everything wine magazine issue 4

ISSUE #4Sep-Oct 2009

Glenterra Vineyards

Continuing the CaminoA Pilgrim's Journey Across Spain

Cabra al Romero

the lifestyle surrounding the glass

A Pilgrim's GlassEverything Wine's own Guy Dalcourt continues across the North of Spain to complete the Camino de Santiago.

Cabra al RomeroDelicate, herbal, and distinc-tive, this goat cheese from central Spain is sublime.

ContentsEditor

Jason Sych

Assistant EditorsJasmine O'Brien

Contributing WritersGuy Dalcourt

Dave RamsdenIvan LoyolaJason Sych

Contributing PhotographerAdelio Trinidad

www.adeliotrinidad.com

E v E r y t h i n g W i n E M a g a z i n ES E p / O c t 2 0 0 9 i S S u E 4

Glenterra VineyardsJohn Kelly takes us on a walk through his vineyard and ex-plains what it takes to make a stunning Pinot Gris on Vancou-ver Island.p.24

p.23

p.8

Questions or comments for Everything Wine

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Please forward any correspondence to

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Everything Wine#131-2401 Millstream Road,

Langford, BC V9B 3R5(250) 474-3959

998 Marine DriveNorth Vancouver, BC V7P3C4

(604) 929-7277

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in thE WinE WOrld, there is no time of the year that comes close to having the energy, or importance, of harvest. Bringing in the grapes, the crush, fer-mentation, pressing...it all is part of the dance that ultimately leads to the mo-ment when a new vintage is poured into a glass for the first time, and tasted.

Friends and I decided a number of years ago that we wanted to take part in the time-honoured traditions of making wine. Not having grapevines of our own, we contacted a local organization that imported wine grapes every year for the purpose of wine making. We signed on, purchased one ton of grapes, and dutifully showed up at 8a.m. on a Satur-day morning to pick them up.

The scene was just as you would imagine it: doz-ens of grizzled old Italian and Portuguese men stood around, drinking black coffee and smoking while waiting for their name to be called so they could get

the grapes they would im-mediately take home to begin making into wine. Italian, Portuguese, and other assorted languages bounced off the concrete walls of the loading dock as a forklift moved around stacks of crates like grape-filled chess pieces. Names were called, and grapes disappeared. Slowly, the crowd dwindled.

Our names were called around 11 o'clock, and we crammed our ton into the back of the pick-up to begin the ten-minute journey from the loading dock to our make-shift winery at the back of one of our houses. It wasn't exactly as romantic of a vendemmia as the image of grape har-vest usually is, but it was a beginning. We would still love to have a harvest that takes place in a vineyard, but until that happens we realize a loading dock will have to do. And for us, that is okay because it is still a vendemmia each year...just without the vines.

~JaSOn Sych

DecantingTis the season to harvest


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Click here to Searchover 3000 wines online

at www.everythingwine.ca

The vendemmia begins.

Harmony on the Palate........................$29.95

WordsWine and food pairing

made easy

Shari darling, also known as The So-phisticated Wino, has created a book that tackles the sometimes daunting art of pairing food and wine. Useful for both experienced drinkers, as well as novices, Darling examines both the science and art behind finding what matches between plate and glass, and looks at far more than classical French and Italian dishes.

Well structured and planned, the book begins with a look at the science of taste--what makes us taste the way we do, what taste is exactly, and how it affects our perceptions. Darling then breaks wine into comprehensive, if simplified, catego-ries called wine styles. These styles are based on the generalized flavour profiles of wine, and these become the building blocks on which Darling creates her pair-ing principals.

The book is easy to understand, and the principals easy to use. Even more helpful are the informational side-bars that ac-company each recipe, which outline the flavour profiles of the dish, and what flavour profiles a wine will need to be optimally paired with it. The recipes themselves are diverse, with everything from Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya to Wild Rice and Bulgar Salad with Lemon, Garlic, and Olive Oil, each recipe explaining what to pair with the flavours of the dish, and why.

Harmony on the Palate is a fantastic resource for not only learning the basics of pairing wine with food, but for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of why certain wines work with certain foods--and conversely, why others don't.

