Bordeaux Meets B.C.



An Okanagan grower builds on the success
of his classic reds


By Christina Burridge

Sometime around now, Bill Eggert will be hanging up the “Sold Out” sign at Fairview Cellars, two kilometres or so southwest of Oliver on the South Okanagan’s Golden Mile. Eggert offered his spring release through his email list one night in April on his way to a winemaker’s dinner at Gastown’s Salt Tasting Room; by breakfast next morning he’d sold 200 cases. By month’s end the final 1,000 lots will be gone, though bottles will still be available in private wine stores and restaurants.

An engaging, outspoken, even eccentric proprietor, the 50-year-old Eggert has the single-minded goal of making some of the best Bordeaux-style blends in the Okanagan. His interest in vines, if not wines (“I’m a grape grower, not a winemaker”), started early, when he dropped out of mining engineering and wound up working for an uncle in Ontario with a grapevine nursery. After it became clear he wouldn’t inherit the business, Eggert packed up for British Columbia and managed Covert Farms, a big fruit and vegetable producer outside Oliver. Always canny, he bought what’s now Fairview Cellars in 1989
for cheap.

It took him till 1993 to raise the money to plant the Bordeaux grapes—Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot—he figured would grow well. Then he had to buy tanks and barrels and eventually build a tiny winery. In five years, his wines started to garner high praise from critics, consumers, and competition juries. Expansion has come slowly. (Eggert is skeptical that more volume means more efficiency.) In the last year, he’s broken his red-only rule and planted some Sauvignon Blanc, mainly because the wine he made from bought-in fruit was so successful. Now Eggert is venturing away from the Bordeaux grapes. Next year, he plans to plant Pinot Noir.

The old, famously ugly Fairview Cellars labels may have been tarted up a bit, but that’s about as far as his marketing efforts go—there isn’t even a sign on the highway. But Eggert’s strong viticultural experience means that what’s inside the bottle has plenty of style and structure. “The wine,” he says, “is always in the vine. Get the growing right and the wines make themselves.”

Well before local enthusiasts started speculating about whether Mission Hill or Vincor would produce the first $100 wine, Eggert had one. In 2004, he and neighbour Olivier Combret of Domaine Combret made a barrel apiece of a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cab Franc, called it Two Thumbs Up, and promptly sold out. It’s not surprising that Eggert doesn’t think B.C. wine is overpriced. Demand is way ahead of supply, land costs are rising, barrels cost $1,000 each, and even unskilled help starts at $12 an hour. “So $25 a bottle isn’t expensive,” he insists.

Eggert thinks the Okanagan is at a crossroads and that the government will determine which way the province’s business goes. He’s withdrawn from the VQA program, suspicious that new wine standards are going to make it impossible for small players to thrive. He’s acutely aware that what he’s done over the last two decades could not be accomplished today without deeper pockets. And he’s at least half convinced that most of the Okanagan’s success is due not to planning but to global warming. It’s been 20 years since the last killer winter. The Zinfandel, the Grenache, the Sangiovese, even the Syrah, he says, may all freeze to death in the next hard winter.

A STEADY HAND

Three standouts from Fairview Cellars’ strong-minded Bill Eggert


Cabernet Franc 2006
Eggert, knowing more about growing Cabernet Franc than perhaps anyone else in
the Okanagan, is determined to demonstrate why it works not just as part of a blend.
His Cab Franc is a success because he gets it ripe but not overripe. The 2006 is
medium-bodied and elegant, and has an attractive smoky, caramel edge—it’s surprisingly good with blue cheese. $24.90

Sauvignon Blanc 2007

Three years ago Eggert experimented with some Sauvignon Blanc and found encouragement from his customers. So in went vines of his own, though most of the grapes, to which he adds a bit of Sémillon, now come from an organic vineyard on the Golden Mile. Eggert likes to pick early, so there’s lots of acidity and not too much alcohol to this great food wine—more French than New World. $19.90

The B.O.S. 2006

Olivier Combret and Sam Baptiste are two grape growers in the valley whom Eggert respects. (Hence the name: B is for “Bill,” O for “Olivier,” S for “Sam.”) About 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, the rest Merlot and Cabernet Franc, it’s the first wine Eggert has made with off-estate grapes. Light but not lightweight, it’s juicy as a ripe plum but tautly structured and deliciously versatile. $24.90—C. Burridge

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