Not a lot of wine couples have their feet as firmly planted in as many places as Ann Sperling and Peter Gamble.
There’s Niagara, of course, with Sperling crafting the wines at Southbrook Vineyard, and Gamble as the winery consultant at Ravine Vineyard (he was also part of the startup team at Stratus and consults with the excellent sparkling producer Benjamin Bridge in Nova Scotia and, along with Sperling, has a small seven-acre Malbec vineyard near Mendoza in Argentina).
You wonder how there’s any time at all to add the Okanagan Valley to their frequent flyer plan.
But with the Sperling Vineyards project, a vineyard Sperling grew up on and her family has farmed for 150 years, there has been a steady commute between Ontario, Nova Scotia, Argentina and Kelowna.
Sitting on the patio at Southbrook, with smell of Treadwell’s Vineyard Bistro pizza wafting from the stone oven, Sperling tells the story of how her family planted the first vineyard in the Kelowna area in 1925 and how, 83 years later, in 2008, the family realized a dream by producing their first wines from the grapes they had sold to others for so long.
The story of the Pioneer Ranch starts in the late 1800s with Giovanni Casorzo (Casorso), who began a viticultural journey when he left the struggling Piedmont area of Italy to find a better life in America. After making his way to British Columbia, he was introduced to Father Charles Pandosy, who convinced him to come and work as an agriculturalist in the first agricultural community in the “interior,” the Okanagan Mission. This was during a time when there was no resident population in the area.
Back in Italy, Giovanni’s wife Rosa was making her way to her husband with their three small children. Arriving in San Francisco and unable to speak English, she was advised by dock hands to follow the bell — a church bell — destined to hang at the Okanagan Mission. Rosa painstakingly made her way to the Okanagan Valley, and soon after became the single largest investor in what would later become, Calona Wines.
Viticulture and agriculture have been mainstays of the Casorso story with each son branching into his own field. Charles, planted the first vineyard in the Kelowna area in 1925, and Louis and Pete planted vines on the Casorso property, where Sperling Vineyards is situated, five years later. Today, the 45-acre Sperling Vineyard, includes a 45 year-old planting of Marechal Foch, a 35 year-old planting of Riesling and another old planting of Perle of Csaba (a Muscat variety, which the winery now makes into a Muscato style wine) along with Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris. In the spring of 2008, blocks of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were planted to support the production of premium sparkling wines.
The family planted a 15-acre Lubrusca vineyard in 1933 but replanted much of the hybrid vines on the property with vinifera, including a Riesling vineyard planted in 1978, now used in its Old Vines Riesling bottling.
While the family has been primarily growers, selling to major Okanagan wineries such as Gray Monk and Mission Hill, it was in 2000, with a generational change in the family, that a decision was made to not only continue to grow and sell grapes but to also make wine from the fruit of their labour. The first vintage released was in 2008. Sperling, of course, makes the wines (and is transforming the vineyards to organic), including Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, a white blend called the Market White, Old Vines Foch and a Riesling Icewine. The family will be adding a sparking wine (a classic style and one made with Pinot Blanc), Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Two Sperling wines are coming soon to Vintages including the Old Vines Riesling and the Gewurztraminer. They are reviewed below.
Sperling Vineyards Old Vines Riesling 2009 ($29, available on consignment at Trialto in July, 91 points) — A lot of Okanagan Rieslings lack the minerality and balance that make this variety such a wonderful wine, but Sperling takes the best fruit from some of the oldest (planted in 1978) Riesling vines in the Valley and crafts this sensational example of serious Riesling. The nose is replete in lime, peach, flinty minerality and a hint of petrol. It’s made with 10.5% alcohol and explodes with flavour on the palate. Mineral, tart citrus, quince, grapefruit and bracing acidity that suggests a youthful wine that will evolve for years to come. At the high end of elite Rieslings, from what I have tasted, in the Okanagan.
Sperling Vineyards Gewurztraminer 2009 ($28, Vintages Aug. 6, 90 points) — This is the first Gewurz released by Sperling, with fruit taken from 25-year-old vines at a higher elevation on the property where the grapes ripen late in the season. The result is a relatively high-alcohol Gewurz (at just under 14%) with ripe aromas of grapefruit to go with rose petals, musk, honey and lychee. It’s an off-dry, exotic wine that’s balanced and lingers on the finish. A purely hedonistic food wine.
Enjoy!
Comment here