Marshwood Estate Winery

September 19, 2004   Quadra Island, BC

Ten years ago Martina and Kerry Kowalchuk were making wine for themselves from commercial winemaking kits.  They progressed to making wine from purchased grape juice, then grapes, before they found themselves – almost accidentally - with 80 Ortega grape vines in 2 gallon pots. Somewhere along this winding wine route, Kerry and Martina opened Quadra Island’s first U-Vin, “Fermentations”.  They learned not only how to get the best from wine kits, but also how to turn almost every fruit, including table grapes, into wine.

Martina Kowalchuck & Dornfelder

Meanwhile, with a vineyard in mind, they purchased 160 acres of scrubby, rough, over-logged land at the headwaters of Drew Creek, inland from Heriot Bay.  As well as a 60-acre marsh, their property has a long wide slope of glacial moraine facing southwest – an excellent site for wine grape vines.

By the time they had cleared enough stumps from their acreage to start planting the original Ortega vines they had been faithfully watering, they had 2600 new vines on order.  With lots of help from their 16 yr old son Kolya, Martina grows the grapes and Kerry crafts the wines.  This summer they harvested enough Ortega grapes to make a precious 60 cases of dry white wine. Ortega is a hybrid white wine grape developed in Germany in 1948 by crossing Muller-Thurgau with Siegerrebe.  Early ripening and high sugar levels make it a popular choice for many Vancouver Island wineries.

Consciously crafted in a “dry” style, Marshwood Ortega is a mouthful of crisp apricot and peach flavours with herbal notes and a steely dry finish.  Initially available only at Marshwood Estate Winery on Jade Rd, look for it in private liquor stores at $14.95. Beyond this first vintage of Ortega, they have been preparing their growing vineyard and planting a variety of grape vines. Marshwood’s red wine ambitions are tightly focussed on wine grapes that will ripen reliably in Quadra Island’s cooler maritime-influenced microclimate.

Their first vintage of Agria, an early-ripening Hungarian red wine grape, was harvested ten days ago.  Just crushed and beginning to ferment, now, it fills the winery’s fermentation room with aromas of ripe black cherries, already even before fermentation begins, the deep red juice is marvellously “meaty” and full of bright fruit flavours. Although they are not yet getting enough grapes to vinify commercially, the Kowalchuks have also planted more than 200 high-yielding German hybrid Dornfelder as well as 500 less-generous Pinot Noir – another early ripener but still an ambitious choice for this most northern of the Island vineyards.  Both of these varieties are capable of producing zesty medium-bodied reds with wonderful floral aromatics.  Meanwhile, as those vines mature, Kerry is making delightful sparkling fruit wines from Strawberries and Cranberries.

Marshwood’s first customer is Victoria’s Laurel Point Inn. Owner Artie Arsens and manager Spencer Villam liked the Sparkling Strawberry and Cranberry wines so much that Laurel Point will be serving them at weddings and catered luncheon meetings.  Quadra Island’s own Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge also intends to serve these charming bubblies. Marshwood Sparkling Strawberry wine is a pale orange colour, spritzed with gold.  It delivers a surprisingly elegant light sip of strawberries and a dash of subtle white pepper in the finish.  Most remarkably, despite the initial flavours of jammy strawberries, the wine is overall very dry and crisp. It should retail for $13.95. Bright neon pink punk sibling to it’s more restrained Strawberry sister wine, Marshwood Sparkling Cranberry wine leads with an intriguing and tasty sprinkle of mint before sliding into full-tilt cranberry flavours.  A touch sweeter than the Strawberry, it is a very cleverly balanced wine, underpinned by bright citric fruit and a brisk swish of tannins.  It should also retail around $13.95.