Confessions from a Winery Groupie: My Crush on the Crush
LaStella, Osoyoos
When it hits you, there’s no turning back. You lose control, start acting crazy and will do anything to be part of that special someone’s days and nights. This fall, after spending some time with the fine folks from LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wineries during their grape harvest, I knew I had found my special “someone”.“He” wasn’t just one tall, dark and handsome man, but an entire crew of passionate people living the dream and working in an amazing industry. There’s no denying I fell fast and hard for their fun-loving, hardworking ways. And there’s absolutely no doubt that my infatuation with them and their wine is growing by the minute. My crush on the crush isn’t going away. It’s here to stay.
Ten Reasons Why I’m Crushing on Le Vieux Pin and LaStella Wineries
1. The Wine
More than just great legs, beautiful noses and rich bodies, the wines produced by LaStella and Le Vieux Pin aren’t just one-night-stands, but life-long companions. From LaStella’s Maestoso Merlot to Le Vieux Pin’s Belle Pinot Noir, these wines are vibrant, complex and intelligent – wines you want to spend some time with, get to know.
2. The Winemakers
Part crazy artists, part mad scientists, and part intuitive farmers, LaStella’s Daniel Bontorin and Le Vieux Pin’s James Cambridge concoct and mastermind the award-winning wines that have been getting their prospective wineries so much buzz. They’re charming. They’re handsome. They’re crush-worthy.
Rasoul, Daniel, Helper, James
3a. The Proprietors
Owned by longtime wine connoisseurs, Sean and Saeedeh Salem, this husband and wife team makes wine ‘they dream of drinking’. For them, the winery is a way of life, a legacy for generations to come. From the vineyards to the office, their passion and tireless effort is contagious and inspiring.
Sean picking grapes.
3b. The Director
With a keen palate and an eerie sixth gastronomic-sense, Rasoul Salehi embraces wine and food. For him, wine is a total sensory experience that ‘tickles and excites all the senses – something special that’s meant to be shared.’ The pulse of LaStella and Le Vieux Pin, he stays ahead of the wine industry curve by employing cutting edge techniques and constantly raising the production bar.
4. Hands-On Approach
Thousands of back-breaking labour hours go into each bottle of wine. All grapes are hand picked and hand sorted to preserve the grapes’ quality and to ensure a premium product. The premium vintages are even de-stemmed by hand. The proprietors, the winemakers, the pickers and the sorters endure extreme weather and up to 20 hour work days to get the grape from the field to the bottle.
Crew sorting grapes.
5. The Multilingual Team
From the winery director to the sorters and pickers, at any given time, crew members mingle in Farsi, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. LaStella and Le Vieux Pin are multi-cultural havens where cultural gaps are bridged and cross-cultural friendships are molded over a common love of wine.
6. The Philosophy
At LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wine is accessible and respected without pretension, a vehicle that brings people together to relish in the simple joys life has to offer – conversation, food, culture, art and music. Innovative and experimental, these young wineries unabashedly take chances and break convention to achieve the finest product.
7. The Setting
At the northernmost tip of the Sonora Desert in the South Okanagan, against backdrops of rugged, caramel-coated mountains reminiscent of Italy and Greece, these wineries conjure European charm and romance.
LaStella
8. The Falcons
Instead of using noise polluting methods like canons to ward off the hoards of European starlings on the hunt for ripened grapes, these wineries employ falcons to scare the starlings and other birds away.
Falcon
9. Innovations
From titanium dioxide-covered vinyl vineyard posts, on-site composting, intentionally low yields, to falcon predators, these wineries rely on a self-coined strategy of “non-interventionism” – a blend of organic and biodynamic methods to produce their award-winning wines.
10. The Architecture
Le Vieux Pin is to Provence as LaStella is to Tuscany. Modeled after a French railway station, Le Vieux Pin feels like a visit to the French countryside. Whereas LaStella epitomizes an Italian Villa with its lookout tower, hand blown Murano glasses and rare blue granite countertops.
Le Vieux Pin
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