~JaSOn Sych


JaSOn Sych, along with running the Vintage Room at the Victoria Millstream Everything Wine store, loves pairing wine and food. But beyond that, he has an even greater love for pairing food and wine.

5lostlast seen in my wine cellar on May 15, 2009, shortly before my son's May long weekend party.

If you've seen this bottle, or know its whereabouts, please call 555-8247 immediately.

Luckily, we have more. Because we truly are

7GadgetsE v E r y t h i n g W i n E M a g a z i n ES E p / O c t 2 0 0 9 i S S u E 4

The ritual of decanting a bottle of wine brings to mind the leisurely passing of time, not the forceful activity of carburetors and vacuum cleaners. But the Vinturi wine aerator, the brilliant new wine gadget that has hit the market, uses the same principle as these modern inventions to achieve its desired effect.

Named after “the Venturi effect”, a discovery of Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi in the late 18th century, the principle states that as the speed of a moving fluid increases, the pressure within the fluid decreases. By applying this principle to its de-sign, the Vinturi wine aerator has revolutionized the act of decanting, bringing the benefits of full oxygen-ation to the wine in the time it takes to pour a glass. Shaped like a jet turbine and made of crystal-like plas-tic, the Vinturi looks as sleek and efficient as its perfor-mance. When wine is poured into the top of the Vinturi, gravity pulls it though a constricted midsection. As the wine’s velocity increases, its pressure drops dramatically. Two filament-like tunnels placed across the main axis of the gadget allow air into the center of the constriction. Sucked in by the difference of pressure, air mixes with the wine and aereates it--enough to equal about 1 hours in a decanter. It sounds technical, but the process is fun to watch; the wine seethes with tiny bubbles, and makes an enjoy-able whooshing sound. The wine that fills the glass has notably enhanced flavors and a finer, smoother tex-ture, its aromas released and immediate to the senses.

The design is intelligent as well as practical; easy to clean and store, it’s small enough to take along to a dinner party to show off to your friends. And in the case that white wine is preferred, a mod-el with subtle modifications is available for white.

~ivan lOyOla

Vinturi wine aereator....................................................$53.99

ivan lOyOla is a Sales Associate in the North Vancouver Every-thing Wine store. He loves things that combine with wine and make a whooshing sound.

Ford Motor Cars has 41 Vintages.

We have roughly 684.

And ours are drinkable.

Come in and check out our Vintages room.

A Pilgrim's GlassthE caMinO dE SantiagO runs 780 kilo-metres across northern Spain, winding its way through the wine and cuisine of countless towns, villages, and cities before reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Finisterre. Everything Wine's own Guy Dalcourt tied on his hiking boots, grabbed his pack, and headed down the road where the Camino passes though the wine regions of Ribera del Duero, Bierzo, and Galicia, experi-encing not only the culture of the pil-grim trail, but the culture of the wines, food, and people along the way.

By guy dalcOurtphOtOgraphS By Barry ByErS

& Mandy thOMpSOn

Santiago de CompostelaS S

O Cebreiro

prEcEEding pagES: A view of the windmills in Galicia.

lEft: A marker showing the scallop shell--the symbol of St. James.

BElOW: Three women discuss-ing politics--or getting ready to do some serious weeding.


5:30 a.m., and pitch dark in Vega da Valcarce. Still, it’s my usual start of the day. There are very few pilgrims in the albergue; Patrice, an elementary school teacher, is pulling his pack on—Patrice left his home in Nancy, France, three months ago. For him it was just like medieval times, when a pilgrimage began at your front door. Patrice and I will walk together today, so it is fitting that this morning in the dark, it feels like we are in the mid-dle of the 13th century.

