Nota Bene - blink and you'll miss it!
By John Schreiner
April 17, 2006
The good news is that Black Hills has just released media samples of its flagship red wine, Nota Bene.
The bad news, according to the winery’s website, is that all 2,800 cases are sold out, even with a May 1 release date. And you might as well know that all 500 cases of Alibi 2005, the winery’s white table wine, are also sold out, even though the official release date is August 1.
I predicted that Black Hills would develop a cult following after tasting the first Nota Bene (the 1999 vintage) five years ago. However, I hardly expected the cult would become so strong that the wines sell out in the blink of an eye. Those who missed the brief ordering window now will need to look for the 2004 vintage on restaurant wine lists – although select private wine stores should also have allocations.
As a long shot, you might also visit the winery on Black Sage Road during the spring wine festival, May 4 through May 7. According to the program published by the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society, Black Hills is open four afternoons in a row to that fans can taste the wines “while quantities last.” The operative phrase should have been if quantities last.
Even if there is no wine available, nostalgia buffs will want to make one last visit to the homely Quonset hut that has served as the winery. It will be demolished later this year after Black Hills completes a larger and more attractive winery at the bottom of the vineyard.
The metal-clad hut was already on the 14-hectare property in 1996 when the two couples behind Black Hills moved there to grow grapes. Bob Tennant, whose wife Senka is the winemaker, previously was a general contractor while partner Peter McCarrell (whose wife Susan also is a partner) was a carpenter. Equipped with those skills, the partners turned the hut into a rough-and-ready winery without spending a lot of money.
“We’ve always taken baby steps,” winemaker Senka says. “We have never gone from one extreme to the other.”
The new winery, 8,000 square feet in size, will be almost three times the size of the hut. It will be a much more efficient building, with a large tasting room and far better offices than the partners have now. “I think we’ve paid our dues,” says Senka, who has made excellent wines in less than ideal facilities.
The intent behind the expansion, however, is not to bump production volumes up significantly. Nota Bene’s annual production, which started with 1,600 cases in 1999, will level off around 3,000 cases. There will be a few hundred cases more of Alibi and one day, perhaps, there will be a modest quantity of Chardonnay.
“It is all about quality, not about increasing production,” the winemaker says. “If you have a good thing, why tamper with it?”
In fact, the partners are looking down the road, far down the road, by building a winery with the capacity to process all of the grapes they grow. Currently, they use half of their crop and sell the other half. They plan to continue doing that but recognize that the next owner of Black Hills might want to raise production. Given the demand for the wines, that would be a no-brainer.
While some of the Okanagan’s Meritage-style blends are dominated by Merlot, Nota Bene is always anchored with Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2004 Nota Bene is a blend of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and 18% Cabernet Franc.
The result is a wine in the style of Bordeaux red from a good château. The colour is a vibrant garnet. The aromas include mint, pepper, red berries and a bit of that cigar box so typical of good Bordeaux aged in good French oak. The complex flavours include red currants, olives and dill. The texture is firm but polished. Because of its youth, I decanted the wine an hour before serving. If ordered in a restaurant, you should insist on decanting.
If you have bought it for your cellar (lucky you!), just put it away for another five years. It has all the structure needed to develop beautifully. It costs $36.90 – less than half the price of a comparable château-bottled Bordeaux red. I scored it 89.
goodgrog@shaw.ca
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