The 50th Anniversary of Nk’Mip Vineyards

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Maybe it takes an awesome celebration to help us realize what a unique and special slice of the world we live in. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Nk’Mip Vineyards (NKV), a large contingent of Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) members and wine industry partners gathered on a perfect fall day in a large event tent inside vineyard property on Vineyard Drive in Oliver.

To set the stage, band member Kik Hall provided traditional drum music, and then OIB Chief Clarence Louie stepped up to explain the significance of Nk’Mip Vineyards (NKV).

“When it was created in 1968, with some funding provided by the federal government, it was our first business, 100 per cent band owned, and would become one of our largest employers,” he says. “It gives our youth summer jobs in our own community and we also hired workers from all of the Okanagan bands. It was also my first summer job when I was growing up in the 1970s. In July and August, I started at 5 AM and clocked off at 1 PM. Part of the job was clearing rocks from the vineyard and it made me into a good rock picker.”

Louie expresses a deep sense of pride over his band’s contribution to the wine industry despite many obstacles. He also points to the achievements of band members such as Justin Hall, assistant winemaker at Nk’Mip Cellars, and the many enriching friendships and collaborations fostered within the wine industry, many of whom would be speaking.

General manager since 1990, Sam Baptiste’s association with NKV started at the outset in 1968 while attending high school in Vernon. Echoing Clarence Louie’s experience, Baptiste remembers picking rocks, pruning, digging holes, stretching wire, installing anchors and the like. The back-breaking work under the baking sun inspired Baptiste to seek a diverse education at the University of Victoria, at a college in San Diego and UC Davis. In 1976, at only 24, Baptiste was elected OIB chief, resigning in 1984 to study horticulture, specializing in tree fruits and grapes, at Wenatchee Valley College. “It meant missing a lot of the challenges during NKV’s turbulent early years while under the stewardship of Ted Brouwer, 1968 to 1985, and Kenn Visser from 1986 until 1990-91,” he says.

Associated with NKV “on and off” since 1968, leading grape specialist John Vielvoye returned to attend the 50th after an absence of 12-13 years. A leading figure in grape growing circles as a provincial grape specialist, John Vielvoye has been associated with NKV’s growth and changes “off and on” since 1968.

Initially planted in Okanagan Riesling and hybrids, NKV took a bold step, teaming up with Vielvoye, to plant “two acres of test varieties including Vitis Vinifera in Block M up on a hillside, one of the best sites on the property,” he says.

“Nk’Mip provided the land free of charge, with posts and wires, cultivated and sprayed, and we evaluated data and kept records. For the first year, Andrés Wines took on the job but not realizing how many varieties were involved, 126 in all, found it a little overwhelming.

The Research Station in Summerland took over the responsibilities in year two, developing a list of varieties that were suitable for this area. They included varieties that are still now in the industry such as Cabernet Franc, Gamay Beaujolais, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, Gray Riesling, Semillon, Chardonnay and Reichensteiner, which is now grown at the coast. Later grape additions included Gewürtztraminer, Gutedel (also known as Chasselas), Kerner, Müller-Thurgau which is still grown here today, and Riesling Mosel.

“We were even growing German varieties,” he adds, “before the start of the Becker Project in the early 1980s.”

During Sam Baptiste’s tenure as OIB Chief (1976 -84), Vielvoye carried out a similar trial on Indian band land in Lillooet by planting 100 cuttings. Despite wind extremes and harsh conditions, “it spawned a winery based on cool climate varieties, particularly Riesling, he says.

One of the most suitable locations for growing grapes, NKV ranks as a class 1 site according to 1984 Atlas of Suitable Grape Growing Atlas in the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys, an authoritative publication in which Vielvoye was an important contributor. NKV is near the top in all categories: 1390 degree days; less than 10 per cent chance of frost except for a few frost pockets; a very high level of solar radiation (sunshine); and well-drained gravelly, loamy soil, more sandy to the south.

Taken from a weather station in the vineyard, averages from 1976-1984 provided the following: 197 days without frost, 1364 growing degree days, slightly less than class 1, lowest temperature at -22.5C, and warmest +40C.

Despite the reassuring stats, “the only certainty about growing grapes is uncertainty,” says Sam Baptiste. “We’re the biggest gamblers in the world without going to Vegas,” he says, looking over at his “counterpart”, Dick Cleaves, who has grown grapes on both sides of the Okanagan River.

“Right from the first blast of winter, we’re hoping it doesn’t get too cold while, at the same time, you’re thinking, there’s Ice wine out there. You go along and then there’s the spring frost and you hope the shoots don’t come out until then. If there is a frost and the shoots are about so high – we have a few dreaded frost buckets out there as you can see - they just turn black and die, and all you can do is wait for the secondary. In the spring, you hope it doesn’t rain during bloom. It goes on and on - the summer heat, the smoke, the fires, it’s just - why are we here? Then in the fall you hope that it doesn’t freeze before harvest.”

NKV’s first decade lived up to this distressing portrayal, and then some. But when it wasn’t cold weather, they faced delays in installing the irrigation system, which meant watering the 63 acres of vines by hand that first year, and wrangling with ornery Indian & Northern Affairs bureaucrats. One of the valley’s coldest winters – 1978-79 - with the windchill dipping as low as -29C, devastated an experimental vineyard newly planted with German varieties. Considered a frost-free site, Murphy’s Law prevailed resulting in the loss of over 50 per cent of the vines. “We kept it going by interplanting the vines two years later,” says Baptiste.

Brouwer was manager and Baptiste was OIB chief in 1981 when Ed Arnold of T. G. Brights & Co. of Ontario partnered with the band to build a large-scale winery which is now known as Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estates. “When plans for Brights became known, a tribal meeting was called in Penticton,” Baptiste recalls. “They raked me over the coals saying ‘How dare you even think about putting in a winery’. They envisioned the tribe coming with a flask to fill up every morning. But people were happy with their wages and what they were doing, so they stopped drinking. Wine was a win-win. We decided we’re doing it, this is our life.”

NKV hit the road running with the introduction of Free Trade in 1988-89, pulling Okanagan Riesling and hybrids not still bound by contract and replacing them with huge plantings of European varieties, including 30 acres of Chardonnay, and many others such as Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Merlot. “The program to improve the quality of fruit was the best thing that could have happened,” says Baptiste. “The industry has grown exponentially every five years and the valley between Oliver and the border is almost all grapes. Exposure to the practices of other countries with longer histories of winemaking like France and California makes us better growers.”

The partnership continued after Brights folded into Vincor in 1994, ushering in such “big ideas” as planting 1,000 acres of vines on land leased from OIB in 1998 to the north and east of Osoyoos Lake and partnering with the band to launch Nk’Mip Cellars, Canada’s first aboriginal winery, in 2002. Key Vincor figures, its president Don Triggs and long-time plant manager Maurice Gregoire, worked closely with NKV to shepherd the projects through with the least possible delay.

More than once, “Gregoire baled us out when he would take 40 tons of Chancellor when other wineries wouldn’t,” Baptiste says. As for the “big idea” business, “that’s what you started 50 years ago,” says Triggs. “What you did then in terms of the development of grape growing in the Okanagan Valley was really reaching out there and making a difference.”

Looking back on 50 years of sweat and challenges under the sweltering Okanagan sun, Baptiste asks, “Did we (Brouwer, Visser and myself) achieve the dreams and goals that our founding fathers on council wanted?" With 300 acres of vines planted, and one of Canada’s most highly regarded wineries, the answer is a resounding “yes.”