Twenty meters from the alber-gue is the panaderia (bakery), where we stop for breakfast. We do as was suggested by the owner of the hostel the night before, each of us buying a hot loaf of bread that came out of the wood-burning oven fifteen minutes before we got to the bakery. We devour them, the smell and taste a wonderful sensa-tion in the mornings’ darkness. The bread reminds me of my grand-

mother’s home.We decided to walk at a good

pace, coming down from 1400 meters to about 400, and we agreed it would be best to take advantage of the downhill momen-tum. Later, we each bought an ex-tra bocadillo (a sandwich made of chorizo, cheese and tomato), and while eating I couldn’t help but feel that everything about the walk was beginning to fall into place. I found myself visualizing my entrance into Santiago—but I still had 150 kilo-meters to go, which was a good week of walking on winding paths through one-house hamlets, past rain drenched fields, and along-side swollen rivers. Galicia is wet, and gets wetter the closer we got to the ocean. Storms dump tons of the wet stuff almost year-round there—Galicians have an old say-ing that says “be prepared for rain and pray for sunshine.” So I warned myself against the “horse seeing

the barn” syndrome—anticipating the end of the journey before it is complete. Sometimes looking too far ahead can jeopardize the lessons the objective can teach.

Patrice and I finished our long day at 4 p.m., when we arrived in the town of Triacastela. We had

covered 34 kilometers, but could not find room in the albergue when we stopped. We searched for a room elsewhere in the vil-lage, realizing that as the Cami-no nears Santiago the number of pilgrims swells. We managed to find modest accommodation,


10 11

AMadrid

SBurgosCarrión de los Condes

S

It's

and while doing so met up with Brian, from Australia. The three of us had walked together from time to time, sharing folk songs from our own countries, which provided much laughter along the route.

Of course, this is a marvel-ous reason for a celebration. We decided to get together around 9:00 p.m., the normal hour for din-ner in Spain, at a place called La Meson Villa Sante. That night, we would honour the food and wine of Galicia. We started with caldo gallego, a traditional meat soup--simple, hearty, and fantastic, it is the kind of dish that really sticks to your ribs. The pulpo a la feira (octopus) that followed was not so good—the texture was too slippery for my liking. Of course, the meal would not have been complete without a dessert of polenta cake, and Quiexo de Tetilla and Arzua, two local cheeses from Galicia.

That night we consumed enough wine to fully expand the international reputation of Gali-cian wines—starting with a crisp, silky Albariño, then another white blend from the Ribero that was made from Torrontes and Lado grapes. A red followed, then an-other, and as we left the restau-rant a few hours later, the owner heartily agreed the wines of their region made a great impression on us...and we on Galicia.

Over the next few days, I

walked deeper into Galicia. Fog would come in the morning, and it would rain almost daily across the rugged terrain. When I arrived in Portomarin, a small town on the Miño River, it was lunchtime. In the center of town I met two Germans who were doing the Camino on horseback. One was a priest and the other, a retired judge. Part of the beauty of the Camino is the ability to have a chat with com-plete strangers, and listen to their stories. The three of us sat in a café on the main street, chatting about their trip, and how difficult it was to refuel horses in the 21st century. They also related how Portomarin, as a town, was com-pletely dismantled, moved, and reconstructed on higher ground in the 1960’s—Franco was going to build a dam on the river but never did. The church, when it was moved during the reconstruction, had all its stones numbered, the numbering which is still visible on close inspection. At the end of our lunch we wish each other “Bon Camino,” a Spanish greeting used by pilgrims and villagers along the route.

I arrived in Palas del Rei early the same day, and although I had vis-ited what seemed to be hundreds of 12th century churches, I decided to visit yet another. I always feel comfortable in the simple, austere space that Romanesque architec-

Bola da FamiliaPolenta cake

175g unbleached flour1 tbsp baking powder50g cornmeal175g sugar250ml olive oil4 eggs2 oranges, zest and juice

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the oil, eggs, zest and juice, mix-ing thoroughly with a wooden spoon until everything is com-bined. The batter should drop from the spoon thickly, but not run. Butter a cake tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Put the batter into the tin, making sure it gets into the corners. Bake for 1 hour, checking to ensure it does not brown too darkly. The cake should be well-risen, and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and let rest for ten minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely.

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E v E r y t h i n g W i n E M a g a z i n ES E p / O c t 2 0 0 9 i S S u E 4 E v E r y t h i n g W i n E M a g a z i n ES E p / O c t 2 0 0 9 i S S u E 4

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Caldo GallegoGalician meat stew

The addition of greens to this stew gives it a rustic, earthy flavour. If Savoy cabbage is unavailable, try beet greens.

