The Barrel Room
Join WineGuyTy as he roams the planet in search of the stories behind the exceptional bottles in your local shops, your cellar & the wine list at your favorite resto.
The Barrel Room
Valeria Tait - GM & Winemaker | Gold Hill Winery | Oliver BC
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It was about a dozen years ago when I bumped into Val Tait at a wine event in Vancouver and I was instantly captivated by both her wines and exuberant personality. We chatted. I tasted those wines and in a frantic very few minutes I immediately recognized this was a person I wanted to have in my life and wine circle.
And what a fortuitous meeting that was! In the years intervening, we've shared many more enjoyable + enriching moments together and it was Val who gave me my own first real "boots in the dirt" experience when she had me work directly alongside for her 2017 whites harvest in Naramata for a month. Deep learnings and experiences followed and I am hugely grateful to Val for connecting my academic pursuits of the grape to hands-on work in the vineyards, on the crushpad, in the lab, cellar + barrel room crafting those wines.
Today Val is GM and Winemaker at Gold Hill Winery in Oliver BC presiding over a well-curated albeit smaller portfolio of excellent wines. Working for years with the Gill family faithfully supplying quality fruit, Val relocated herself closer to the vineyards and after nearly 3 decades of work, harvests, highs & lows, she's still as enthusiastic as ever about Gold Hill and her most recent plans as she brings in one of the best harvests in many years!
The Swirl Around BC Wine Expo is a pivotal event on the wine calendar for winemakers across BC to come together and share their latest vintages with industry professionals held at the historic Vancouver Convention Center in the heart of the city.
Hear Val's firsthand accounting of this years' harvest tales, the trials + tribulations of day-to-day winery operations PLUS..
Along with wines are the waves she loves to surf. Once all is brought in to the crushpad and processed, she heads straight to Panama in Central America with winemaker partner Ian after another harvest season comes to a close and everything is perfectly set in the Gold Hill Winery cellar for another year.
https://www.winebc.com | Swirl Around BC Wine Expo
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With Gratitude,
Wine Guy Ty.
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Hi, I'm WineGuyTy. Welcome to the Barrel Room. And we're at the 2025 Swirl Around BC Wine Expo. My guest today is Val Tait. She's winemaker and a good friend. Hi, Val.
Val Tait:Hi, Ty.
WineGuyTy:This is kind of our second hello because we were just at the business of BC Wine in the Global Cru seminar, which was wonderful. Before we get into it though, I just want to make mention for listeners & subscribers, my last interview with Richard Da Silva from Da Silva Vineyards and Winery. You know..
Val Tait:Yeah, we know Richard.
WineGuyTy:Covered so many topics from his deep connections to his roots going back to 1955. Wow. When his family immigrated from Portugal to also to in-depth real understanding of his terroir, which was a little bit of what we spoke on in the uh seminar earlier. Of course, all his various wines, a couple of unique field blends that we tasted together that is kind of unique to him and his Portuguese Mex Tapa-styled restaurant and very original menu offering.
Val Tait:That's a really good restaurant, by the way.
WineGuyTy:Yes, if that sounds of interest to you, head on over and have a listen. My lovely guest, longtime friend, winemaker, and GM of Gold Hill Winery, located in Oliver, BC, around the very first sub-GI, the Golden Mile Bench. Val's a hands-on boots in the dirt, true viticulturalist with near three decades of experience in making some top wines I've tasted coming out of the region. She has undergraduate training in molecular genetics, plant biochemistry, and a degree in analogy from UC Davis in Napa. Her focus laterally is to create small lot handcrafted vinos from fruit grown at the exceptional Gold Hill Estate Winery. How long ago did we meet? It was a dozen years ago. I think it was the BC Uh Wine Growers Association Bloom event. Then in 2017, a month-long Odyssey of my own working with you at Bench1 775 for the Whites program. ..A few dinners, some boating, lots of meetings, uh blending sessions, tastings, a LOT..
Val Tait:Yeah.
WineGuyTy:A lot has happened since then.
Val Tait:Well, I just have to interrupt and say I remember meeting you because I could have sworn you were John Malkovich.
WineGuyTy:Oh yes well I've had that comparison a few times. So I mean, since then, world pandem!cs, uh seven harvests, ..vintages. Where does the time go? Does it all become a blur at some point after so many years as a winemaker?
Val Tait:Pestulants! Plagues!!.. No, it doesn't, but you know what's really scary is I have so many vintages existing at the same time in my mind and in the cellar that I often get confused and I have to recheck like what vintage are we in? Because we've got wine in case that's aging, like four vintages aging, two vintages in in bottle, and two vintages in barrel, and then one in tank ready to be bottled, and then the harvest that's coming in. So it's kind of like a lot of vintages that are swirling around in my head.
