25 year banner

 

Winemaking with the Winemaker

A HASSEL FREE WINE AND FOOD PAIRING FOR THE HOLIDAYS- CHAPTER EIGHT

Winemaker Darryl Brooker has gone through our selection of wines and has picked six great wines that pair with traditional holiday foods. Watch this video for a hassel-free lesson on what wines to buy this Christmas.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Nov 10th, 2011

"SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE"- CHAPTER SEVEN

The 2011 growing season started quite late, similar to 2010, with below average temperatures in June and July. A cooler start to the season has meant another late harvest, which is not all bad as we get extended hang time which generally brings on more character and depth to the wines. Cooler harvests are great for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and White aromatics as they retain their acidity and elegance. Given the cooler than average season, we did a lot of leaf removal and crop thinning, especially on our Bordeaux reds and Syrah, to ensure we get high quality fruit that meets our standards and we were then blessed with August which was a very warm month with 20+ days over 30°C, great ripening weather! September followed suit with the first 15 days all +30°C, so overall we are very happy with how things are going. We expect to make excellent Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and White aromatics as they will excel in the cooler year and given the work we did in June, July and August to adjust our cropping levels, remove leaves and open up our canopies, we will have a short crop of Reds in 2011 but we expect good quality grapes.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Oct 17th, 2011

AROMATICS 2010- THE "NOT SO LITTLE THINGS" THAT WENT IN TO THE MAKING- CHAPTER SIX

President Gordon Fitzpatrick and Winemaker Darryl Brooker share some of the new and interesting style changes on our 2010 White Aromatics

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
April 13th, 2011


"BOTTLING THE SOUND OF MUSIC"- OUR FIRST EVER ROSE- CHAPTER FIVE

There’s nothing like hearing a song you love, played acoustically – a simpler, somehow purer version. We like to think of our Rosé as an acoustic Pinot Noir and let Winemaker Darryl Brooker tell you why.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Feb 11th, 2011 


"GETTING CLOSURE- INVOLVES A LOT"- CHAPTER FOUR

CedarCreek has invested in a state of the art bottling line which allows us to bottle at the right time, i.e. exactly when we choose. Timing is important to protect the quality of the wine during the bottling process.  As long as all the right decisions are made in the vineyard, winery and with the timing of the bottling, it is a wonderful feeling to finally get the wine that you have worked so hard on into the bottle– get some closure if you will.
Pre-bottling preparation and the timing of the actual bottling has a huge influence on the wine quality. I would love to share with you my ideas on the essential questions to consider:

 1)      The ideal time to bottle a wine? 

  • If it is an aromatic wine, such as Riesling, the answer is usually very quickly.  The benefit of bottling a wine very quickly, 5-6 months after harvest, is to capture the freshness and purity of the wine.  This is relevant for Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Ehrenfelser and depending on the vintage even a Rose.
  •  If it is a fuller bodied white like Chardonnay, I would generally choose to bottle much later to let the wine react with its lees (autolysis) and pick up more body and character, usually somewhere between 10-15months. 
  • A Barrel aged Red will generally need much longer in barrel before bottling.  The challenge here is to try the wine frequently and make the best decision based on the taste of the wine.  Too short of a time in barrel and the red wine tannins will not soften (polymerize) and will be too hard and astringent.  Too long in barrel and the wine will dry out and basically lose its aromatic fruit notes.   The balance is important and varies depending on the vintage conditions, cropping level and how the wine was made/aged.  French Oak generally takes much longer to integrate than American Oak, so this also has a large influence on aging time.  Generally speaking, a lighter red wine such as Pinot Noir will be bottled before a fuller bodied red wine, such as Merlot.  I would usually look at bottling a Pinot Noir between 14-16 months from vintage where a Merlot or Cabernet etc, can be up to 24months from vintage.  This is basically related to the amount of tannin in the grapes/wine.

 2)      The time each wine will need in bottle before release? 

  • Wines need time in bottle to ‘recover’ from the bottling process.  We have taken steps to make sure that we bottle as gentle as possible, such as minimal filtration, low pressure bottle filling equipment etc.  However, a wine still needs time following the bottling process. 
  • For an aromatic wine this might be 30-60 days.
  • For the ever sensitive Pinot Noir this may take 6mths. 
  • Our Platinum wines get a lot longer in the bottle before they are released, often over 1yr.

