A $22 wine from See Ya Later Ranch on October 1 won the most prestigious wine award in B.C., the Premier’s Wine Award for the best wine in the province.
Nine judges selected See Ya Later’s 2012 Rover Shiraz-Viognier blend out of 540 entries at the British Columbia Wine Awards for the honour.
“It’s a huge win for See Ya Later Ranch,” See Ya Later’s retail visitor experience manager Sally Sharpe told Business in Vancouver October 2.
“It shows you can have incredible value wines that are going to be the top one. There were 540 entries, which is very significant.”
The Constellation Brands-owned (NYSE:STZ) winery just released about 1,000 cases of the wine, which retails for $22 at the winery and government liquor stores and possibly a bit more at B.C. Vintners Quality Alliance (BCVQA) wine stores or private liquor stores, Sharpe said.
One private liquor store that BIV checked out on October 2 still had bottles of the 2011 vintage and had not yet received its shipment of the award-winning 2012 vintage.
Judges blind-tasted all the wines and first awarded 33 wines with a gold medal and then they whittled that down to five wines that earned platinum status.
The four other platinum-award-winning B.C. wines that were awarded platinum status were:
•Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery Cabernet Franc 2012;
•Quail’s Gate Syrah 2012;
•Silkscarf Winery Viognier 2013; and
•SpierHead Winery Pinot Gris 2013.
Judges continued to blind-taste and reached a consensus that the See Ya Later wine was the best of the platinum award winners.
“We all thought what a lovely well-crafted style,” wine consultant and judge Kurtis Kolt told BIV. “Then we unveiled it, and it was like, 'Oh my God. This is one of the big ones?'”
He explained that even though there has been increasing value in the $22 price-point, it was still a surprise to have that wine rise to the top.
“Obviously, [See Ya Later] is part of a bigger winery [company], given that it’s part of Constellation Brands, and maybe some people can be dismissive of it because they have big corporate ownership but they’re still doing excellent work.”
Judges also awarded 113 wines with a silver medal and 122 wines with a bronze medal.
Vincor bought See Ya Later, then known as Hawthorne Mountain, in 2000. A few years later the winery launched a line of wines with the See Ya Later brand. Vincor was then sold to Constellation in 2006.
See Ya Later’s Rover wine is named after one of the dogs that previously roamed on the winery’s Okanagan Falls site.
Major Hugh Fraser owned the property for more than 40 years before he died in 1970, according to B.C. wine author John Schreiner.
Schreiner’s research revealed that Fraser was president of the Penticton chapter of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and that he owned at least 12 different dogs in succession. He then buried the dogs under headstones that are in a circle under a tree outside the winery’s tasting room.
The winery’s labels include dogs with wings.
BCWA is the oldest and largest wine competition in the province. It is open to all local wineries that use 100% fruit grown in the province. It also this year kicked off the 34th Fall Okanagan Wine Festival.