WineGuyTy:Swirling around in your head and also in tank and in barrel at any minute when you walk into the winery, right? Especially at this time of year, because we're we're at harvest. Yes. It it's been a rough couple of years in the Okanagan frosts, complete loss of vineyards, and subsequently vintages, a lot of pivoting. And you um kind of made mention in the earlier seminar that we did together some of the big impact for you. How did it affect your priorities at Gold Hill Winery?
Val Tait:Oh, wow, we'll back it up even before the last two years, we've just had so many challenges that are completely out of our control, including wildfire events and then subsequent road closures that limited access to the Okanagan with uh tourism, which is a big part of how we do business, is people directly visiting our winery, and then climate events that have caused widespread losses in 2023 of fruit. Our vines were fine, but they didn't produce any fruit. And then subsequently, 2024, about a third of our vineyards outright died and had to be replaced, and then the remainder didn't produce any fruit at all. So two years back to back with no fruit. And here we are this year, where our vines that are have been planted from last year and our vines that survived those cold events, our bumper crop loaded, and we're having an incredible vintage. It's one of the nicest vintages. Everything is getting fully ripe. We're we're just the ripeness is cascading upon us. So it's a pretty busy time.
WineGuyTy:It's a busy time, and yet you've managed to find a moment to get into the city of Vancouver for uh for the swirl event, which is a lot of juggling. Sure. But you've got Nav at at the winery.
Val Tait:Uh no, Navi's not with us anymore. He moved on to he married and he's got two children and he's living in Vancouver now. So yeah, we miss him tremendously because he was um you know very passionate about the winery and the wines and of course our region, our to our particular place in the world. But his younger brother, Gerginder, who actually just graduated from university in marketing, is joining us and he will be instrumental in sales and marketing for us. So he's kind of absorbing the world of the winery and the vineyards, and he yeah, he will be the one that'll take over for his parents. So we are very thankful.
WineGuyTy:Oh, that's great.
Val Tait:We need new blood.
WineGuyTy:A favorite grape I know is yours, and I too am a fan, Cab Franc. Oh yeah. I just had some in my mouth, and that was lovely. A couple of years ago, we walked up to that amazing one kilometer long vineyard at the top of the bridge, which was uh the cab franc, the longest cab franc um.
Val Tait:It's a really long row, yeah, it's like a kilometer long, yeah.
WineGuyTy:So that was all lost and is it being replanted?
Val Tait:Everything's been replanted. You know, we the vines didn't outright die, but what happened is we saw a lot of damage. And instead of chasing those vines and hoping that they'd make a recovery, we just decided that we need them to be functional and productive and really even ripeness in the fruit, and so we just like replace the vineyard. You know, it's just too important to us, and uh we really need to get beautiful fruit, it has to be productive, it has to be something that we can count on with consistency, and so for us it just made sense. We're we've already lost that vintage to just replant it. And in fact, um the brothers, the owners of the winery, are such good growers that they were able to produce enough growth in the first year that in the second year of the vine's life we were able to get 60% or 70% of a full crop. So that means we're back in business like that.
WineGuyTy:Excellent. Yeah. Oh wow, that's very fortunate.
Val Tait:That's very fortunate. And I mean another year, and it's gonna be like, you know, we didn't have this mishap, you know, there'll be some new challenge that we're facing.
WineGuyTy:Obviously, there'll be a challenge.
Val Tait:There'll always be challenges, yeah. But I feel we're like we're getting good at it, you know, we're getting good at uh dodging the bullet. So yeah.
WineGuyTy:Well, 30 years of vintages and work, I guess you've uh there's a lot of things that has been thrown in your direction.
Val Tait:Yeah, bears eating fruit and staff quitting and you know, people coming, .. helping. Yeah, no, it's I mean it's very dynamic, and also where we are in the world is a challenging place to grow wine. But because it's right at the very limits of where you can grow wine grapes, the expression of the fruit is exceptional. You know, we get so it's a bit of a it's a you know a seesaw, like you you want to push the envelope of where you can grow fruit, but you're gonna have so for listeners the context.
WineGuyTy:So Oliver and Golden Mile Bench, like this is 48, 47 to 48 degrees uh latitude, which is like you say, almost at the further reaches. So going further north, of course, with lake country, we're we're right at the 50th parallel, which is the same as Champagne.
Val Tait:It is, but you know, they have a really big maritime influence, so the ocean has a big effect on moderating the cold temperatures in the winter. We don't have that. The further north you move.
WineGuyTy:Even with a lake?
Val Tait:Yeah, even with a lake, it's not enough when you start moving into higher latitudes because you you start to see a bigger s drop in temperature in the winter, so it it gets colder.
Speaker 00:Yeah.
