Venturi-Schulze Vineyards

At $45 a bottle, this wine – not yet released – is British Columbia’s most expensive Point Noir. What’s really surprising is not the price but that it is grown on cool Vancouver Island where, in the 2003 vintage, the Venturi-Schulze winery harvested grapes so ripe that the alcohol finished at 15.4% – so high that the winery actually understates it on the label.

This unexpected ripeness was achieved because Giordano Venturi and Marilyn Schulze, the winery’s owners, began tenting the Pinot Noir in 1998. Initially, they draped plastic to create a mini-greenhouse effect to protect budding vines against early May frosts, a perennial worry on Vancouver Island. They discovered that the tents not only warded off frost but accelerated the vines, so that the Pinot Noir ripened a few weeks earlier, and with three to five more degrees of Brix than untented Pinot Noir. Today, the winery tents about two-thirds of its 18 acres of vines, including most of its five clones of Pinot Noir. Numerous other island wineries also tent some of their vines.

In the 2003 vintage, the practice was, if anything, too successful. That was a hot, dry summer and the grapes ripened with big sugars and big flavours. This powerful, concentrated wine begins with an almost port-like aroma, with notes of prune and with some of that pleasantly funky Burgundian character sometimes called “barnyard”. The flavours are deep and rich – plums and spice – and the texture is muscular, with potential to age. This may not be everyone’s idea of a classic Pinot Noir but it certainly is a big, satisfying red to have with bold-flavoured cuisine. 88 points, with potential to scoot above 90 with several years of bottle aging.

Reviewed October 19, 2006 by John Schreiner.