oCtoBer 2015 BCBusiness 113 BCBusiness.Ca
who buy their grapes and asking lots of
questions. "Winemaking is not as dif-
•cult as you think," he says. "What you
really need is a good palate to under-
stand where the wine's going." Wine
shop hours: April to November, 10 a.m. to
6 p.m.; December to February by appoint-
ment (250ƒ408ƒ9800).
monTaKarn esTaTe Winery
Winery owners Gary and Montakarn
Misson had no farming experience
when they bought a peach and apricot
orchard near Oliver in 2003. Montakarn
had found Vancouver cold compared to
her native Thailand but fell in love with
the desert climate on a visit to Gary's
sister in Oliver. At •rst they didn't even
have a tractor, picking fruit from the
back of a truck that they drove through
the rows of trees. "We just sort of put
it in the back of the truck in a box and
then took it to a packing plant," says
Gary. "We didn't know what we were
doing." As the trees got older, they
replanted 10 acres with grapes, which
they sold to wineries. Gary had made
wine for himself for 30 years, so in July
2013, they opened a winery. "When you
look at your wife and you say, 'Let's be a
winery,' at that point that's the cheap-
est, easiest part of the whole process."
Wine shop hours: spring 10 a.m to 6 p.m.;
summer 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; fall/winter by
appointment (250ƒ498ƒ7709).
VinPerdu CeLLars
"We bought the house and it came
with a vineyard," says Ray Coulombe,
who opened VinPerdu with his wife,
Wendy, and daughters Catherine and
Nathalie in May. Ray and Wendy settled
in Oliver after 20 years in advertising
in Montreal and Toronto. "We thought,
why not?" says Ray. "So we became
instant farmers." They took courses
and hired a viticulture expert to coach
them in the vineyard. The name,
VinPerdu—"lost wine"—refers to the
years that the grapes from the •ve-acre
vineyard were sold to other winemak-
ers. "They were lost into blends all
throughout the valley for that amount
of time," says Ray. "So for this vintage
we wanted to see exactly what our
varietals could show us and what our
terroir has to o"er. It will always be dif-
ferent year to year because we're going
to take what the grapes give us." Wine
shop hours: May through October,
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; November through
April by appointment (250ƒ498ƒ2234).
Good TAsTE
(Clockwise from
top) Kismet tasting
room; Catherine,
Ray, Nathalie and
Wendy Coulombe
of VinPerdu;
Montakarn Estate
Winery
Continued from page 110