Val Tait:But um, yeah, that is a that is a bit of a challenge. And I mean people talk about climate change and that we're starting to see warmer temperatures, but actually, we are a hot climate that is also a cold climate. So we're seeing extremes in hot temperature, but we're also seeing extremes in cold temperature, so it really is difficult to manage. Like we're really pushing the envelope of where we can grow grapes, and I think that having this event that happened last year really took a lot of the kind of um I don't want to say it's frivolous, but kind of like outside experimental plantings, you know, that were doing okay, they were struggling, but then it was like, no, there's no possibility that we can continue with these varieties, like southern Sicilian, Fran Italian varieties.
WineGuyTy:Is Cab Franc in some ways more winter hardy, even though you lost it?
Val Tait:It is very winter hardy because the um we only lost Cab Franc in a small area, but most of our Cab Franc plantings were survived. Not the ones that we use for our portfolio for the wines, that home estate, be it, but in other locations they've the vines survived, and they're like this year had beautiful crop, big crop. So yeah.
WineGuyTy:I know this about you. Okay, you love to surf, and once all the ducks are in a row in the cellar, harvest has been brought in in the next couple of weeks as you're scurrying around. You and partner Ian dispatch yourselves to Panama and seek out the waves to rise. Yes. What is the correlation of waves and wines, if any, and and how did this all come about?
Val Tait:That's a good that's a good question. Yeah, you know, I guess uh surfing is very dynamic and something that you're dealing with that's moving and uncontrolled isn't a force of nature and you're taking it as it comes. Much like you are dealing with a vintage, it's completely out of your hands what the vintage is gonna deliver. And in over 30 years, I've never seen a vintage that was the same. It's it's so variable. So I feel like that's kind of tying in with just dealing or or playing with nature. You know, you're you're in the realm of nature, and no matter how big a check you write, or no matter how much pleading you do, you're just gonna get what nature delivers. Which is kind of I love the authenticity of that. I think that that's pretty exciting, actually. And to the same tune, when you're out riding the waves, you have no idea what's gonna be coming in. No, you could ride the wave if you catch it, or you can get slammed into the sand!
WineGuyTy:There's a lot of metaphors in there!
Val Tait:I know. I've kind of been eating sand in the cellar the last couple of years, so yeah, that's a good question, actually. That's a really good question.
WineGuyTy:2House: Yours and Ian's homegrown eponymous brand created with lots of love, which is so apparent in making a red and a white uh wine specifically and in harmony. Yes, which is lovely. Nice. What's in the name and and what's it all about?
Val Tait:Oh, 2House is a project that uh Ian, my partner, is a winemaker, and uh we've both had a lot of years of experience growing and making wine from wine grapes in the Okanagan Valley, and in particular the South Okanagan. And so for us, we've um had sometimes similarities in our style and other times differences, and we wanted to do a project together where we could sometimes celebrate those similarities and other times contrast our differences. And so two houses was born. Two house meaning the house of Ian and the house of Val, and sometimes they meet and sometimes they don't meet. So uh if you look at the label, he has a Scandinavian background and I have a Spanish background. So there's two dragons on the label, and we're dragons from Chinese astrology, and one of the dragons is a Mayan dragon, Aztec, it's sort of a modified Aztec dragon, and the other one is a Viking dragon. And so if the if whichever one's on top is the one that led the decision making in that wine. Oh, interesting.
WineGuyTy:So you modify the label of the dragon?
Val Tait:Modify the label, so it's either the Viking dragon or the Mexican dragon. Yeah, so it's very fun. We've been having a lot of fun with that. And we do very small amounts, like 50 cases or less, tiny, it's just a a play, a barrel play for us. Yeah, very fun.
WineGuyTy:So it's mid-September here, and harvest is happening, and all the frenzy of the crush pad has ensued. You mentioned a couple of weeks back when I was in the region uh having this year a surplus of fruit. Yes. So uh what is that normal or it's only for this year? As you said, you've had an over abundance.
Val Tait:Yeah, it's actually a really tragic situation because in an effort to address the loss of fruit last year, the f the government and our marketing board collectively decided that they would relax the regulations. So to be a BC wine producer, you must be making your wines from 100% BC fruit. Well, cut to 2024, there's zero BC fruit. So the government and the marketing agency together collectively worked with uh input from everyone and decided that the best course of action was to open up jurisdiction for getting grapes and people could source grapes from anywhere they wanted. It could be anywhere from Canada or the United States or wherever in the world. So with the relaxing of those rules, a lot of wineries took advantage of that, in particular the bigger producers, and they brought in a fairly significant amount of fruit, anticipating they weren't gonna have fruit for 2024 or 2025. But 2025 we have a beautiful uh yield of fruit. And unfortunately, hundreds of tons of fruit is going without a home because the wineries have already sourced fruit from other areas. Yeah. And it's really unfortunate because the growers had the loss of revenue from 2024 of fruit that they couldn't produce, didn't have money for, and now they're in a year where they can recoup some of those losses, and unfortunately they don't have a market for their fruit because it's occupied by fruit from another place. So it's kind of a tragic situation. And I mean it it could be an existential problem for some growers. You know, two years that's a long time to hold your breath. Two years without any revenue. Because they don't have an alternative path to generating revenue. They're not a winery, so it's like, yeah, very tragic.
