Cover Story A growing legacy
Richard Cleave has played a key role in the remarkable growth of the B.C. wine industry. By Susan McIver
T
he B.C. wine industry is indebted to Adrienne Cleave for persuading her husband, horticulturalist Richard Cleave, to leave their native England for Canada.
Adrienne had previously worked in Canada and was keen to return after her marriage to Richard 45 years ago. A graduate of the Chadacre
Agricultural Institute in Suffolk, he was employed by an agri-chemical company at the time.
“I’ve never had any regrets. This is paradise,” he said, looking out the window of their home on Black Sage Road in Oliver.
Today, Cleave is widely recognized as one of Canada’s premier grape growers, and a leading authority on viticulture and vineyard management. He received the Okanagan Wine Festival’s Founders Award in 1996 and the Banee Award in 2008 for his contributions to the grape and wine industry.
“Dick has been responsible for planting more acres of grapes in Canada than anyone else. Locally, he’s done Mission Hill, Vincor, Burrowing Owls and Sundial among others,” said longtime friend and business associate Harry McWatters.
McWatters, a pioneer powerhouse in the B.C. industry, and Cleave continue to work together on Sundial Vineyard. Much of Cleave’s work in the past was done in conjunction with Robert Goltz through their firm R & R Management. “I met Harry in 1976 when he was involved with Casabello Wines. We discussed our dreams of producing great wines in B.C., but it took until the early 1990s to get started,” Cleave said. When he accepted an offer to manage an Oliver vineyard in 1975 he had no idea of the explosion that lay ahead for the B.C. wine industry and what his role would be.
SUSAN MCIVER
Richard Cleave, of Oliver, is widely recognized as one of Canada's premier grape growers and a leading authority on viticulture and vineyard management.
“I came because Harry Shannon, who owned a 250 acre vineyard in Oliver at the time, offered me more money and a much nicer house,” said Cleave, who had been managing a vegetable farm in Grand Forks.
Shannon’s holdings soon increased to about 500 acres called Shannon Pacific Vineyard, which supplied grapes to Calona Wines.
Cleave ran the entire operation for several years and also managed Covert Farms.
During the late 1980s, Cleave bought 14 acres where the Black Hills Estate Winery tasting room now stands and planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines. “Pretty much all this has happened from those 14 acres,” Cleave said, referring to development of the Black Sage Bench.
The New York Times has described the bench as “a prime winemaking region.”
Since the early 1990s, Cleave has not
only planted thousands of acres under vine in the Okanagan, but has also consulted for scores of wineries, ranging from Veranda Beach in Washington State north to Harper’s Trail in Kamloops and Fort Berens in Lillooet. His longest association has been with McWatters, who owns Sundial Vineyards (formerly Black Sage Vineyards).
“Dick helped us acquire the property and then planted all 115 acres using machines in 20 days,” McWatters said. “In 1993 it was the biggest vinifera planting in Canada,” Cleave said. McWatters and Cleave decided to plant Bordeaux-style red varieties that had yet to be planted in any quantity in the area.
“A lot of people thought we were out of our minds,” McWatters said. Their confidence in the site’s potential was well placed.
More than 1,000 awards have been won by wines made from grapes grown in the vineyard and approximately 60
British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Spring 2015 7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36