In vino veritas (1) - Kelowna, Okanagan Wine Region, Canada

[hangchoi]

The grape varieties they plants have a huge profile. In Kelowna area, they mostly plant white varieties. Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewruztraminer are quite common for white and Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah may be found. From the tasting point of view, their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are quite nice.

In addition, they also plant Foch, a hybrid red grape which produces a rather full body red wine with a taste like a blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot. For white, Ehrenfelser is planted. This is a crossing of Riesling and Sylvaner and I found that it tasted like an unripe Riesling.

At the time I visited the vineyard, the fruit set was already done.

[hangchoi]

VINIFICATION

Like the modern style of wine making, stainless steel vats were used for fermentation. As I cannot get into the winery to see their production, I can only take picture far away.

[hangchoi]

MATURATION

Another usually practice here, stainless steel for white and barrel for red. I had talked with a lady of Mission Hill winery. She said that they are using 225 litre barrique of both French and American oak. I went to their cellar but I found most of them were American oak.

[hangchoi]

The cork for the barrique is acrylic....

[hangchoi]

In total, I had visited 5 wineries. Some of them are quite commercial which gives you free tasting without explanation, while some of the other have wine tour to let you know their wine philosophy. The most valuable thing is that they usually allow you to walk around their vineyard so that I can have more study on their vineyard.

That concludes my visit. At last, I show you a picture of "yeast beads" but you need to watch carefully......

[chin]

Good. Thanks for sharing the pictures and stories.

Can you tell the grape type from the look of the vine? Also their vine does not look too old. I am guessing from the thickness of the stem.

Pruning & training means how their cut out the excessive branches to concentrate on the strong ones?

[hangchoi]

Can you tell the grape type from the look of the vine? Also their vine does not look too old. I am guessing from the thickness of the stem.

Pruning & training means how their cut out the excessive branches to concentrate on the strong ones?

I would say "NO". You cannot tell the variety by looking to the vine, but some grape varieties do have a different shape of leaves, for example, Cabernet Sauvignon's leaves have a bigger curve on the leaf shape. But most of them don't.

You are partly right on the meaning of pruning and training. Cutting out the excessive branches for concentration is mainly done in summer, so it has a name called "green harvesting" or "summer pruning". Vine-growers also do winter pruning to reduce the branches for preserving the energy and carbohydrate so that the vine has more "food" reserve in winter. Training is the way to regulate the growth of the vine for facilitating the sun exposure, ease of harvesting, etc.

The Cordon du Royat I showed on the picture is to keep the Cordon (the horizontal thick branch) to reserve more carbohydrate, so the winter pruning will cut up to the branch of that cordon.

I have forwarded this link to some of my wine friends. Please correct me if I am wrong.....