450g beef chuck (cubed)2 chorizo sausages2 strips bacon225g salt-pork belly2 chicken legs

275g dried white beans900g potatoes, quartered275g tomatoes, chopped1 savoy cabbage, sliced

Soak the beans overnight. Drain, and put into a large stewpot with all the meat, and add enough cold water to cover everything twice. Bring to a boil, cover, and turn down to a simmer. Let simmer for 2 hours, skimming any impu-rities regularly. After simmering, ladle half the broth into a another saucepot into which you have placed the potatoes and tomatoes. Let the meat continue to simmer (adding boiling water if there isn't enough liquid to cover the meat) while cooking the potatoes and tomatoes. until the potatoes are nearly done. Add the sliced cabbage and return the pot to a simmer, cooking for another 8 minutes. Remove the meat pot from the heat, slice the chorizo sausages and bacon, shred the chicken legs, and discard the salt pork. For a simple service, combine the two pots, and serve in deep soup plates with plenty of red wine. For a more refined dinner, serve the meat in a deep dish, the beans in a sec-ond, and the potatoes and cabbage with the broth in a third.



16ture gives. It feels close to the ordinary people, without ostenta-tion. This day I found the door al-ready open, and the church filled with beautiful voices. Four wom-en were standing in front of the altar, singing. These women had made a promise to each other before starting the Camino: that at the end of every day during their trek, they will enter the local church and sing. “It is our way of saying a prayer every day,” one of them told me. I couldn’t think of a more beautiful gift to give to the pilgrims they met along the way.

While listening to their music, I started thinking about the initial purpose of my trek. I started walk-ing to help understand my life. I realized that the Camino was a synopsis of a lifelong journey; af-ter all, aren’t we always along a path of self-discovery, getting to know ourselves better? The bet-ter we understand ourselves, the better we understand our hopes, strengths, and weaknesses, and achieve a better tomorrow.

After this realization, I could not help but smell the barn. I stopped in Sarria and Melide, then Arzua, 40 kilometers from Santiago; that is when I started to think that I could actually get there. I stayed overnight in Arzua, and the owner of the small hotel where I stayed told me the terrain will be flatter all the way to Santi-

sober, unlike some we’d had along the way. We were all quite spent; we'd all reached within ourselves and had all pushed our limits, and it caught up with us the moment we reached Santiago. We also re-alized this was most likely the last time we would see each other.

a fEW dayS later found me at the Lavacolla airport, waiting for Heather, my wife. It was back to the twenty first century, with air-ports, taxis, no grass or trees in the city, the roar of flights landing and departing, thousands of people in shirts, skirts and ties. But had any-thing changed for me? A resound-ing yes: I had made the decision to retire at the first occasion I could. Twenty minutes later, Heather walked off the arrival ramp, a sight to behold. We shared long hugs and kisses, because we knew we had both made it across the Camino.

Eight months after my trek to Santiago, I retired. Happily.

Thank you, Camino.~guy dalcOurt

When you go...Walking the Camino--some things to know

Walking the Camino is more than just a long walk across Spain; it has been a spiritual quest, as much as a physical test, for centuries. The modern pilgrim trail traditionally begins in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, in the foothills of the Pyrenees just inside the French border. From there pilgrims cross the mountains into Spain. The journey across Spain takes around six to eight weeks to complete, and by the time a pilgrim reaches Santiago, they will have travelled over 780 kilometers.

To qualify for the Compostellana, the certificate which states a pilgrim has indeed traveled the Camino de Santiago (and thereby recieves a certain amount of time off purgatory), a pilgrim must travel by foot, horseback, or bicycle, and must travel at least 100km if walking, or 200km if traveling by horse or bicycle. As a pilgrim, the traveler is entitled, with the help of a 'pilgrim passport', to stay for free (or very cheaply) in the refugios operated by towns, churches and monestaries all along the Camino. Although the refugios are very basic and, at times, are nothing more than a place to put your sleeping bag, quite often they also include a home cooked meal for a very reason-able fee.

