We had four separate harvests to bring in our crop. What is significant about the separate harvests of 2014 is the fact that we could choose what dates we harvested. I’ll explain. Vancouver Island is considered a cool-climate wine region. There are certain varieties of grapes you grow in a region like this that do very well in a cool climate, but you usually have to let the grapes hang on the vine as long as possible in order to get them as ripe as the vintage will allow. 2014 was different. We had the privilege of having four separate harvests based around picking individual varieties when they were ready to be picked. So instead of letting everything hang until the last minute, then panic and harvest everything before it’s taken over by rot, we got to harvest beautifully ripe grapes that were in pristine condition, free of any damage from predators, mildew, or rot. Needless to say, 2014 was a great year for us to kick things off.

So, what happens next? There are buckets and buckets, and more buckets of grapes piling up on the crush pad. For the white wines, the grapes were put through the crusher/de-stemmer (pretty self explanatory what it does) then the must (crushed grapes, skins, seeds, juice) goes into the press, which separates the juice from everything else, and is pumped into stainless steel tanks in preparation for fermentation.  The reds went through a similar, but less complicated process. They were crushed and de-stemmed and the must was placed in various vessels for fermentation. This is all pretty standard practice for wine making, what happens next is where we have chosen to do things a little less conventional than standard industry practice.

If you have been following us so far, then you are well aware that we are farming out vineyard organically with a focus on natural and sustainable practices. For us, we naturally wanted to carry these practices over into our wine making. For thousands of years wine was made by simply allowing the grapes to do what they do naturally on their own- make wine. Through a lot of research and past experiments, we realized that organically farmed grapes come with all the necessary components to make wine. Among these components is yeast.

In conventional winemaking, after crush you toss in commercial yeast that will attack the sugars in the fruit and convert it to alcohol. This is a very smart and safe way of winemaking that gives the winemaker control of many variables that will contribute to the flavour profile of the finished wine.

From the moment we moved on to this vineyard, we felt there was something very special about this piece of land. We knew early on that we wanted to use old world wine making techniques to show off what this vineyard has to offer. This is our first vintage making a commercial volume of wine, so this decision wasn’t made lightly. Fortunately, we have had help from our friend, Michael Bartier, a winemaker from the Okanagan who has many years in the business and a passion for making natural wines.

Back to our crush pad. The grapes have been processed and are ready for fermentation. Remember, we had four separate harvests. The first ferment was our estate white blend. Michael gave me a quote from an old world wine maker; “Sometimes we have to have the courage to do nothing.” So that is what we did. Fingers crossed that our first ferment would kick on its’ own. A couple of days went by, nothing was happening. A couple more days went by, still nothing. We were getting a little nervous. A few more days went by, still no activity. By this point nervous was a huge understatement. Around the ten day mark Mike was pretty much losing his mind. At this point we were feeling pretty far away from courageous and a lot closer to; “HOLY CRAP! What are we doing!” . . . . . . Then day twelve there were slight signs of fermentation. We breathed a little lighter. Finally on day 14, two weeks after harvest, fermentation kicked off in full force! You cannot imagine the relief that we felt. What’s more, the ferment carried on text book all the way through to dry. From that point forward, every ferment went exactly how it should and every single one of them was done 100% naturally.

(A fact for the wine nerds out there: These wines were made in a brand new, clean facility with no previous wine making or pre-existing yeast cultures in the building.)

As mentioned before, the whites were fermented in big stainless steel tanks. The reds were partly fermented in large very un-sexy food grade plastic bins. They were also partly fermented in very sexy old oak puncheons, which are 500L barrels upright with the head taken out of them. This is also an old world technique that works incredibly well. We can’t wait until our winery is full of old puncheons.

Currently all of the wines are resting in tanks and barrels in the winery waiting the appropriate amount of time to age before bottling. Here is where I will be brutally honest with you. So much is out of your control when allowing wine to do things naturally, and it is anybody’s guess how the wine will turn out. Well guess what . . . . The wines taste amazing! And we can’t wait to share them with you.

To see what else we’ve been up to in the midst of wine making check out PART 2. (Spoiler: We Have a Name!)

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Contrary to popular belief, our vineyard is not called We Bought A Vineyard. Several months ago we decided on a name but were waiting to share it until we had our branding developed. We are pleased to announce that our vineyard is named: Emandare Vineyard. (em / an / dare) 
 

This was a difficult process. We spent countless hours discussing and researching possible names. Any name that we both agreed on was already taken. There are no English words that describe this place and the feeling of being here, so we created our own word that has no prior meaning so is can only mean this place. This is also fitting as our wine and all that goes into it is from this place.

Once we settled on a name the fun began! We are privileged to be working with Victoria De Vries from Young Color (www.youngcolour.com) designing our word mark, labels, website, sign etc. . . . We will keep you posted as these develop. We are so excited to soon put up a proper sign in place of the piece of plywood with our address on it.

When we’re not working on branding or the wines, Mike is making headway on insulating the winery and working on the tasting room. We are also gearing up for some major landscaping in the new year to increase our car park capacity.

As 2014 draws to a close we are reminded of what an incredible rollercoaster year it has been. We are so grateful for every moment here and all of the people that have helped us along the way. Here’s to 2015 and all the adventures it is sure to bring.

Merry Christmas,

Robin & Mike

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