WineGuyTy:That's a good point. Uh the wine program at Gold Hill has very strategically managed to include 65 acres of vineyards and a three-year reserve program, which so many wineries haven't been able to achieve. And that of course plays into these hiccups with no vintages. How did that come about at Gold Hill? And is that part of why you're not too concerned with the loss of the recent vintages?
Val Tait:Yeah, well, with Gold Hill, all of our fruit is sourced from one vineyard. And um, as you say, I learned very early on from my partner, Ian Sutherland, about the value of holding back your vintages and releasing them when they're ready to drink, as opposed to selling a wine that, you know, is is definitely drinkable, but would benefit from having some aging.
WineGuyTy:Yeah.
Val Tait:And um for us and for anybody starting out, if you do that right at the very beginning, you hold back those wines, you you know, it's like you just don't have anything to sell, or you make a different product to sell for those first couple of years, and your volumes are really small, so you're not holding back a lot. And then once you start on that release program, it's just every year you're already on that release program, so you're already aging your wines. So for us, we've been for me, because I've seen that happen in the vineyards, that there's a lot of variability and you don't know for sure what's gonna happen and if the fruit's gonna get ripe that year or not. I've done it with the whites and the reds, and so we have a reserve in our gold hill label of at least two years in the whites and four to five years in the reds. So, you know, it wasn't as tragic for us from uh selling through our wines point of view because the losses that we uh uh see in 2024 we're not gonna realize until 2028, 2029 for our reds. So we could weather that as a winery, but it still was devastating financially from the growing side of our operation. Because most of the production of our fruit is sold to other wineries. We just do a very small amount for our winery. We were only making 8,000 cases a year, so it's not a big, big production.
WineGuyTy:So, what are your goals for these next wines currently in the in the cellar uh and what makes you happiest with them? I because I know you, ..your style, like you you kind of you're a brewmaster, uh a winemaker. Uh um I remember you alluding to uh winemaking being similar to canning, where you've got all kinds of pots on the stove and so it's a big, messy canning process.
Val Tait:That's kind of like that actually. Oh well, you know, like I'm I'm cognizant of what's happening with trends. Like you were in a talk with me, like we were listening to Barb talking about um just the trends of what's happening globally with wine sales and what people are drinking, and you know, personally also what I'm drinking myself. Like I'm starting to move away from really big, kind of classic red wines. And this year I'm this is completely off piece, but I want to do a very small amount of a red wine that can be chilled. A true red wine that's chilled, not a rose. So something that you can drink in the summer that's a very light red. Tempranillo, because I know you used to yeah, like temperanillo, but I want I want so I'm gonna do that with a Pinot Noir. So it's gonna be we have this like uh playful label that I have for just doing those kinds of experimental projects called um Terlab. So it'll be under that. But I I really want to achieve that, which is not a true red wine that you would drink at room temperature and then chill it. I want to actually create something that is meant to be chilled, purposely chilled, yeah, and then of course, um continuing to build on the Gold Hill portfolio, which I I'm very excited about because um this year we planted some semillon on our property. So we took the Temper Neo, Temper Neo died, and so we replaced it with Semillon. So I'm very excited now because now we can add semillon to our white portfolio, so it's that's gonna be really interesting.
WineGuyTy:Lovely for ageability too. Yeah, of course, doing uh those gorgeous Sem-Sauvs or exactly barrel age Sem-Sauv. It's uh one of my favorites.
Val Tait:Yeah, I'm very excited about it. So I'm really letting the fruit hang late so I get the really honeyed and fully you know ripe flavors of the semillon, and then I'm gonna pair that with a very fresh expression of Sauvignon Blanc. So yeah, I'm excited about that. But I'm always excited at every vintage because it's like a brand new, you know, you don't know how it's gonna go, you know what I mean? Like I'm tasting the fruit as it's as it's developing on the vine. I'm very excited about the quality this year, and it seems like more and more often the vintages are great. Like it used to be you'd have two fantastic vintages in a 10-year period, and I feel like now it's like half the vintages in a 10-year period are spectacular. So we're lucky in that sense.
WineGuyTy:Yes. For phenolic ripening.
Val Tait:Like I've seen a shift in September, October. It used to like all of a sudden get really cool in September, and now we're getting we're going later and later in the year with 30 degree temperatures. So that makes for just beautiful late ripening.
WineGuyTy:You used to preside over 50 plus skews at Bench 1775. So you've probably done a little bit. I I still remember um as I was running around there that that year with you, um, a little bit deer in the headlights and cross-eyed because it just too much to keep track of. So now it's what sort of 15-ish or 20-ish skews.