The Camino is traveled by all manner of people--young and old, fit and unfit, religious and not-so-much. Interestingly, the pilgrims that seem to have the most trouble finishing the route are the young ones, presumably because they try to finish the Camino too quickly. The key to the Camino is to slow down, and take it at a pace that allows you to experience the journey. And that very much includes the wine and food of the regions traveled through, as well as the scenery and history. Because as with any journey, the true enjoyment, and learning, is in the traveling.


guy dalcOurt is a Sales Associate at the North Vancouver Every-thing Wine store. His favoourite Spanish wine is...well, all of them.

prEviOuS pagE: Descending into Galicia.right: The Mile Zero marker at Finisterre, the end of the Camino.BElOW: Finisterre, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

18ago. I got up the next day at 6:00 a.m., put my pack on my back and a hot espresso on my lips, and set off for the final stretch to the end of the Camino.

i finally rEachEd Santiago in the late afternoon. The unfortunate thing was, after walking all that way, I couldn’t find the cathedral where all the pilgrims congregate, and celebrate their arrival. The map I had was not that detailed—and I had just spent weeks going through small hamlets where the main street was the only street. I walked around the city of San-tiago aimlessly, eventually finding two policemen who I asked for directions. When I explained that I couldn’t find the Cathedral, both of them started to laugh; they grabbed my backpack, still on my shoulders, and literally turned me around 90 degrees. There it was, 500 meters away, the belfry jutting over the surrounding build-ings. After all those weeks visiting Romanesque churches, you would think I would have been able to find one of the largest medieval cathedrals in the world.

I walked into the plaza, where dozens of pilgrims were lined up to get their passports validated in the sacristy of the church. The day after validation, a church of-ficial acknowledges in the cathe-dral that you have arrived, saying

your name, country of origin, and point of departure on the Cami-no. As you enter the cathedral, it is the custom to touch the left foot of the statue of St-James; so many people have done it that a groove has been worn in the stone. I touch his foot as I passed to get my validation stamp.

The first order of business in Santiago, after the validation, was to find a room, have a show-er, and then get back to the pla-za to meet up with other pilgrims who had arrived. I walked onto the terrace of a restaurant to find Brian and Patrice already cele-brating; both of them had arrived

late that afternoon. I sat down, and soon the table swelled as more people arrived: Dallas from San Francisco; a couple from Bor-deaux who walked a few days with me; a woman from Vancou-ver I met earlier on the trek who had worked for a time at Capers, a grocery store very close to my house. Our celebration was quite


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20 our wine associates can help you decipher the world of wine

better than this can.

Mainly because we can answer your questions.

Partly because we drink a lot.

And we truly love

Ribera del Duero & BierzoCeleste 2005 Crianza TempranilloLiquorice, black pepper, ripe blackberry and black cherry. Well balanced with good tannins, oak, and solid fruit. Full bodied with a long finish.$27.99

Aalto 2004 Crianza TempranilloRipe black fruit, floral notes, bacon, wood smoke, spicy tobacco. This wine is ex-ceptional: powerful, lay-ered, and complex.$74.99

Gormez 2007 TempranilloEarthy, spicy, with miner-als, dark plums and black currants. Medium bodied with light tannins and a pleasing, balanced finish.$19.99

Atalayas 2004TempranilloTraditional in style, with inky, dusty dark berries, cracked pepper, and vio-lets. Firm tannins with a long, meandering finish.$34.99

Legaris 2003 Crianza TempranilloSmooth, dark and rich. Black plums, blackber-ries, tobacco, coffee and subtle oak. Elegant tan-nins lead into a long finish tinged with vanilla.$27.99

Dominio de Atauta 2004 TempranilloTraditional style, with ex-pressive spice box, coffee, black cherry, and black-berry. Solid acidity and tannins make this wine elegant.$64.99

Luna Beberide 2006Mencia Red- and blackcurrants, white pepper, minerality, and smoked herbs. Light coffee on the nose, with soft tannins and a round finish.$17.99

Pittacum 2004 Mencia Blackberry, raspberry, li-quorice and subtle oak. Smoked herbs and spic-es with a hint of cocoa. Sweet tannins and an ex-pressive finish.$28.99


