It’s almost the end. Today we get to officially release the Pinot Noir. I have a special connection to this grape as it was in Burgundy - the home of Pinot Noir - where I picked my first grapes. It was September 2007 and I was biking around the French countryside, sipping wine and getting in the way. I passed a picking team and asked the vineyard boss if I could help. He said “don’t cut off your fingers” and then mimed cutting off fingers. When I nodded he handed me some clippers. Nobody’s fingers were cut off, and the boss gave us a bottle of wine. It was a good day.
There’s been some delay in getting this next email/release out as the tasting room traffic has arrived. It’s been refreshing to hear firsthand what’s going on in Prince George, Edmonton, and elsewhere outside our Okanagan bubble. Maybe it’s a case of listener bias, but it seems like people have been grateful for the silence and separation that the pandemic created.
After a pandemic hiatus we’re back to writing about the end of the winery, picking up from our last Chapter in early March back when tasting rooms were pencilled to open at Easter, restaurant clients were tasting and buying wines for their summer allocations, and Okanagan events were jockeying for positions on the busy calendar.
When we started selling wine in 2012 we had no tasting room, so we counted on restaurants for sales, and more importantly, for being our ambassadors to the public. It’s a debt that we haven’t forgotten, particularly on the Prairies where winemaker Tyler is from and where much of the winery support is centred.
Read email and purchase hospitality pack here.
When we started selling wine in 2012 we had no tasting room, so we counted on restaurants for sales, and more importantly, for telling our story. It’s a debt that we haven’t forgotten, particularly in Alberta where we sell a large portion of our wine.
Read email and purchase hospitality pack here.
Chapter 2 means one step closer to the last release. The Rosé is mostly out the door, and we’re moving on to two blends: By Hand Red and By Hand White.
You may not know the Prairies, but you know my Aunties.
Back in 1983, the Drought beat up the Prairies, and my Auntie’s backyard farm, with the way she worked and loved it, may have out-produced my Uncle’s quarter section of wheat. Who knew what was going on back then? The farmers in their pick-ups didn’t speak, and the kids read the silence and buggered off.
About the time Emily Schultz from @bonappetitmag came for a visit.
With summer’s hot days having arrived, and beach and patio days now upon us, sommelier David Stansfield shares his favourite BCVQA red wines that are ideally served chilled.
A big thanks to Nikki Bayley for the shout out in her recent article 'BC Wine 101: Spring 2018 Edition'. Head on over to BC Living and read about 'The Maker' at TH Wines
'For our latest Big Interview, we head to TH Wines in Summerland to meet winemaker Tyler Harlton. Unsurprisingly, beyond resulting in delicious wines, his honest attitude and “by hand” approach to grape harvesting and winemaking also makes for a great interview…'
Great recent article in BC Living (by Nikki Bayley) focusing on the best Pinots that BC has to offer.
From a few organic plants on the Golden Mile, Tyler Harlton makes this hauntingly perfumed malbec. In 2016, instead of blending it away, he tossed a bit into a bin for native ferment, before a stint in barrel and then into bottle sans fining or filtration. Perfumed black cherry, wild blueberry, dusky floral plum and pink peppercorn...
It is Canada’s 150th birthday, so what better time than now to celebrate with some of the great red and white wines produced across this country?
The founder of TH Wines in the Okanagan proves to be quite the terroirist.
A Saskatchewan farm kid plays college hockey and gets drafted to the NHL by the St. Louis Blues, then trains as a sommelier while going to law school in Montreal, and eventually works in New York on Wall Street. Fortunately for Canadian wine fans, the next spin of Tyler Harlton’s wheel of life landed on a career making some of the most interesting handcrafted wines in B.C. under his eponymous TH Wines label.
The changing landscape of Canada’s wine regions.
Just 30 minutes down Highway 97, in Summerland, Tyler Harlton has staked out a different sort of empire. He makes his TH Wines in an industrial park, occupying two bays that used to house a fabricator of skis for snowmobiles. “I don’t own my land, I don’t own my machinery,” says Harlton, who grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. He calls it the négociant model, referencing Burgundian producers in France who buy grapes exclusively from growers. But visiting his space, I’m reminded more of the Steve Jobs-esque, build-it-in-your-garage spirit that pervades California.
Tour Guide: Tyler Harlton, owner, TH Wines
In an industrial zone in Summerland, tucked behind the manufacturer Ripley Stainless and next to a vintage car storage lot, you may (or may not) find Tyler Harlton's snappy new tasting room. He's a bona fide garagiste; the adjoining winemaking facilities are housed in a converted garage, complete with two Ripley steel tanks for fermenting his handmade wines. Harlton is a new face in the Okanagan, yet TH Wines are already garnering a fetish-like following as word-of-mouth endorsements spread down the valley.
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