Val Tait:No, even less than that. Uh, 11 SKUs. S
WineGuyTy:Recently reviewed results of the Wine Align National Wine Awards of Canada. And there was uh nearly half the gold medals were from BC Wineries, which was lovely. Yeah. To see a couple of golds in there from Ben 1775 that I thought you might have commandeered. Yeah, oh, for sure. 18 white and the red meritage.
Val Tait:Uh well, we did uh our latest results were all of our 2020 reds and Rose won gold medals. Oh. So that was the most recent results. Yeah.
WineGuyTy:Do you do you submit for Gold Hill?
Val Tait:So we submitted for Gold Hill. Yeah, so that was that was our most recent results. That was last year that we the last year's results. This year we didn't submit anything because we, you know, we're getting ahead of our release schedule. So we're just working on our 2020s now. But yeah, so we've been doing really I mean the the vineyard is an exceptional vineyard. And Ian and I have been making fruit from that vineyard since it first started producing, and it has delivered exceptional fruit regardless of the vineyard vintage year. And in a cool year, we've just had to hang the fruit longer, and in a warm year we just pick it earlier. But it's always delivered performance. It's such a fantastic site.
WineGuyTy:How or what do you do personally and specifically that gives you such a clear focus in such diverse portfolios and alliances too?
Val Tait:Uh yeah. Uh well, I mean, personally myself, I love wine and I love to drink wine, and I kind of selfishly am, you know, furthering, like I think BC wines in general I love the style of. And you know, from a vineyard production side and from the wine growing, I feel like, you know, we're producing fruit that's that iconic wineries are using and building their portfolios in a very specific style of fruit. And then ourselves as well at Gold Hill, we're just like really dialed into the production from that site, that vineyard site, and you know, basically the wine style is really driven by what's being expressed in the vineyard, which for me is really important because you know, we we really need to set ourselves apart with an identity, especially as we move forward in the world, and you know, the world is a busier place, and you know, just so people really identify with a sense of okay, we're drinking, we're eating, we're doing locally, you know, and hopefully like I think more and more people are sensitive to that and wanting to participate in, and that's how you build culture. You know, if you consume what's local, it creates a culture, you create a food culture, wine culture, then it creates a social culture.
WineGuyTy:Markedly different from other places that make wine. Um, speaking of UC Davis, do you ever go back to Napa?
Val Tait:Uh no, you know, Napa's a very different beast than when I was down there. It's when I like when I was there when I was going to university, it was a very mom pop winery-run operations. And in the last 15 years, it's just been hugely capitalized. Maybe I would say 25 years ago that's that it really started happening. And there's just massive projects, incredible wines, but it's not really my scene. You know, I I mean, it'd be if I could just like pop myself in and I could be there for a couple hours and then pop myself out, I'd love it. But it's.. I'd be curious.
Speaker 04:I haven't been down for..
Val Tait:You haven't been down there?
WineGuyTy:Not for 15 years, I think was the last time I was in Napa.
Val Tait:You would be blown away!
WineGuyTy:And even then, you know, remarkable amount of investment going on in certain places, so I could see, you know, better than a decade on, how much more that that is even growing.
Val Tait:Yeah, yeah. I mean, it would be really cool to go and check it out, but it's a different style of being in a place very bougie and kind of like all about being very impressive. And I I always feel like that's a little bit removed. Like it's not so intimate.
WineGuyTy:Yeah, I was listening to another uh fellow's podcast on wine recently, and his interviewee, Violet Grgich, said that one of the Grgich is one of the big one of the most um asked questions that she gets about uh you know coming to wine country is what to wear! You know, that kind of made me laugh because I think of the you know you know the boots in the vineyard and even in the tasting room you've run in from the cellar or from out in the vineyard and you've got like a a kind of a down vest on.
Val Tait:Oh that's how yeah, like not very stuffy.
WineGuyTy:And people are some people are mostly concerned with what do I wear?
Val Tait:Like the consumer who's coming into the tasting room is asking that. Oh my god, that is hilarious! Well, that gives you a sense of like how okay it's very bougie.
WineGuyTy:Or being marketed.
Val Tait:Yeah. I mean, also that is very fun. Like there is a time and place where that is very fun to do, but yeah.
WineGuyTy:If I were coming to the Okanagan as a wine tourist for the first time, what would you say is must do, must see? Or how would you uh explain such a special place? I've had so many wonderful memories and moments there, but uh characterize that for listeners. I would say that it would be really uh you would have a really great experience if you kind of went off the beaten trail and instead of going to the the bigger wineries, try to seek out the smaller wineries. You know, it's a more intimate experience. Mix it up, you know, like visit a and and because the re the wine industry has grown so big, pick a region in BC you want to visit and spend your time there, and then try to mix, you know, go to a bigger winery and a s a really small winery and see which style you like just from a visiting winery point of view, because I think wineries in general are trying to be much more welcoming and inclusive and and try to make people feel really comfortable. So if people feel intimidated or they feel like they want a more authentic or less pretentious experience, you know, if you diversify where you go, you can really dial in the type of experience you want, which is really nice. But yeah, I would say that pick a region first and then um try not to do too many tastings in a day. I think a lot of people do that. They try to fit into many. Myself, I'd have two or three wineries at max.
