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JANUARY 2020 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


3 High-priced harvest heading for sweet success


Icewine harvest kicked off in late November by TOM WALKER


KELOWNA – It’s definitely not what you would think of as a typical Okanagan grape harvest. “We start at 9:30 pm,” came


the text from Jo Breti, vineyard manager at Quails’ Gate Estate Winery in West Kelowna. Country Life in BC had been playing phone tag with Breti in late November, as he waited for the best time to pick the Riesling block in southeast Kelowna set aside for icewine. It’s November 28 and the car thermometer reads -12°C as I arrive in the dark to a roaring fire, the blazing lights of several tractors and a boisterous crew of pickers clad in multiple layers discussing their winter boot selection. It’s harvest time. “I have to wait until I am


sure the temperature will stay below -8°C,” Breti explains. “We have to certify that we have picked and pressed the grapes while they are still frozen to be allowed to use the ‘icewine’ label.” The crews go out in pairs, one person either side of each row. Breti shows them how to position the 4x6 wooden picking sled under the grape clusters, roll up the protective netting and simply pull the clusters off and drop them into the sled. No clippers are needed. “The sleds are a custom we


use here at Quails’ Gate,” explains Breti. “They slide around better than totes or buckets when there is snow and they catch the berries so there is much less waste.” And the winery doesn’t want waste; this wine is liquid gold. A 375-ml bottle of its 2018 icewine retails for $44.99, making it the second-most expensive offering in the winery’s product line. Other Okanagan wineries charge as much as $140 per 375 ml. Breti has organized the icewine pick at Quails’ Gate


since he joined the winery 20 years ago. Pickers are mostly in-house volunteers. Many do it year after year. “They have to stay up in the middle of the night and have some fun,” jokes Breti. “But most of them get paid.” He affably responds to calls


of “Hey, Jo” across the dark vineyard and quickly backs up the tractors to carry loaded bins to the staging area, then forward again to give the pickers more light. The crew was out for four hours and harvested 15 bins containing a total of 5.5 tons of grapes. It took 45 minutes to load and truck the grapes across Okanagan Lake to the crush pad in West Kelowna. “We pressed around 1,740


litres of juice,” says Breti. The freezing concentrates the sugar and flavours in the grapes, which are very sweet: 36.6° Brix compared to an average of 20-24° Brix for regular white wine. Quails’ Gate made its first ice wine in 1993, and today focuses exclusively on Riesling. It has only missed one year, in 2002. Producers and grapes were left hanging until February 24, 2003, too late for Quails’ Gate. It was a different story the following winter, when the harvest began November 5.


Risky business “Leaving grapes for icewine


is always a risky business,” notes Breti.


Netting is the winery’s only


defence against marauding locals, including bears, geese, ducks, deer and starlings. “We often need vineyard


crews to go out and chase away invaders a couple of times a day,” he says. Canada’s first icewine was


produced in Peachland by Walter Hainle in 1973, and the first commercial vintage was made in 1978 and sold under the Hainle Estate Vineyards label. Over the last 13 years, BC production has ranged


BRRR! Riesling grapes are plucked from vines in southeast Kelowna that Quails' Gate Estate Winery saved for icewine production. TOM WALKER PHOTO


between 40,000 litres in 2009 to 253,000 litres in 2014, according to the BC Wine Institute.


Ontario produces the most


Canadian icewine, followed by BC and then Nova Scotia and Quebec. It is mostly for export, with China being the largest market. In 2016, icewine represented 24% of Canadian wine exports by value, but only 0.5% by volume,


according to the Canadian Vintners Association. Given the high retail price, the temptation for fraud is very real and counterfeit icewine made from artificially frozen grapes is a challenge. To protect legitimate


production, wineries that intend to produce icewine must register with the BC Wine Authority prior to harvest and report details


afterwards. Besides having to pick the


grapes at -8°C or lower, several other rules govern the production process. This year’s pick at Quails’ Gate promises smooth sailing on the road to sweet success in the bottle, however. “It went pretty well this


year,” says Quails’ Gate viticulturist Chad Douglas. “I was home in bed by 2 am.”


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