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It has long been rumored that the few rows of vines at the entrance to Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville, Wash., were required so the winery could be called a "chateau."
PROSSER -- Construction is expected to start soon on the next phase of what backers say will be the state's premier educational and promotional center for Washington's wines and food products.
In a time when red wine rules, JoieFarm in Naramata, B.C., is defying the odds.
But Heidi Noble and Michael Dinn have never been the types to play by others' rules, preferring to follow their passions and hearts over what would otherwise be perceived as conventional wisdom.
Since launching JoieFarm in 2004, they have challenged the establishment and are crafting some of the most charismatic wines in North America.
Both come from a restaurant background. Heidi has been cooking professionally since she was 14 and graduated from the illustrious Stratford Chefs School in Ontario, Canada. Michael put himself through college working in restaurants. While working at a high-end bar in London, he caught the wine bug, moved back to Vancouver, B.C., began studying wine and worked at such restaurants as Cin Cin and C as sommelier.
They met in 2000 and were engaged three months later. They decided to move to the wine side of the business, with Heidi working for an importer of Old World wines, and Michael taking a New World focus. By this point, they knew they wanted to make wine. On a 2002 trip to the Okanagan Valley for a winemaker's birthday party, they happened upon a house on 5 acres of property that was almost in their price range. They saw this as the opportunity to fulfill a dream that had been fermenting for a few years.
For four years, they ran a highly successful cooking school that included big country dinners and a guest house. The result was Heidi's first book, called Menus for an Orchard Table, published in 2007. Its focus was recipes using fresh regional ingredients, a theme that resonates deep with the couple.
In 2004, they launched Joie, a French word for "joy." They financed that first vintage with credit cards, a seemingly high-risk move. It took one week to sell all their wines to Vancouver restaurants.
"Our philosophy from the get-go was to take what the land and climate give us," Michael said. "We had seen a real shift from white varieties such as Auxerrois and Ehrenfelser to a gold rush for reds that are $50 a bottle."
They noticed that with all the plantings in the Okanagan Valley, the average age of vines was (and remains) 6 years old.
"You don't make the most interesting wines from young vines," he said. "We looked at the whole thing and saw the oldest plantings were Germanic. So we decided to go where (other winemakers) weren't going."
Their hard work paid off quickly. In 2007, they were named Wine Press Northwest's British Columbia Winery to Watch. In 2008, their rose was featured as a by-the-glass pour at Chez Panisse, run by Heidi's hero, the incomparable Alice Waters. Last year, the rose and Edelzwicker-style wine, called A Noble Blend, landed on Chez Panisse's wine list.
"That's one of the coolest things to happen to us," Michael said.
Last fall, in Wine Press Northwest's Platinum Judging, the JoieFarm 2008 Riesling finished No. 1 out of 450 gold medal-winning wines, making it "the best of the best in the Great Northwest." Remarkably, the 2008 Noble Blend finished No. 2.
The pair make 10,000 cases that include seven wines: five whites, a rose and a red. Conventional wisdom would dictate that this would not be a successful model, but JoieFarm is proving this wrong. Rather than being powerful statements, their wines reveal delicacy, elegance and finesse.
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the JoieFarm story is the reason for these wines: They are not just made to go with food; rather, they are crafted to pair specifically with cuisine in Vancouver, where 80 percent of the wines are sold.
Michael said the style of cooking in Vancouver has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. Chefs have become much more interested in ingredients that are fresh, regional and seasonal. Fish is big, as is the influence of a growing Asian population.
"That's how people eat in Vancouver, and we're very influenced by this. That's had a huge impact on the kinds of wines we make. We're really restaurant focused with what we do."
With JoieFarm's wines, the proof of this is in each bottle and with every meal they are consumed with.
JoieFarm, 2825 Naramata Road, Naramata, B.C., 250-496-0073, joiefarm.com.
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