Val Tait:Two or three. Three is even pushing it for me. I like two, and I always like to have a sit-down, have a little bit of food, just be civilized about it.
WineGuyTy:You know, yeah, I did that on this last trip where uh we didn't manage to connect, and um I had a wonderful afternoon at Red Barn.
Val Tait:Oh, Red Barn's gorgeous. I love the wines. And lovely uh patio and amazing winery, those tanks.
WineGuyTy:Yeah, I was thinking of you when I walked in, and they have these uh tanks that are ex uh like aluminum polychrome. Yeah, so like purpley- pinky colored.
Val Tait:They're gorgeous, easy to clean.
WineGuyTy:They're sexy.
Val Tait:Yeah, very sexy. Yeah, and you know, like you can have an experience there where like people have the time to talk with you, it's a little bit slowed down, it's not so crowded with people, and you know, not to say that I don't want to take away from the bigger wineries that are really well recognized, but sometimes they can be a bit zooy in the summer, you know, like at peak season. Especially at peak season, especially at peak season, and they would probably appreciate as well. I mean, I'm not gonna say that, but they would appreciate if it wasn't so mobbish, you know, like if they could just take down, spread the people out over the season. So, yeah, that would be the first thing, f pick the region and then you know, pick a diverse style or size of winery. And then the other thing that I think is really good to do is pick one wine that you want to taste, like so you really get to know it, you know, like if taste Pinot Gris and taste just Pinot Gris or taste uh Cabernet Franc, my favorite, and you know, every winery just about in BC does a Cabernet Franc, actually. So that's a really nice experience to be able to taste one wine and then you can really pick up the different styles that winemakers are working on, and you people will probably start to really recognize the Okanagan style. You know, what's what's being expressed, uh not just Okanagan, sorry. I I have to keep including all the regions in BC, but just what's coming from each region, which is so beautiful to be able to get that experience where you can taste the difference. And by doing just one wine, it really focuses your palate, and then I think it would really build a lot of confidence that people would get in being able to taste and discern wines if they just focus on tasting one wine, and each region has its uh kind of strengths, I think, too.
WineGuyTy:Like I I haven't been over to Vancouver Island for a while, but um lots of sparkling uh going on there. And then I um do you know Heleen um from up in Lilouett at Fort Berrens?
Val Tait:Yeah, Fort Berrens, yeah, they're doing gorgeous ones. Beautiful whites and Riesling and yeah, yeah, like on the island, they're doing incredible pinot noirs and like the sparkling program, like you say, and yeah, so the interesting thing where everybody had lost fruit in 2024, the island had lots of fruit. They didn't have a shortage because their vines survived, no problem.
WineGuyTy:Amazing.
Val Tait:Yeah, so I would say you know, diversify where you're going, diversify. The size and type of wineries you're visiting and focus on one wine. And if you go in the off-season, you have very good opportunity to talk to winemakers or owners. You know, it's like a way more chill vibe.
WineGuyTy:Thanks for sending along the media pack.
Speaker 03:Oh, yeah, no happy to!
WineGuyTy:Most wines from um are from your current portfolio. Uh I've enjoyed a couple so far. Oh, nice. I think I sent a couple of photos with uh Chef Ricky's pairings. Um I appreciate your reviews, by the way. I I look forward to reviewing uh the rest and tasting the others, um including the two house. Um what are you most proud of for the current portfolio offerings and what would you tell listeners or or new wine club members to expect?
Val Tait:Oh, I'm very proud of the Cab Franc. I feel like the Cab Franc we really are dialing in the style and it's uh we're getting just like really unique expression from our vineyards, and yeah, I feel like the Cabernet Franc I would be most proud of. And then of course the Savignan Blanc because I I you know it's the summer and I'm drinking whites right now. But as we head into the fall, the Cabernet Franc and Grand Vin are flagship wine. Very proud of that. We're bottling uh Syrah 2022 this October, and that's been percolating. It's been in barrel aging for two years. Yeah, and it's actually I'm very happy with that.
WineGuyTy:But do you what do you put into the Grand Vin? Do you actually is it all the Bordeaux Varietals, but you put Syrah in?
