Take Me to the Mission

John Simes was coaxed, somewhat willingly, out of his home and his position as chief winemaker for New Zealand giant Montana, back in 1992. Mission Hill Family Estates, as it is now known, and proprietor Anthony von Mandl, had ambitions to make the Okanagan an international-calibre wine region, and Mission Hill the premium quality flag-bearer. Simes found the challenge sufficiently intriguing, and after making his first visit, seeing the potential of the area, he made the move, and now presides over a winery operation that is fulfilling its potential and increasing its ability to produce wines that reach a higher bar for quality, on a consistent basis.

These days, Mission Hill is launching what they call a Legacy Series, which includes its ultra-premium Oculus, plus two new entries, a chardonnay called Perpetua, and Quatrain, a blend of four varieties (merlot, syrah, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon).  These wines are accompanied by the Special Lot Collection series, a tier of Reserve wines, and the Five Vineyards series. 

 

But that is what you see, the wines in bottle at the end of a process. Of course, it does not happen by accident, and as Simes says, “We knew we could grow some great fruit. But, I’ve been here nearly 17 years now, and we are just beginning to understand the potential.” He warms up to the topic quickly, and goes on, “Soils, sunlight hours, wind, precipitation, slopes, varieties and clones, we are still in the early stages, I believe.”  He is standing just above a tiny pinot noir vineyard, relatively new, planted far above Okanagan Lake at the northern end of the Naramata Bench. “This vineyard here should produce some spectacular fruit, but actually, I am very happy with some of the pinot we get from the vineyards just below the winery. So, we have to figure out which clonal selections will do best here, and at other sites, before we really know what we can do.” Vineyards in Europe have, over centuries, done all this painstaking work, at least in some areas, so that the soil and the vines planted there are perfectly matched. Some of the Gran Cru vineyards near Avize in Champagne spring to mind. For John Simes, the progress in the Okanagan is relatively swift, but still far from ideal at this point.

The winery itself has a second winery within it, dedicated to the Legacy wines. It is complete with state-of-the-art basket presses and 18 oak fermenting tanks, which arrived from France last year. They stand partially as testament to the support winemaking gets at Mission Hill, no impediments to making the best wines possible. “I like these new presses a lot,” Simes says. “They make it possible to get the purest juice from the fruit, no bruising, no extra materials to dilute the quality. It is really about extracting the maximum flavours from the grapes, getting the best quality juice from them. From there, with these oak tanks, for example, we can really do the rest of the job at a high level, kind of treat that juice with all the respect it deserves.” He points out some innovations, small touches that help the process, things he and his team have invented in order to, for example, allow the skins to soak more thoroughly through a tank, or to more gently stir the tanks. “Sorting is probably our greatest challenge at this point,” he notes. “Other than going through the bunches by hand, there is no way to do it properly. And even then,” he pauses, and points to a new sorting table, mechanized, with automatically controlled air flow, which removes much of the detritus from leaves and stems, “a great piece of equipment like this can only do so much.” Admittedly, these are all huge steps forward in the industry, in terms of quality at the end-user stage. But for a perfectionist like Simes, there is never too much to be done in terms of ensuring it is strictly the best fruit and its juice that goes into the fermenting tanks.

The barrel rooms are temperature controlled, and the extensive barrel program in-and-of-itself is a challenge, since all Mission Hill reds are aged in oak, and many whites are barrel fermented. Oculus itself sees a combination of new and older oak for anywhere between 13 and 18 months, depending on the vintage. “We are still learning about the oak, as well,” Simes says. “Some reds in some vintages do better in specific types of barrels, and we record it all, and keep on learning.”

Simes oversees the entire vineyard operation, as well. “I have plenty of help, some great people working the specific sites.” The winery farms nearly 1,100 acres of vineyards, almost 900 of which it owns. The remaining portion is owned by long-term, contracted  local growers. These vineyards range from Lakeshore Road in Kelowna, through the vineyard sites surrounding the winery, on through Naramata and Black Sage Bench, and down to the United States border, near Osoyoos, where syrah vineyards are nestled up against the 49th parallel. 

“I think with merlot, we are closer than with the other varieties, in terms of where it does well,” notes Simes. Merlot is the backbone of Oculus and Quatrain, and is star in its own right with the S.L.C bottling. Syrah, though, is a rising star, and component tasting for Oculus reveal a startling, rich quality to the cabernet franc that suggests a single variety bottling could come soon. “We don’t really have enough cab franc at this point to bottle it on its own, but I admit it is a nice wine,” Simes says.

Mr. Simes has won the prestigious London International Wine and Spirits Competition twice, once with a sauvignon blanc from Montana, and then, only a few years later, with a Grand  Reserve Barrel Select Chardonnay at Mission Hill. These are understandably highlights of his career, but the real highlight will most likely be the enduring success of a winery and its vineyards that set a benchmark for quality in the Okanagan, and which will see itself at peak potential well after Simes has departed the scene. We’ll leave the last word to him, but don’t expect any bragging. “It won’t happen in my lifetime, but we are giving the region a great start, developing sites and producing good wines. Still, the future is when it will realize that great potential. I’m just here to get the ball rolling, basically.”

 

Read profiles of more influential people in the B.C. wine world:

Dr. Margaret Cliff 

Bernie Hadley Beauregard 

Val Tait