Jim Mooney
This month in O&V we’re profiling Jim Moody, the winemaker at the first winery on Vancouver Island, and part of a winemaking family that call themselves the ‘accidental pioneers’.
Zanatta was founded by Moody’s father-in-law Dionisio (Dennis) Zanatta, who grew grapes and made wine for his family.
Then, after a study called The Duncan Project researched the suitability of wine grapes for the region, Zanatta applied for and received in 1985 the first license for an estate winery on the island, and among the first in Western Canada!
Jim and his winemaking wife Loretta have continued the family tradition in the picturesque Cowichan Valley.
O&V: How did you get started in the wine industry?
Jim Moody: My late father-in-law, being Italian, he had his own little block of vines to make wines for himself and his family, but he’d heard it was in the works that there was a new type of licensing coming out that was then called the Farmgate Winery, which allowed those with five acres or more to have a winery, because prior to that you couldn’t even do it; you had to be commercial, really.
So in 1985 he basically started planting commercially, and in 1990 we did our first vintage and in 1992 we did our first sales.
How I got involved, well, I’ve always had an interest in wine, but in reality it all happened because I met my wife Loretta at UBC, and her family of course had started Zanatta winery, so I came over here and that was the end of it.
O&V: Where did you go to school or apprentice, and what did you get out of that?
Jim Moody: I did my degree in agriculture at UBC and that’s where I met Loretta. Then she went off to Italy actually and that’s where she got her masters in oenology and then apprenticed with her mom’s cousin at a winery called Trevisiol (in Veneto, Italy) where they were producing a lot of Prosecco.
Then Loretta came back and we married, and then around ’96, due to a variety of circumstances I started taking over the winemaking, and from there I learned on the fly and through Loretta’s educational background in oenology.
O&V: Have you worked or studied in any other countries, and what was that like?
Jim Moody: No, I’ve always wish I did, and I’m trying to get one of my kids to do exactly that, but of course my wife worked at Trevisiol, so in a way I’ve had the benefit of her travel to Italy, and in fact, I still have a bottle of their wine from our wedding!
O&V: What is your favourite varietal to work with and why?
Jim Moody: That’s always a tough question! I keep mulling over two different varieties in my head, those being Ortega and Cayuga, which are two of our original varietals here at the winery, but they’re very different. Cayuga is a very easy grape to work with, while Ortega is not an easy grape to work with at all, but there’s something about it that makes it the one I keep coming back to. It’s been 32 vintages now!
O&V: What is the best thing about your job?
Jim Moody: That one’s easy to answer. Y’know, I don’t spend a lot of time anymore at events or in the tasting room, but when I did I would meet up with customers, and when people keep coming back because they know you and in some cases you’ve been part of an important event in their life, mostly weddings generally, and they had your wine at their wedding, it’s really neat. Obviously now I’ve been at it so long that I get a lot of people who say that, and it’s really nice that you’re doing something that people really appreciate. What you did became part of their world and was memorable to them, and that’s a great feeling.
O&V: Is there a particular wine or vintage that you have made that you are most proud of?
Jim Moody: No, actually, they’ve all kind of smooshed together over the years.
The only one I really remember vividly was a really terrible one that was incredibly difficult. It opened my eyes up though, I will say that. It was 1996 and it was just an awful, awful year. It was the Ortega, and it came out nothing like I wanted it to be like.
It wasn’t like the previous vintage at all, but weirdly, the sales never changed. I had people complaining they didn’t like it, and then when I got back to doing a better vintage, I had some people complaining that it wasn’t like the ’96, which I really didn’t enjoy! Not to mention, that’s the year we had our first child, so it was quite a year. But, I will say, I certainly learned a lot about making wine that year!