Speaker 03:No, no Syrah, but you know what? It's um we have all the red wines aging in barrels, so we do Cab Franc, Merlot. Um, sometimes we do Malbec and Cab Sauv, but we're doing a little bit less of that because going forward, so basically what we do is we have all these barrels, and I'll just taste through the barrels and I'll select the best barrels for putting together the blend for the grand vin. And the grand vin a hundred percent depends on what's tasting good, like what what what tastes beautiful in the blend. So going forward, we're gonna I'm I would like to try to make it Cab Franc dominant and then you know use Merlot, Cap Sov, and Malbec as seasoning, you know, to to um just make it a bigger wine because Gran Vin is meant to be a very big wine compared to the Cabernet Franc, which I would consider a medium-bodied wine. So that is always an exciting process to build that wine every year because it changes. The blend composition changes depending on what what is favored in that vintage, but always Cabernet Franc does well, every vintage, and so that's why I'd like to have that predominantly in the blend.
WineGuyTy:And um, there's a tasting following this in the in the big room downstairs with about 60 wineries here at uh swirl around BC Wine Expo. Um what have you brought down for tasting for uh for today?
Val Tait:We have our Sauvignon Blanc and our Cabernet Franc Rose, and then our Cabernet Franc and the Grand Vin. So there's like like a nice collection, you know, carry you through the sunny days to the cool, cozy winter days.
WineGuyTy:Yeah, and those um some of them are under the Charisma label?
Val Tait:Yeah, Charisma is uh we make Charisma at the winery, and it's um, you know, I'm doing I am still involved with the winemaking of charisma, but charisma is my daughter, I you know, I make the wines with my daughter in mind. She's in her 20s and she has a really good palate, but she doesn't have the budget to buy the wines that she's used to drinking growing up in our household. So now that she's on her own, she's got a lower budget. So I built Charisma for people like my daughter who still have good taste, but you know, they just can't afford the big wines. So they're just wines that have less inputs in them, like less oak, so they're not aged as long, they don't go into oak barrels, or a very small percentage of the wine is in oak barrels to keep our input costs low, and then they're put to market sooner. So, for example, we're selling our 2019 Cabernet Franc right now. In the charisma line, we're selling the 2022 Pinot Noir. The other thing about charisma is it's mostly Alsatian varieties, so northern European varieties: Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, yeah, that's it. Yeah, so we're trying to sometimes we add a gamet, but we we we don't have gamet this vintage. But yeah, those so it's a very small portfolio of mostly northern European varieties.
WineGuyTy:Going forward, where do you see yourself in this amazing career of yours now? Will you keep making your beautiful wines or is Central America weighing in more these days? More surfing, less winemaking?
Val Tait:I thought, you know, last fall when I took a gap harvest and uh skipped the harvest, I thought, yeah, I could see more surf, more beach, more surfing in my future, but I realized uh after five months, I'm not ready to stop making wine. It's yeah, I want to keep on doing it. I mean, the the project working with Gold Hill, it's very manageable, it's a small project. We're gonna grow the you know, the next generation in the winery, in the family wants to grow the business, and I'm want to be there to mentor this um, you know, the newest member of the family who's joined the wine winery team.
WineGuyTy:Yeah.
Val Tait:And I feel like, you know, once I've mentored him, then I I'm very happy to step away. You know, that'll be that'll be a nice last mission.
WineGuyTy:And you live fairly close by to really close. Where it was before when you were up at 1775 in Naramata, I remember you kind of thinking it was getting busier and busier and uh getting in and out of a little bit more of a negotiation.
Val Tait:So I'm a bit of a baby. For young people, it's uh you know, it's happening, it's very fun, it's busy. But yeah, to for me to live there, you know, it's like living in a tourist area. Like it's cute and fun for the first couple years, and then it's like, get me out of here. Too many people, it's very busy.
WineGuyTy:Well, there's over 40 plus wineries on Narramata Bench.
Speaker 03:Yeah, and you know, the traffic has changed because now it's semi's and commercial vehicles and tour buses, and then of course all the tourists, and then the traffic of people living there, and yeah, it's um it's gotten really busy. And I guess that's a you know, we've become a victim of our own success. I mean, that that's that speaks very highly to how successful the wine industry has been, but also there's a bit of a lesson there because it does it does kind of make it hard to have a lifestyle.
WineGuyTy:Yeah.
Val Tait:You know, and it and it's kind of seen as an entertainment business, really, in a way, which is kind of odd. You know, it's not like a food item, it's it's kind of got this element of entertainment.
WineGuyTy:So that kind of wine tourism happening.
Val Tait:Yeah, exactly. And so that kind of ramps up that energy too. So yeah, that so you know, for where you live, it's a little bit much, but you know Oliver is pretty quiet, and so is OKFalls. Yeah, Oliver, yeah, you would hate Oliver, so like dead.
WineGuyTy:In the winter time.
Val Tait:It's like so dead. Well, that's why we go away in the winter. That's why you go away.
