This spring, Andrés Wines Ltd., which bought Calona Vineyards and Sandhill Wines last year, is expected to announce plans to build a dedicated Sandhill winery on Black Sage Road in the south Okanagan. This will take Sandhill’s processing operations from the vast Calona winery in Kelowna and plant it in the Burrowing Owl Vineyard, the primary source of Sandhill fruit.

There is a growing trend among the larger Okanagan wineries toward releasing premium wines with single vineyard designations. Sandhill has been a single vineyard producer exclusively since its first vintage in 1997.

The single vineyard trend has two explanations – the commercial and the viticultural.

The commercial reason is that wineries can command a premium for top flight single vineyard wines. The new SunRock wines from Jackson-Triggs – named for a block within the company’s larger Bull Pine Vineyard – fetch roughly a 20 per cent premium.

The viticultural reason is that the Okanagan’s comparatively young vineyards now are sufficiently established that the vines are starting to express individual terroir. Clearly, Jackson-Triggs thinks that the SunRock block is one of the best performing blocks in Bull Pine and thus deserves to be singled out.

Sandhill was launched by the owners of Calona Vineyards. The strategy was to develop a family of premium-quality wines. Established in 1932, Calona is the oldest continually operating winery in the Okanagan. It had a private reserve tier of wines in the mid-1990s but, encumbered with a colourful history, Calona did not have a premium image.

The Sandhill strategy has succeeded brilliantly. The wines, reviewed separately on AppellationAmerica.com (see my Okanagan Valley Wine Notes), typically score in the high 80s. Increasingly, the wines are achieving scores of 90 or better, notably the releases under Sandhill’s “Small Lots” program. Wines under that program are produced in volumes ranging from 70 cases to, at most, 500 cases.

Currently, Sandhill has designated five vineyards. These are:

• The 70-hectare (174-acre) Burrowing Owl Vineyard (BOV), which includes the proposed winery site. This vineyard includes Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Gamay, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay, along with the Okanagan’s first blocks of two Italian reds, Barbera and Sangiovese. Most vines were planted between 1994 and 1999. The soil is predominantly sand. BOV also encompasses another 40 hectares (100 acres) owned by Burrowing Owl Winery. Cascadia Brands, the holding company of both Calona Vineyards and Sandhill, was a sponsor and formerly a 50%-owner when the Burrowing Owl Winery was launched in 1997, in parallel with Sandhill. When the relationship was unwound three years ago, Cascadia exchanged its interest in the winery for two-thirds of the vineyard. Both portions of BOV are farmed by the same vineyard managers.
• The three-hectare (seven acre) Phantom Creek Vineyard, is operated by Richard Cleave, one of the managers of BOV. Major varieties are Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Petit Verdot. On the downhill side of Black Sage Road, this vineyard’s soil is also sandy.
• The nearby tiny Osprey Ridge Vineyard is owned by Robert Goltz, Cleave’s partner and also a manager of BOV. This is a source for Viognier.
• The 17-hectare (43-acre) King Family Vineyard on the Naramata Bench where Rod and Don King ripped out orchards in the early 1990s for vines. Pinot Gris is the key variety from this vineyard that gets vineyard designation from Sandhill. The soil is rich enough that excessive vine vigour is a challenge.
• The three-hectare (seven-acre) Seven Mountain Vineyard near Westbank operated by Tony Petretta, the son of a pioneer Okanagan grape grower and an employee at the Calona winery. Sandhill launched its first Gewürztraminer in 2004 from his grapes.

Howard Soon is Sandhill’s winemaker. Born in Vancouver in 1952 and a microbiologist, Soon joined Calona in 1980. He is the longest tenured winemaker in the Okanagan and one of the most respected. In particular, the rising quality of Sandhill’s wines has turned him into a winemaking star. He wears his stardom lightly, sharing the credit for Sandhill’s wines with growers by co-signing Sandhill labels with them.

In the following conversation, Soon recounts how the Sandhill concept was born and he reflects on what he is learning about terroir.