 Now I am going to excuse myself and get back to bottling but I will be back soon to give you a sneak peak at what we bottled and the decisions we made.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Jan 26th, 2011 


"VIOGNIER- A FIRST FOR CEDARCREEK AND A FIRST FOR ME"- CHAPTER THREE

"My first time making Viognier, so a fun experience for me – I have tasted a lot of Viognier and it is one of my favourite varietals, just never had the chance to make it before"

  • Viognier loves the sun and ripens really well in warm weather; hence we have planted it at our Haynes Creek vineyard in Osoyoos, our most Southern vineyard
  • Very expressive in the vineyard, accumulates sugar fast and has great apricot flavours
  • We hand harvested on October 15th, 2010 at 25.1 brix
  • Our yield was only 1.5 tons (0.75 tons/acre)
  • After whole bunch pressing the grapes, we ended up with 600L of juice, which we fermented in Neutral (older) French oak barrels
  • The plan was to originally blend with the Syrah, however we were so happy with how the wine turned out, we decided to bottle as Platinum Viognier
  • As a side note, after pressing the skins we put the skins into a Syrah Ferment that also came off the Haynes Creek vineyard
  • The final wine will be bottled in February and we estimate about 60 cases of 2010 Platinum Viognier – so it will obviously be very limited
  • The wine is very floral and fruit driven with prominent notes of apricot.  It has great palate weight, with an oily texture and a long finish.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Jan 5th, 2011 


"BARREL TASTING"- CHAPTER TWO 

Winemaking is an art, as you may have heard before and just like for an artist; some of the crucial steps to crafting a masterpiece are constant evaluation with care and attention to the little details.
When it comes to wine it is exciting to note the evolution of flavors, aromas, tannins and colour.
Barrel tastings also help to:

  • Evaluate the barrels from different coopers and how they work with the wine
  • Compare the different vineyard characteristics
  • Highlight successes as well as areas in need of improvement for the next harvest and decide on what needs refining or a different approach in the next season
  • Stimulate ideas for things to try in the vineyard that highlight certain characteristics or encourage certain attributes such as higher tannin, less tannin, more ripeness, more fruit flavor etc during the grape growing season.

Some of the changes I have made this year were even more evident in our tasting of varietals such as:

Riesling: Grapes from 3 unique vineyard sites were separately crushed and fermented and then blended to make our 2010 Riesling. A huge change in style with reduced alcohol level of 11.3% and more citrus notes this Riesling tastes promising.

Chardonnay:  This year we are making our Chardonnay from a Single Vineyard, Block 5 at CedarCreek and fermenting it in 500 liter French oak Puncheons. To add some of our favourite buttery and toasty notes it is currently enjoying Malolactic fermentation.

Pinot Noir:   Talk about going back to the roots! As this fussy grape thrives at CedarCreek it also expresses the vineyard characteristics extremely well. To spice things up this year we are separately fermenting Pinot Noir from each individual block further ensuring that grapes picked on the same day and the same clones are kept separate.
As you see (left), each barrel has its own code: 10PNCC401 stands for "10"- 2010 Vintage, "PN"- Pinot Noir "CC" CedarCreek, "401"- Block 4 and Lot 1.
Aging in 500 liter French oak Puncheons is the Block 4 Pinot Noir displaying distinct earthy notes and Block 2 aging in 225 liter French oak bariques with some wonderful plum, cherry and fruity notes.

CedarCreek’s very first Rosé is going to come from Pinot Noir. Juice was left in contact with the skins for 7 days, then pressed off and cool fermented to retain the fresh red fruit notes.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Dec 17th, 2010


 “HARVEST 2010: HURRY UP & WAIT”- CHAPTER ONE

2010, my first harvest in the Okanagan, proved to be a year of patience. After a late start to the growing season and a cooler than average year, most of our grapes were harvested between October 15th and November 8th. The benefit of the later than average season, in addition to extended hang time for the grapes, is that I had ample time to walk and taste the grapes of our four estate vineyards. CedarCreek vineyard was stunning, the Pinot Noir and Riesling had great flavours and the Chardonnay was very exciting. Greata Ranch Gewurztraminer looked great with nice floral, spicy notes. Desert Ridge and Haynes Creek, both in Osoyoos, is where Merlot excelled and I had to show patience and wait for the Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah to fully ripen into November. I am also very excited for the Viognier that we have planted in Osoyoos. This will be the first time I have worked with Viognier and hopefully you will get to taste it from the 2010 vintage, although we will only be making around 50 cases.  Every harvest is exciting, but I have to say that after harvests in Australia, New Zealand and most recently Ontario, I cannot remember being this excited leading into a harvest and even more excited to have the wine in tank and barrel.  It is truly a pleasure and privilege to work with such great fruit. I spent most of the year waiting for the harvest to actually start, now when I taste the wines I can see that my patience in the vineyard has paid off.

Darryl Brooker, Winemaker
Nov 30th, 2010