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Ah, yes ... the simpler life


Stephen Cipes reflects on the 30 years since he left the Big Apple and found himself involved in reshaping of the B.C. wine industry.


By Judie Steeves A


t 44, New York millionaire developer Stephen Cipes had retired, and was searching the world for a place to transplant his young family, including four young boys — a place where they could live a simpler life, maybe plant a few vines and make some wine.


At a celebrity dinner party one evening in 1986, someone mentioned British Columbia, Canada, and three days later he was in the air on his way to Vancouver to do some exploring.


He ended up in the Okanagan and bought a 60-acre farm in the Mission area of Kelowna. “I paid the highest price ever paid for a grape farm here at the time,” recalls Cipes with a grin.


However, he admits that wasn’t exactly what the plan had been. “We’d intended to come here and live off the land; live a simpler life. But, we ended up with another mansion. We had to buy the house that went with it.”


They were excited about Canada’s pristine environment and about the fact the Okanagan contained ideal terroir for growing grapes to make sparkling wine. “With its hot, dry, long days, plants flourish morning and evening and shut down mid-day. They’re nourished with pure air and water,” explains Cipes. “The grapes need to hold their flavour through a second fermentation in the bottle, for champagne,” he adds.


The family removed the hybrids growing on the site and put in Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier varietals from France.


Most of the replanting occurred in 1988, as part of the federal grape pullout incentive program intended to replace the


old labrusca varietals with premium vitis viniferas, with the aim of revolutionizing the wine industry.


By 1991, the first new grapes were beginning to form on the vines and what is now Summerhill Pyramid Winery was born.


This year the Cipes celebrate 30 years since purchase of the vineyard and 25 years since the first Summerhill vintage was crushed.


“I was a sparkling wine enthusiast and we learned about making champagne the traditional way.”


By 1992, the first Cipes Brut sparkling wine was created, to rave reviews from New York, which quickly resulted in a sellout. “People here sit up and take notice when a wine is so eagerly celebrated elsewhere,” notes Cipes with a wry grin. Summerhill’s sparkling wines have gone on to win both national and international gold medals.


JUDIE STEEVES


But those first wines were made in the garage, under the watchful eye of winemaker Eric von Krosigk, a Vernon- born, German-trained, sparkling wine enthusiast whose father Buko was a brewer who founded the popular Okanagan Spring Brewery.


Eric also learned to make sparkling wines at the prestigious Gugenheim University in Germany. After three years with Summerhill he went on to work with other young wineries, returning in 2006 to Summerhill, where he remains today. Despite the popularity and success of its champagne-style wines, Cipes says 50 per cent of the winery’s total sales, by value, are of icewine, followed by bubblies and then still wines for a total of 30,000 cases of wine annually.


Summerhill was the 13th winery to enter the fledgling industry in B.C., and in recognition of his long service, Cipes was presented with a Founders’ Award by the


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Winter 2016-17 15


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