Foxtrot Pinot Noir, 2009: The Opening

It is no secret that we are big fans of Foxtrot Pinot Noir from the Naramata Bench in BC's Okanagan Valley.

Readers of this blog may remember that we volunteered to help with their 2009 harvest and ended up picking about 3500kg of grapes over two very happy October days.

We stopped in to see the good Foxtrot family again in August 2010 and were offered a taste of how the 2009 was developing in the barrels.

In April of 2012, the day we were waiting for finally arrived, and the 2009 Pinot Noir was released.

Aya made an appropriate feast for our first taste: roast pork with a mushroom cream sauce, polenta with truffle oil, and delicious summer green beans with garlic.

The wine was amazing.

We chilled it for about 20 minute, and straight out of the bottle it showed those New World, cool-climate Pinot Noir characteristics of bright red fruit. But it quickly began to reveal a little black pepper, tea and earthiness that Foxtrot is famous for. The big surprise, however, was how it developed over the hour and a half that it was open; it just got better and better, more and more complex, while staying balanced, nuanced and supple. It still had not peaked by the time our glasses were empty and we found ourselves sniffing our glasses all through dessert and afterwards, hanging on to the last whiffs of this wine's deep character.

We received our bottles just before we left for Japan, so we were able to take one to Aya's father. We didn't open the Foxtrot while we were there, but stored it safely in his cellar. With any luck we will open it with him next time, and, after tasting this first bottle, we are sure he will enjoy it as much as he does his favourite Burgundies.

Dig-Dig #13: Foxtrot, Bromley Rock, and Home

Our destination in the Okanagan was Foxtrot Vineyards, where we helped harvest their fat, juicy Pinot Noir grapes last October.
The grapes are slowly ripening in the heat and we are looking forward to joining the harvest again this year.

But August is time for peaches, and we were generously allowed to take all we could carry of these honeyed, aromatic marvels.

Translucent yellow plums, too. This is just to say...

Our real reason for visiting Foxtrot was an opportunity to barrel-taste the 2009 Pinot Noir. Kicki and Anna-Marie were very generous with their time, helping us understand what we were tasting. The different toasted oak barrels and yeasts impart very different flavours and characters, but in each sample there were the tell-tale signs of their famous Foxtrot Pinot Noir. Soon it will be bottled and then released some time in 2012. We can't wait to open a bottle of wine whose grapes we helped harvest.

Foxtrot's Pinot Noir has been awarded one of the few extremely prestigious Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence in British Columbia Wines. Anyone who has tasted this amazing wine will know that the recognition is well-deserved.

From John Shreiner's famous blog:
"Seventy-one wineries submitted 281 wines for one of the toughest of British Columbia’s wine competitions. A maximum of 12 awards are available. This year, 11 awards will be presented to winemakers at the end of July by Lieutenant Government Stephen Point..."

With our car full of fruit and a couple of mixed cases of wine from the Naramata Bench and Black Sage Road, we made our way home. In the heat it was hard to resist stopping for a swim at Bromley Rock Provincial Park, so we didn't. The water was the coldest of the whole trip, but it felt wonderful. Aya bravely managed a full dip, to her screaming delight.

Just one last stop in Chilliwack for a dozen ears of sugar-sweet corn, and then we were home. Five thousand kilometers in eleven days.

Dig-Dig #12: Dry Falls State Park

Apparently something like 75% of Canadians live within 100 km of the US/Canadian border. Our biggest cities, our busiest highways are as far south as we can get them. Southern BC is no exception, even in the interior. But step south across that border and you are in northern Washington state or, as an American might call it, "the back of beyond". Creaking old farms and fly-blown towns suggest that considerably more than 75% of Americans consider this to be "way too far north".

With the Okanagan only a few hours directly up the valley from Dry Falls State Park, it appeared to a couple of Canadians like a lot of expensive real estate going to waste. There are wineries on the Naramata bench that would give up their last barrels of 2004 for a chance to expand their vineyards into those open hillsides.


View Dig! Dig! August 2010 in a larger map

Bat condos.
That's what they are called.

Due to questionable planning, we found ourselves with nothing to cook for dinner, and turned to some freeze-dried beef stroganoff we had brought along just in case.

The Red Hook Extra Strong Bitter made it better. We have never really been big beer drinkers, but the craft brews we discovered on this trip were all delicious surprises. This one was bursting with flavour and didn't fall apart or become nasty halfway through.

The wind really picked up in the evening, roaring steadily up the valley from the south. It took a lot of effort to protect the stove until the water boiled. Lucky we were only making one pot.

The wind was so strong at night we had to seal up the fly completely in order to stop the (brand new) tent from puffing and flapping like a big fabric thing that puffs and flaps and keeps waking you up all night. What are those called again?

Our last evening in the US. Tomorrow we cross into the Okanagan.

Up next: We cross into the Okanagan!

Foxtrot Pinot Noir Harvest

Our favourite Okanagan Pinot Noir comes from Foxtrot Vineyards on the Naramata Bench. We love it so much that we volunteered to help with their harvest this year, which took place over a frosty weekend in October. The grapes were fat and sweet and Gustav Allander, Foxtrot's winemaker, was very generous in answering our many, many questions.

Looking west, the vineyard sloping down toward Okanagan Lake.



Sunrise behind ice on the apricot trees. The sprinklers had not been drained and so had to be turned on overnight to keep the pipes from bursting.





The white crates hold about 500kg of grapes. We filled seven crates in a day and a half of picking.


A beautiful example of a ripe, juicy bunch of Pinot Noir grapes.


The grapes are loaded into the de-stemmer, specially designed for Pinot Noir.

Okanagan Trip August

Some photos from our wine-tasting trip to the Okanagan Valley in August, 2009.The red bridge over the Similkameen River, near our favourite riverside campsite. Just outside Keremeos, BC.

Inside Orofino Winery's strawbale storage room. Orofino, we'll have it known, makes the best Riesling this side of Alsace. And that is not even getting to their excellent collection of crisply acidic whites and beautifully structured reds.

Freshly picked nectarines, passable prosciutto and Road 13's Honest John Rosé. A delicious appetizer before grilled pork chops. This was dinner at BC Parks' tiny Inkaneep campsite where we were lucky to grab the last site.

A tour of Foxtrot's winery with Kicki Allender. The Okanagan's best Pinot Noir aging gently in French oak.

Steaks rubbed with chilli, spices and ground coffee with a full-bodied Cabernet-Merlot from Sandhill. Dinner beside the river at our favourite campsite in the Similkameen valley.

Picking apricots into a hat.

The collection from this trip. Lots of familiar faces and many new treasures.