Photo by Jon Adrian
Osoyoos Larose
The Osoyoos Larose winery in BC is launching a unique wine club, giving members access to fine wines that are already carefully aged and at their peak flavour profile.
The club, known as La Maison Osoyoos Larose, offers a limited number of memberships, but those lucky few will receive three shipments of Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin library wines, new releases, and large format bottles.
If you’re not familiar with Le Grand Vin, it’s the result of a history going back to 1998, when Groupe Taillan of Bordeaux, France, entered the Canadian market with a vision of creating a world-class, classic Bordeaux blend, but with grapes grown in the arid Osoyoos desert.
The result is the widely acclaimed Bordeaux blend Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin, with the first vintage coming out in 2001.
In the tradition of Bordeaux wines, La Grand Vin is a complex, layered and eminently ageable wine that has been consistently rated among the best in Canada.
“This wine, hailed as a rose in the desert, exceeded all expectations and put both the South Okanagan and Osoyoos Larose firmly on the radar of wine lovers around the world, placing Osoyoos Larose on par with the world’s finest wine producers,” said Osoyoos Larose.
But until now, the wine was available only at retail or on wine menus across Canada. Wine lovers could not visit a winery or order directly from the source, and did not have access to the library of already aged wines.
That’s now changing with La Maison Osoyoos Larose, and in particular, it will give members the ability to purchase aged bottles of Le Grand Vin that have been cellared for more than a decade.
“We are excited to be able to offer our passionate Osoyoos Larose fans this unique opportunity to celebrate our wines, and, essentially, life from the desert, with our inaugural list release,” says Osoyoos Larose CEO and winemaker Michael Kullmann. “Shipments have already been mapped out for the next few years and we cannot wait to share these special wines.”
A major difference at Osoyoos Larose is that the winery is very focused on just two exceptional Bordeaux blends, both suitable for the avid wine collector and made to be cellared. Those two are the aforementioned Le Grand Vin and Pétales d’Osoyoos Larose.
Both are created from organically grown grapes on a single-block, 80-acre bench in the Osoyoos desert, and prove that Canadian grapes can indeed produce a Bordeaux-style wine that is competitive with the best from France itself.