Canadian Content: National

By: John Schreiner

Ann Sperling and Peter Gamble are the power tag team of Canadian winemaking. Based in Ontario, they are Canada’s premiere husband-and-wife winemakers operating coast to coast: Sperling currently works for wineries in both British Columbia and Ontario, and Gamble splits his time between wineries in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

With more than 25 years of experience each, they only work with clients who share their obsession with terroir-driven quality wines. “What is fundamental to each of our [business] decisions in these last 10 years has been the ability to work with the absolute best of the proprietors,” Gamble says. “You need someone who is driven to make great wine.”

As both consultants and winemakers, the incredibly skilled couple take on projects where they have as much faith in the winery owners as the owners have in them. “That’s fundamental to making great wine,” Gamble says about their clients. “We have been given carte blanche, cut no corners, [and are told to] push it as hard as you want.”

For example, when owner David Feldberg bought a producing 55-acre vineyard for Stratus Vineyards in Niagara, he allowed Gamble to uproot and replant 40 acres of it. At the nearby Southbrook Vineyards, where Sperling is director of viticulture and winemaking, owner Bill Redelmeier has spared no expense to develop a winery on the leading edge environmentally, all under Sperling’s watchful eye.

Now, in addition to other projects, the couple have themselves as clients — with Sperling Vineyards in B.C. and the launching of their own high-end malbec winery in Argentina’s Mendoza region.

Last fall, Sperling Vineyards, the estate winery on the Kelowna vineyard where Sperling grew up, released its first wines — splendid aromatic whites and an old vines foch. She is a member of the Casorso family, which planted Kelowna’s first vineyard in 1925. Her father, Bert Sperling, has run the family vineyard since 1960 (two years before she was born). Even with that history, Sperling and Gamble are on a quest to make additional improvements, recently having the soil analyzed by a French expert.

The yet-to-be-named winery in Argentina, based on seven hectares of malbec vines purchased in 2008, is all about further advancing their skills by working with experts there. “It is a culture of advancement [in Argentina] as it relates to winemaking,” Gamble says. “The winemaking talent is spectacular.” The winery currently has two vintages in barrel and is planning to make the wines available in Canada upon release.

With all their demanding North American projects, it may seem overwhelming for these two to add launching a winery to their list, but Sperling and Gamble believe there is always more to learn, always more great wine to make. “It just gives us the opportunity to do all the things we are doing here with a different grape variety,” Gamble says. “It gives us a place to hone our theories in the off-season. And there is the opportunity to do an absolutely spectacular wine.”

Photo: Steven Elphick