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Egg-Shaped Concrete Wine Fermenters
The winery’s unique 'custom crush' business model and its trademarked, egg-shaped concrete wine fermenters are the obvious innovations but there are others, and they keep coming.
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Sorting Grapes
It's a 'hands on' experience for Okanagan Crush Club staff, as they prepare to crush grapes on the crush pad in Summerland.
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Christine Colletta
Christine Colletta, co-owner of Okanagan Crush Pad, seen here with the winery dog. Coletta's background in marketing allows Okanagan Crush Pad to not only help with producing wine for newer wineries, but also help them in creating their brand and their marketing plans.
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The Crush Pad
Okanagan Crush Pad's cutting edge facility produces high-end wines for seven different wineries in the Okanagan Valley.
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Haywire
The Crush Pad team were making 2000 cases of the Haywire Pinot Gris a year using other people's facilities before they built the Okanagan Crush Pad.
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Switchback Vineyard in Summer
The 7,750 square foot Okanagan Crush Pad Winery is located on the ten-acre Switchback Vineyard in Summerland.
Summerland’s Okanagan Crush Pad is a progressive winery that has made bold business moves, resulting in impressive accolades in the three years since it began. In 2013, it was recognized by BC Business magazine as a top innovator. The same year, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) awarded the winery its Technology & Innovation trophy.
The recognition co-owner Christine Coletta is most proud of was when Okanagan Crush Pad was named 2014 Business of the Year by the Summerland Chamber of Commerce. “It is great to be so young and recognized for what we’re doing,” she says. “We’re contributing to the Summerland economy. It’s really neat to see how they support us.”
The winery’s unique 'custom crush' business model and its trademarked, egg-shaped concrete wine fermenters are the obvious innovations but there are others, and they keep coming.
Okanagan Crush Pad is co-owned by Christine with general manager Steve Lornie, who oversaw construction of the state-of-the-art winery facility. Responsible for all client branding, marketing and communications, Christine has been in the wine industry since 1990, instrumental in establishing the VQA program in BC, and working on many provincial wine brands and national marketing programs.
The 7,750 square foot Okanagan Crush Pad Winery is located on the ten-acre Switchback Vineyard in Summerland. The thoroughly modern winemaking facility, built partially underground, is open to the public on a seasonal basis.
Okanagan Crush Pad was the first openly custom crush winemaking facility of its kind in Canada, and is the only one to do this. The team can make wine for grape growers and those who are entering the wine industry, yet also offers guidance and advice from vineyard to marketplace, to help clients establish profitable businesses.
The owners were inspired to start the crush facility to accommodate their own needs. According to Christine, they were making 2000 cases of their own wine a year, the Haywire Pinot Gris, and using other people’s facilities to do so. “We scrambled to get people to help us,” she says. “We needed a home where we could make our own wines. And there were others who wanted to get into the wine industry and didn’t know where to turn. We made our facility larger than our needs so we could rent it out to help others.”
Planning Okanagan Crush Pad took a lot of time to make sure it could legally comply with licensing for the production of wine. The result is that they can now help new wineries get into business, although they only work with wines made from VQA commercially-grown grapes.
“We have a very detailed contract with our clients,” says Christine. “In essence we own the product until it’s sold. This is a way for the government to encourage artisanal wine making, like they’ve done with cider and spirits.”
Okanagan Crush Pad offers their clients the services of the same top tier team responsible for their own wines, Haywire and Bartier Scholefield: winemakers Michael Bartier and Matt Dumayne, Tuscan-based consultant Alberto Antonini, wine expert David Scholefield and Chilean terroir specialist Pedro Parra.
“What’s key to us is that we have the best of everything – equipment, wine team and the capability of making any kind of wine,” says Christine. “We’re dedicated to making high quality wine for our own brand and for clients as well.” Okanagan Crush Pad even helps clients in their own vineyards, making sure the grapes are optimal quality.
Okanagan Crush Pad is also the first winery in Canada to extensively use concrete tanks to ferment and age their wines, which carry the Raised in Concrete™ designation on their labels. They have taken a centuries-old winemaking technology and modernized it with new features like temperature-control tubing. With a capacity for 140 cases of wine, the tanks weigh 3674 kilograms when full.
“They are a nice, cozy place for yeast to thrive and live and good bacteria to grow,” says Christine. “We use native, not commercial yeast.”
Okanagan Crush Pad grapes come from their own vineyards and contract growers for themselves, and are also available to their clients.
Switchback Vineyard, home to roaming sheep and chickens, was not organic in the beginning, but as of May this year,has been so transformed, that the winery has applied for organic certification. “It’s been a lot of work but is beginning to pay off,” says Christine. “We see the balance coming back into the vineyard, the wine quality has improved leaps and bounds.”
Okanagan Crush Pad’s other vineyard, 312 acres up Garnet Valley Road, was organic from the start, and was designed by terroir expert Dr. Pedro Parra.
While many Canadian wineries hope to export to China, Okanagan Crush Pad is the first in BC to launch wines specifically for the local Asian community, which comprises a third of the Lower Mainland population. They are offering specially labeled Haywire red and white wines to celebrate 2014, the Year of the Horse, and a food and wine education program for people in the food business. “We find the wines we make in the Okanagan – the lighter reds and aromatic whites – balance nicely with Asian foods.”
Christine is very pleased with Okanagan Crush Pad’s progress so far. “And most of the people working with us have been here since day one,” she says. “It’s the people who make our business, not the building.”