Palomero 1999 TempranilloAn exceptional, highly sought after wine, the Palomero carries a nose of cassis, earthy forest floor, blackberries, black cherries, espresso and spicy oak. The palate fol-lows suit, with a smooth yet complex flavour that is firm and powerful. Is drinking well now, but will continue to evolve over the next 5 years.$134.99


Cabra al Romero

Right: A close-up of the rose-mary encrusting the Cabra al Romero

Cheese at a GlanceprOnunciatiOn

Kab-Ra Al Roh-Mer-oh

arEa Of Origin

La Mancha, Spain

StylE Of chEESE

Goat Milk

flavOur prOfilE

Complex, with subtle herbal notes and a lem-ony finish. The rosemary perfumes the paste with its scent, but is never enough to become overwhelm-ing. Some say to cut the rosemary away, others say to eat it; either way, it is a good cheese for red wine.

WinE pairing SuggEStiOnS

grEnachE

tEMpranillO

pinOt nOir

thE gOat chEESES of Spain are often sublime, but the Cabra al Romero is unusually so. More like a sheeps milk cheese in texture, with a firm and creamy mouth feel, Romero carries no hint of goati-ness on its nose or palate. The fact that Romero is made in the same region, and by the same producers, as Spain's most famous Manchego cheese may go a long way in explaining why it closely resembles something made from sheeps milk rather than goat.

A relatively new cheese to hit the markets, Romero is one of a family of cheeses that come from La Mancha in central Spain that are either coated in herbs or spices, or soaked in wine or booze. The more famous Cabra al Vino, or "Drunken Goat" as it is known in Canada, is a close relative to the Romero.

The Cabra al Romero is aged for a minimum of three months, and in the final days of ageing is rubbed with a lot of rosemary, which is left to flavour the rind, and permeate the cheese with a subtle, etherial flavour. Some are of the opinion to cut the rosemary crust away, but other die-hard cheese fanatics (such as myself) say

to leave it on as it adds another layer of com-plexity to the taste. This also gives the cheese the ability to pair with fuller red wines, such as a Grenache, or an aged Rioja.

~Jason Sych

Cheese-Rosemary Love

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JaSOn Sych is the Editor of Everything Wine magazine. He admits that he finds it distracting to be in the same room as cheese if he's not able to eat it.

Almost hidden away along the gentle hills of Saanich, a grape grower is creat-ing wines of distinction and character--and shows how the essence of a wine

lives within the vineyard.

By JaSOn Sych

phOtOS By adEliO trinidadGlenterra

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Previous Pages: John Kelly in the tasting bar of Glenterra Vineyards.

Below: The vineyards of Glenterra.

iSland’S diffErEnt, that’s the whole thing. A lot of people come in here with preconceived ideas about BC wine being just the Okanagan—and usually I have to start right there. I tell them this is the island—it’s temper-ate, it’s coastal. We’re using Al-satian varietals, that’s what works here. The Gris, I’ve been playing around with it since...well, since ’99, my first vintage. The first vin-tage I tried of Island wine, and that was probably late ’96, the one that turned us on to it, on to Pinot Gris, was Hans’ out at Blue Grouse. But both my ’99 and the 2000 were Okanagan fruit, so right away you’re in a different flavour profile...you get riper fruits, you get different notes. It’s not that you don’t get Gris ripe here, but once again it’s a totally differ-ent growing region. We’ll usually get higher acids, you know, with the cooler nights...but our Gris never gets super ripe. We don’t irrigate, and we usually get small-er berries, smaller cluster weight, I think we get a little more inten-sity, and I think that fruit really ex-tracts what the terroir is all about. That’s where you get those really lovely flinty, mineral notes, the cit-rusy backbone. I’ve been play-ing around with it for years, and I think I’ve got it to where I like it. It’s part barrel fermentation, part stainless steel, and then I’m put-ting it through a malolactic...I’ve

played with different yeast strains...I use one strain for the barrel fermentation, one for the stainless. I still try different ones every year, and that’s the whole thing with any of the winemak-ing. It all starts with the vintage.”

