Naramata Bench Tailgate Party

One of the best events of the season is upon us.
The Naramata Bench Tailgate Party happens on September 9. Click the link for all the details.

Check the link for tickets. Drop by Township 7 Okanagan and we will sell you a couple. Do it quick because this thing always sells out.

When you're at the party, drop by the Township 7 table and ask for taste of the 2004 RESERVE Merlot which we will have under the table. Scheduled for release in the autumn.

See you there. I''ll be wearing either my bon vivant face or the world-weary sense of ennui.

International Wine World Meets Here

One of the things that I sometimes forget is the international flavour of the wine business. To many people that may seem obvious especially on the import or consumer side of things.

At my level, it's easy to get buried under the minutiae of the work. I stepped back from the fray today to realize how magnetic this business is when it comes to attracting the steely passion of wine lovers from everywhere.

This blog now has a little gizmo in the sidebar to show where people drop in from. And over the past three weeks, I've had email exchanges from four complete strangers asking about different aspects of the BC and Okanagan wine world. A lot of them want to come work here. They were from Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S.

I've got an Australian working for Township 7 now alongside an immigrant from Germany. Thinking about the Okanagan Valley, about 25% of the winemakers and assistants were originally from somewhere else. At one time it was closer to 50%. They travelled here to lend their expertise at a time when the country wasn't producing knowledgable wine people as fast as we are now.

With a little care and cultivation, you can create quite a United Nations of relationships around here just by going about your daily business.

Not too many businesses share this unique aspect. It helps broaden the mind when you share ideas and opinions with people with from other cultural and national backgrounds.

Winery Makeover

New owners arrived with new paint and our drab buff colour has now been updated with this camo green and burnt wiener trim.

Scott and I agreed on the arrangement of the barrels just so - after a couple slap fights - .

It's not cylindrical stainless steel but a guy can dream, can't he?

Hot sexy photos of young vines

Zoya tends to young Merlot vine. The competition with weeds is short-lived as the Round-up is down! Notice we use soy milk carton seconds? We've determined our vineyard is lactose intolerant.


The grapes?
Those are some of our Syrah grown for us by the wonderful Cerqueira family in Oliver. Taken Monday, August 21.





These are the Merlot we planted back in early July. It's been freakin' hot for a a young vine. There has neen some single digit mortality.
Most are doing well.

Investigating the cat's pee in the vineyard

The Kiwis are hard at it - figuring out who is responsible for all that funk in the blanc.
Reminds me of Mr. Wendenburg's ( Sumac Ridge) advice to a cellar hand back in the day - and I paraphrase - try to avoid making Sauvignon Blanc that smells like dog shit in a lawn bag.

Winery and Vineyard Site For Sale

Privately offered. If you're looking to get established in the booming BC wine business then this might be for you.
Friends of mine have put up their property for sale in North Oliver located about 300 meters off of Highway 97 on the western side of the valley.
Three parcels adjoining.
#1 - about 10 acres. Cleared and fallow for two years. Formerly in ground crops such as tomatoes and peppers. Large character home and grounds. Another income earning dwelling as well. Prime Grape land.
#2 - about 6 acres. Grasslands with light covering of mature Ponderosa pine. Excellent slope and aspect. Ready to plant after trees removed and land profiled for vineyard.
#3 - about 36 acres. Some arable property but primarily steep, rocky mountainside with a few potential homesites. Ambitious engineering could result in some unique caving for winery use.

Seller prefers to sell #1 and 2 as a package. Asking $1.6 million for both.
Seller would like to retain #3 for personal reasons but will negotiate if buyer requires all three units.

Sounds good? Contact me for photos and more details.

Hopper Ranch. New Winery Site in Summerland, BC

Thought you might like to see the site of the new winery in Summerland, just a few minutes north of Penticton.

That's the house in the photo; the winery building is under construction to the left. In the background is Okanagan Lake and Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park.

The vineyard is immaculate. Fruit formerly went to Gray Monk up in Kelowna.

Big week of winery accomplishments

The year of better late than never continues at Township 7.
We bottled, put up nets, labeled, got our last sprays in and generally put out big time in the productivity department all week.
Weather has been steady and perfect since the last post and the 7 day outlook suggests more of the same.

This week we've got some late racking to do and some work on the Langley property. We also have to finalize our vintage supplies requirements.

That photo would make a nice desktop addition.

John's Book

John's Book
Originally uploaded by Dexwriter.

We've got a good supply at Township 7. Why not drop in and get one?

Vineyard Progress

Posts are in, irrigation is in . . . Where are the vines?


After one cool and wet start to June, the month turned around and finished strong with temperatures over 30 and some days close to 40 for the past ten days or so. There seems to be a slight cooling trend at the end of the week but still plenty of sunshine.

The cooling trend will be welcomed by the crew at Township 7. Due to a few unavoidable delays, there are 1300 Merlot plants that are still waiting to get in the ground. The heat of the past couple weeks pretty well put the stop to that activity so the hope is that Thursday and Friday will present the right conditions.

Is it too late to plant? Probably. We're certainly going to get a higher mortality rate over the winter as the new vines won't have the opportynity to prepare themselves as they would have had they'd been planted in mid-May.

Elsewhere around Township 7 Okanagan we're catching up with the tucking and raising the training wires on the trellis system. The fruit set looks encouraging.

















Pinot Gris sets up for 2006.

I never thought a winemaker would be this busy in June

I must have led a very sheltered life.

Despite having been in the wine production business for about ten years, I'd never experienced what I'm going through this late spring-summer.

Usually the cellar is a quiet place for me at this time of the year. A little tasting, a little lab work, some planning sessions for the coming vintage; a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future.

This year saw an ownership change of the winery that is my prime focus and with that came responsibility for the whole 7 acres, inside and out. It doesn't sound like much but remember I'm the inside guy. It's been a steep learning curve. I've called in some favours and asked a lot of questions. Sure, I'm behind schedule. But it looks like most farmers are.

I've got one year old and three year old blocks of Gew and PG to tend. They need training and tucking. I've still got some wires to pull and anchors to install. We had to hand weed an acre of Chardonnay in a block we've nicknamed the Bayou because it sounds better than 'swamp'. We had to hand weed because I missed the envelope where I could nail the weeds with Round-Up and still miss the year old vines. We were inside wasting our time bottling or something.

I've got 1300 Merlot sitting in cold storage that should have been in the ground a month ago. Hopefully they'll meet the dirt on Tuesday.

I've got deer fence going up tomorrow and posts being pounded for the new Merlot.

I've just about completed the sub-surface irrigation for the new block with Scott Robinson's help and we figured it out by digging up some of the established lines and eyeballing the results.

I've got a nice tan on my face, neck, forearms and legs below the shorts and above the Blundstones. Just like a farmer.

Wine labeling and vine enabling . . .

If it rains we head inside the winery and label. Township 7 and other small wineries often bottle 'shiners' - bottles without labels and foils - because the technology we have is too slow to keep up with the bottler. Or perhaps the labels are not ready yet. So we label at a later date.

This is our little MEB benchtop labeler. A couple of weeks ago the drive spool (as indicated) bearings seized and it had to go to the wine machinery hospital. She works fine now. Thanks to the guys at CellarTek for the help.

If the sun shines we head outside. We've just completed our early suckering. We take all the shoots off the vine below the fruit wire. This allows the vine to concentrate energy in the remaining vines and allows us to kill all the weeds around their trunks.

Perhaps these photos will illustrate this.

before

after.