Wendy and I hope that you all had great summer and we look forward to seeing you again on the patio, at least once more before harvest time. Don’t miss The Cowichan Valley Wine and Culinary Festival September 19- 21. It’s always a great event.
Andy Johnston

The 2009 Vintage
The summer of 2009 has proved to be both exciting and rewarding. The weather has cooperated with long hot sunny days and the vineyard has responded. We have had significantly more heat this year than the same time last year and as a result we are already approaching veraison (the colour change of the grape) which is very early for the Cowichan Valley. We are keeping our fingers crossed for a bumper year, both in quality and quantity. Next week we will be putting up the nets to keep off the voracious starlings and robins. We now start the most nerve racking time of the year when we can almost see all these wonderful grapes developing on the vine, but we are not quite at harvest yet.

At the Vineyard
The winery opened for tasting and tours in April and the patio has been very busy with folks enjoying their lunches complete with stunning views of the Cowichan Valley and sipping on a glass of Averill Creek's best. The tasting room has been very busy as well. We still have good quantities of all our wines available by the glass, bottle and case. The older vintages of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Merlot are only available at the winery and in very limited quantities. This will be your last opportunity to buy the 2006 Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris.

The gardens are looking absolutely wonderful this year and I take my hat off to our gardener Phyllis Graham for creating such a wonderful and pleasing garden. Talk of the patio was a giant Himalayan lily that started off as a furry brown ball in April and turned into a ten-foot-tall Jack and the Beanstalk plant with a spike of foot-long white and purple flowers by June.

Awards and Achievements
Averill creek started the season with more medals from the All Canadian Wine Championships.  The 2008 Pinot Grigio was awarded a gold medal. This was especially gratifying as it was the first release from our new winemaker Daniel Dragert.  This medal confirms the quality of the terroir of Averill Creek. The Pinot Grigio is our stainless-steel fermented Gris. As the winemaking process is very straightforward and uncomplicated, it expresses clear confirmation that the Gris grape produces lovely quality wines from Averill Creek. At the All Canadian Wine Championships in the past, we have won gold medals for our 2005 and 2006 Pinot Gris, an oak-barrel fermented and aged wine.

The Prevost was awarded a bronze medal at the same competition. This is our first release of a blended red wine that contains Marechal Foch, Marechal Foch/Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It is named after Mt Prevost, the mountain on which the vineyard sits. It is our contribution to the robust red class of wines from the Cowichan Valley. It was particularly gratifying to receive this medal as the vines were only three years old and 2007 was a very poor year in terms of the weather. Being able to make this wine from such a poor vintage says so much about Averill creek as a wonderful terroir.

Averill Creek Events
At Averill Creek we have been very busy this summer with many exciting events. This includes participating in winemaker’s dinners at Cafe Brio in Victoria, Tigh Na Mara resort in Parksville, a regional “farm dinner” in Courtenay and at the Galliano Inn during the Galliano Wine Festival.

We also attended the first Taste of Victoria; this was a very well organised and well attended event that was staged to feature the wines and foods of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. It promises to be an annual event and we encourage you all to attend in the future.

Averill Creek is pleased to announce that we have been accepted as an exhibitor at next year’s Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival. This is one of the largest and most prestigious wine festivals in the world. We are very happy to be able to showcase our wines to all our customers in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. The festival runs from April 19-25, 2010, at the Convention Centre in Vancouver. We hope to see you all there.

The final event of the year will be The Cowichan Valley Wine and Culinary Festival, September 19- 21.  At Averill Creek, Andy will be conducting vineyard tours and vertical tastings of “The Cowichan Pinots.” Our other wines will also be available for tasting. Saison, a local baker, will be here with their wonderful breads and baked goods and we will be offering a full range of local cheeses.

 The festival winemaker’s dinner this year will be held at the Cowichan Valley Inn. Chef Dan Mathews of Choices Restaurant has created a wonderful menu to show case six Averill Creek wines. A room rate of $99 plus tax is available for this evening. You can view the menu online www.cowichanvalleyinn.com and reserve by calling 250-748-2722.