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Wine Recommendation
Hester Creek Estate Winery
2006 Pinot Blanc, Estate(Okanagan Valley)
Here again, Hester Creek dips into the work of Finnish photographer Hannu Lehmusvuori for a back label aphorism: “If your heart is warm with happiness, you’ll need a glass – if sorrow chills you heart, have two!” It is a mystery how a label advising you to drown your sorrows slipped by the label police!
Truth is, this wine would be a tasty antidote to a blue mood. Pinot Blanc has a long and successful history in the Hester Creek vineyard, accounting for close to a quarter of the vines in the 70-acre plot, one of the Okanagan’s oldest vinifera plantings. The late Frank Supernak, who was Hester Creek’s winemaker from 1996 through the 2001 vintage, explored the possibilities of the variety. One year, he released three different examples – one barrel-fermented, one barrel-aged, one aged in stainless steel. All were good.
Robert Summers, who took over just before the 2006 vintage, prefers the unadorned style, finished in stainless steel and bottled early to preserve all the natural fruit offered by Hester Creek’s mature vines. This wine, with aromas of pineapples and full on the palate, tastes of green apples with an intriguing hint of white pepper. 88 points.
Reviewed May 29, 2007 by John Schreiner.
Other reviewed wines from Hester Creek Estate Winery
The Wine
Winery: Hester Creek Estate Winery |
The Reviewer
John Schreiner
John Schreiner has been covering the wines of British Columbia for the past 30 years and has written 10 books on the wines of Canada and BC. He has judged at major competitions and is currently a panel member for the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards of Excellence in Wine. Both as a judge and as a wine critic, he approaches each wine not to find fault, but to find excellence. That he now finds the latter more often than the former testifies to the dramatic improvement shown by BC winemaking in the past decade. |