Walking thrOugh thE vineyard with John Kelly, owner and vint-ner of Glenterra Vineyards is an exercise in understanding what it takes to create a stunning Pinot Gris on Vancouver Island. Here, there are different challenges facing the winemaker than there are in the Okanagan—primarily the climate. While the Okana-gan can rely with a fair certain-ty on stable sunshine and heat, the cooler, wetter, shorter and cloudier climate of the Cowichan Valley make for a marked dif-ference in the style of the wine. Varietals cannot be taken for granted—what some expect to grow here won’t, and what oth-ers dismiss as unsuited sometimes flourish. To Kelly, Alsatian vari-etals really are the best, as the two climates—that of Alsace and here on the Island—are similar enough that grapes such as Pi-not Gris, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Noir can thrive. However, their style, although heading in the same direction, does vary. While the Gris of Alsace is usu-ally carries a slightly sweet finish, here on the island Kelly keeps

his wine dry, which helps to be-ing out the minerality that defines the terroir of Kelly’s Pinot Gris.

“There’s a balance, and you’ve got to be careful,” says Kelly. “Look at last year—you wouldn’t have been dumping Pinot Gris

into barrels last year. You’d keep it real fruit forward, crisp, dry. It was three to four degrees below normal last summer. There was no real heat...not like this year.” Interestingly enough, Kelly de-cided against making a 2008 vintage of his Pinot Gris because of the coolness of the season. It was too cool, so he decided to drop half of his Pinot Gris fruit to help boost the remaining half into a better chance of ripeness. What was harvested went into the 2008 Vivace, Kelly’s blend

of 22 different varietals that re-sembles Edelzwicker, the wine of Alsace that blends all the noble varietals (see the article on Stras-bourg in the May/Jun 2009 issue of Everything Wine magazine) into a refreshing table-style wine. The Pinot Gris was sacrificed, but in turn created a better Vivace.

And the Vivace itself is an inter-esting wine—22 different varietals combined to make a refreshing, easy-drinking wine. “When we bought this place, one of the main reasons we bought was because

of that original block [of grapes]. We thought that if there was something down there we re-ally liked, we could take cuttings and propagate it.” Which is fine, as the current blend of Vivace is clean and fruit-driven, partly due to the number of varietals included in the blend, as well as to the organic and dynamic as-pect of Kelly’s vineyard practices. It definitely shows its Germanic roots, displaying stone fruits, ly-chee, lemongrass, with overtones of minerals and a pleasing acid-

"The

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ity. However—as pleasing as the Vivace is, to my mind it can’t hold a candle to Kelly’s Pinot Gris, the true measure of his terroir.

He’s right in saying there is a mineral streak right down the centre of the palate of his Gris.


end to end. Within the rows, how-ever, are a huge array of different clones, varietals, and vines with names like Zenco, Helfinsliener, and Kosmos Pal Mus. These are the grapes that go into the Vivace and Brio, Kelly’s white and red blends that are the bread-and-butter of Glenterra Vineyards. “We bought this place because of that original block. We thought if there was something we really liked we had the plants where we could take cuttings and propagate it...and the fact that if we wanted we could ferment them all separately, and play around with them, we could.”

Despite the allure of a wide variety of different grapes, Kelly decided to focus on blending the grapes together to create a wine,

ing attention to what’s being said. That’s when the essence of the Pinot Gris grabs hold; sun-baked pebbles, stainless minerality like you were sunbathing on a big, black rock in the middle of an ocean bay. That’s the measure

of Kelly’s Pinot Gris—fruit, stone, sun. It’s also the quality of his fruit, something Kelly attributes to the organic practices he employs.

“If you’re farming organically, you give the plant a way better

chance. It doesn’t become de-pendent on synthetic chemicals. It’s something I firmly believe in, and the reason we can get such nice, clean flavours out of our wines is because of the organics,” says Kelly. “This vineyard has been

rather than vinifying them sepa-rately. As it happens for most people, the economics drove Kelly to limit the number of wines he made, and also helped with deciding which varietals would make it on their own; Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir are the only two to currently make it as single-

clean for eight and-a-half years.”Kelly’s vineyard is not big by any

stretch of the imagination—from the slight crest of the hill near to the patio of Thistles Cafe, the rows of vines can be easily seen from

There is, at the beginning, the sense of Russet apples, faint hon-eycomb, hints of grapefruit—in fact, none of the flavours whol-lop you with their presence—it’s more about listening, and pay-

Previous Pages: Pinot Noir ripening in the evening sun.

