Between the Vines
JUDIE STEEVES
With Mount Boucherie in the background, construction of Grizzli Winery is well under way in West Kelowna.
Grizzli rises on Westside trail
Leading exporter of icewine to China is building Tuscan-style operation that will feature a large restaurant and several tasting rooms. By Judie Steeves
T
he Westside Wine Trail will include a ninth winery next spring, if all goes well. John Chang, the owner of Lulu Island Winery in Richmond, recently purchased Lailey Winery in Ontario, and is currently building a 60,000 square-foot winery, tasting room and restaurant at the top of the Boucherie Road hill in West Kelowna, where he plans to open Grizzli Winery next year. Business development director for the new winery, Gayle Morris, says Chang is the number one exporter of icewine to Asia and has a distribution centre in Shanghai.
However, she says he isn’t planning to follow that model with the new Grizzli winery, but instead intends to open a 150-seat ‘chef-driven' restaurant where a variety of the winery’s premium table wines can be paired with food.
In addition, plans call for four private, tailored wine tasting rooms in the winery building, which is designed in a Tuscan style, similar to Chang’s Lulu Island Winery, says Morris. Its wines already use the grapes grown on the new winery property, as well as from other Okanagan vineyards owned by Chang, she said, and production from these vineyards will also be used to produce the wines from the new Grizzli winery.
Chang owns 10 acres of Riesling and Pinot Noir in West Kelowna, 17 acres of Chardonnay and Riesling in East Kelowna and 35 acres of Viognier and Petit Verdot in Kaleden.
Chang grew up in China where his grandmother made her own wine and soy sauce. He immigrated to Canada and today loves pairing food and wine, Morris notes, and lives in Metro Vancouver.
Lulu Island Winery produces not only red, white, Viognier and Meritage icewines, but also a selection of table wines, including a Meritage, Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon; a Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Gewürztraminer. In addition, production at Lulu Island includes fruit wines made with blueberries, cranberries, raspberries and passion fruit.
Additions to B.C.’s wide variety of wine trails or wine routes are made every year, with new wineries coming on-board. While some groups of wineries have banded together to
market themselves as a wine trail or route, others simply are a geographical group, such as the Gulf Islands or Vancouver Island, Shuswap or Kootenays.
The most densely populated area with wineries and the first to form a regional association for marketing purposes was the Naramata Bench Wineries Association, which now includes an astounding 24 member wineries.
They include: Perseus, Poplar Grove, Terravista, La Frenz, Red Rooster, D’Angelo, Hillside, Quidni, Moraine, Lang, Monster, Bench 1775, Black Widow, Misconduct, Lake Breeze, Elephant Island Orchard Wines, Tightrope, Van Westen, Therapy, Serendipity, Kettle Valley, Upper Bench, Howling Bluff and Deep Roots Wineries.
The Westside Wine Trail currently includes Kalala Organic Estate Winery, Mission Hill Family Estate, Quails Gate Estate Winery, Volcanic Hills Estate Winery, Mt. Boucherie Estate Winery, Beaumont Family Estate Winery, Little Straw Vineyards and Rollingdale Winery.
Also in the area is The Hatch tasting room, which opened for business in late May at the Black Swift Vineyards property off Boucherie Road. Its owner, Terrabella Wines Ltd., says it has plans for $2 million worth of production facilities at the site.
Summerland has a wine trail called British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Summer 2015 23
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