OCTOBER 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
37 "Serious wine" the result of five decades' work
Harry McWatters is dubbed the “grandfather”of BC’s wine industry for good reason
by TOM WALKER
KELOWNA – This year marks the 50th vintage that BC wine industry pioneer Harry McWatters has worked. From his first sales position with Casabello Wines in Penticton in 1968 to this year’s crush at the new TIME winery only a few blocks from that original Casabello site, McWatters’ 50 years is a feat unmatched in BC’s wine industry. “My daughter (Christa-Lee
McWatters-Bond) sometimes refers to me as the grandfather of the BC wine business,” jokes McWatters. “I’m not completely sure about that.” McWatters undoubtedly had a hand in many of the major developments that have built the BC wine industry into what it is today. Walking through the new TIME winery building, a makeover of the old PenMar Theatre in downtown Penticton as a working urban winery with a restaurant and education centre, he reminisced about the changes he's seen. “When I first started at
Casabello, we had a couple of rows of grapes planted in the lawn in front of the building, but they were only for show,” recalls McWatters. “We probably grew more petunias!” Tight government control existed in those days. “We weren’t allowed to
have a tasting room or a retail store. We bought grapes from local growers but also imported a lot of grapes and juice from the States,” says McWatters. “We were making sweet red and white wines because that’s what the market was drinking.” Most of those local grapes
were hybrids, with names such as Okanagan Riesling or De Chaunac, developed to produce large volumes of grapes in cool climates. Many people in the industry didn’t believe European grapes could survive the Okanagan winters.
Keen vineyard owners in the valley have always grown European viniferas, McWatters points out – the names we recognize today like Pinot Noir, Merlot or Pinot Gris. “Casabello was making some serious wine in those days,” he says. “But most people weren’t drinking it!” McWatters likes “serious”
wine. Early start
He started making wine at home when he was 16, getting advice from his Italian neighbours in Vancouver. When he got the chance, that’s the direction he took in business. McWatters and a partner bought the Sumac Ridge Golf Course in Summerland, kept the restaurant and the golf course as a revenue stream and immediately planted
Harry McWatters and his son, Darren McWatters, production manager at the site of the new TIME winery in downtown Penticton. TOM WALKER PHOTO
Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes along the first, second and part of the ninth fairways. They opened Sumac Ridge Winery in 1981. “We propagated own-
rooted vines from cuttings that we made in Washington,” says McWatters. (Commercial vines today are grafted onto root stock that is disease- resistant and can control
vigour.) Vines in early Okanagan
vineyards were widely spaced – 600 to 700 vines to an acre on a “t” trellis system, with overhead watering. “We were wasting space
and we were watering too much,” says McWatters. “Now, we plant 1,400 or more vines to an acre and we have drip irrigation. We water more often, but with much less
volume.” In the old days, growers
were paid by weight and a premium for the relative sugar content of the fruit. Today, the quality of the fruit (characteristics such as flavour, acid and sugar content) decide the price. McWatters is not a grape grower, although his Sumac
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