the link to purchase Blue Grouse wines.