Above: The Glenterra Vine-yard

Below, Left to Right: The vine-yard rows. Thistles cafe at Glenterra Vineyards. The leaf of a Piniot Gris vine. Kelly and his wife, Ruth.

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Opera too loud..?Luckily we carry stemware, too.

We are truly,

JaSOn Sych is the Editor, and a contributing writer, to Everything Wine Magazine. He came to wine through food, spend-ing 15 years as a professional chef before embarking on his love affair with wine.

varietal wines. The Pinot Noir is admittedly Kelly’s favourite wine to make, with Pinot Gris coming in quite a way behind the pack, as far as favourites go. This is curious, since his Gris stands out from those of other BC vineyards, both here in the Cowichan as well as in the Okanagan and Similkameen val-leys. It is not a question of quality, however; just characteristics. John Kelly prefers what other grapes do, over the Gris. But his pref-erence doesn’t affect the quality of his wine, which is a good thing. “The Gris is good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not my favourite by any stretch of the imagination.”

~JaSOn Sych

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Once again, Dave Rams-den gives us a taste of the Italian life; visiting relatives in Sardinia, Dave has the oppor-tunity to pick grapes for the wine harvest...

thErE iS a WEll knOWn geo-graphical split in Italy, and the more industrial North never tires of making fun of the more agrarian South. However, any-one who has ever criticised il terroni (the southerners) for sloth or incompetence has probably never participated in a vendemmia (wine harvest). Last year, it was my pleasure to be in Sardinia in early October when the red grapes were harvested.

It was a very efficient operation: ten of us started pick-ing at 8 a.m., and by 10:30, the grapes were picked, de-stemmed, crushed, in primary fermentation, and the whole area cleaned up. The luncheon started at one, so that left a few hours to sample last year's winemaking efforts.

Of course, most of the really important work had al-ready been done over the course of the previous year. They don't spray, use sulphur, or irrigate, but they do tend the vines very carefully. It’s not about volume; the focus is on the quality of the wine. "Without the grape, you have nothing." The vineyard process gives an insight into why expensive wines are expensive; it's about the attention, and the hours of care taken to create a spectacular grape.

Sardinia has very hot, dry summers and rocky soil, per-fect for several types of red grapes (here, primarily Bar-bera and Cannonau). The process is pretty modern in

some ways, very traditional in others. They measure sugar content of the grapes every day close to picking time, but also have a lunar calendar to time certain aspects of the wine making. They reuse bottles, but mostly use plastic corks now, even though cork trees grow in abundance in the area.

The physical process is to snip the bunches into buckets, and dump the buckets into large bins on flat-bed trucks. After a short ride in the truck,

the grapes go into a motorized destemmer/crusher in the cantina, where they drop into a 1000 litre primary fer-mentation tank. A little yeast goes in, and the next step is to leave the grapes for a few days until it's time for pressing.

A few pounds of the grapes were laid out in the sun this year to dry into a ripasso-style wine. A few days later, in the cantina, the air locks on the fermentation tanks are bubbling away furiously. It's a very happy sound, almost exhilarating; and now, eight months later, I’m sampling the early results of "our" work. 2008 will be a very good year for Sardinian wine. 700 litres of red this year for personal consumption, with another 300 of whites done in Septem-ber—enough for them to make it through another year.

~davE raMSdEn

On the Road...Scenes from the Vendemmia

by Dave Ramsden

Have a wine story to share? Send us your stories and we'll choose one to feature at the end of each issue. Stories can be emailed to [email protected], with the caption "Wine Story" in the subject line.

See your story here, next issue!


davE raMSdEn started his career in science, but turned to trading stocks online during the Tech Boom, which he survived. He has discovered that white wines can be really good, particularly if they have a Grand Cru designation. He still trades online, and having survived another big crash, is now a trusted name in finance (last man standing).

The start of the post-cantina tour feast.

everything wine magazine issue 4

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