Speaker 04:It's dead. So when you get back to the winery, obviously there's more uh harvest uh exigencies, things to do. Um when do you kind of get finished and get yourself together to go to go away to Central America?
Val Tait:Well this year, you know what? I actually missed winter last year. I I we left it when it was hadn't even got cold yet, so it was the end of October and we had a really warm fall. So left at the end of October and then came back in April, so I didn't experience cold weather at all, and funnily enough I missed it. Like I missed snow. So this year we're gonna stay until January. And then yeah, actually, um now I'm of the age that my friends' kids are getting married. So we're going to our friend's kids' wedding in Barbados in January, and I just found out that there's a little two-hour hopper that goes from Barbados to Panama, so we're just gonna go to Panama from there.
WineGuyTy:Oh, that sounds like a plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're gonna stick around in the fall, maybe that gives me the impetus to organize a trip, trip up for a later fall visit or something, hang out and crack some bottles open.
Val Tait:There's all these opportunity to crack open bottles!
WineGuyTy:Some wines, yes. We don't need any excuse in that either.
Val Tait:It's like, whoops, how did this get open? We have to drink it now.
WineGuyTy:How many fallen soldiers every three or four days around my little apartment? It's like, what? We drink this, we drink that.
Val Tait:I yeah, I'm definitely slowing down, but yeah, I'm not like at my peak energy, you know, where I used to be able to just like down them, but yeah, I still enjoy wine. I'm always gonna enjoy wine. How who could you not? How could you not?
WineGuyTy:Yeah, it's one of those things I look forward to for the rest of my life, if at all possible.
Val Tait:Yes, of course.
WineGuyTy:And better ones all the time on my radar. What one can afford.
Val Tait:Exactly! Yeah, you can get more discerning, and it's really fun because now we've been going through our sell because we have a cellar collection and we're starting to go through wines like pulling out bottles from like 2006 and 2009, you know, like tasting.
WineGuyTy:So it's very interesting to taste wines that have like some real history as for especially local wines, because there really aren't that many library wines of BC around unless they're in personal cellars like yours.
Val Tait:That would actually be a very fun thing to do, like to put the call out to all the winemakers and just like have like pick a vintage and do a 2004. Everybody brings their 2004. That would be such a fun thing to do. Like have a table where you have all the wines and everybody can just taste like how the wines have aged and where they've come from, and that would be such a fun thing to do. That and Cab Franc Festival, I want to do that also.
WineGuyTy:Well, speaking of tasting, um uh that is what's next for me this afternoon. What's are you on another panel or?..
Val Tait:Not another panel, but we're in the room. Yeah, in the tasting room. So we get to meet up with people, and it's nice because I don't get a chance to see other people in the industry. Funnily enough, I have to come to Vancouver to see everybody. And um, yeah, so you know it's good to catch up with everyone and introduce Gorginder to all the people, like he's the newest member of the family, the youngest member of the family who's joined the winery team. Yeah, so it's nice to get him to meet people and you know take in the scene.
WineGuyTy:For sure.
Val Tait:Yeah.
WineGuyTy:Well, Val, it's been so fun to sit here and have this moment finally making it happen. Yes. We were two ships passing a couple of weeks ago.
Val Tait:Yeah, it was a busy summer.
WineGuyTy:It was a really busy summer. And I can't believe it's uh we're already in September, and I feel like you know, I was complaining before I went up to the Okanagan two weeks ago, uh, that I hadn't dipped my toes in a river, a pool, or a lake. I know, you know. I was like, what? And uh and you know, and here we are in this room looking out at at Coal Harbour and the Disney cruise ship that's just about to leave.
Val Tait:See, you're living in in one of the most iconic vacation spots in the world, and it's like there it is right there for you, Ty. Yeah, I could just But it's you're right, like this the year went by so fast, and I remember Jess and I sitting there and going, you know, in no time we're gonna be saying, Oh my god, it's July, and we were the other day going, it's the end of September. Like, how did that happen? That is pretty crazy!
WineGuyTy:Well, thank you very much.
Val Tait:Yeah, thank you.
WineGuyTy:It's uh always a pleasure to sit with you and have these conversations, and part of the reason for me uh doing these podcasts is to bring those conversations to a greater group of people and wine enthusiasts uh the world over, which is which I think is uh these stories need to be told. And we need to carry on with our enthusiastic way of being here in British Columbia and what we have in the wine world.
Val Tait:Yeah, we have something special here, and you know, I hope we can like continue to grow it and dodge bullets.
WineGuyTy:Dodge bullets. Hopefully not real ones, but we are in Canada after all!
Val Tait:Yeah, they're they're always metaphorical in Canada. Like we don't have to worry about the real thing here.
WineGuyTy:Well, I'll let you get down to the tasting room and we'll we'll see you down there. And uh again, cheers to you.
Val Tait:Yeah, cheers to you. Good questions, cheers!