A toast to an Okanagan Valley home

Vineyard bounty is not the only lure of the annual fall wine festival

The fall in the Okanagan Valley brings to life some of the region's boldest and most iconic imagery. Symmetrical rows of bountiful vines bursting with blue, red, grey and purple fruit create flowing patterns on the hillsides. Indeed, it's almost impossible to tell which is a deeper shade of blue -- the endless sky overhead or the glittering lakes below.

Add the heady buzz from sampling merlot or pinot gris -- and you might think, "Wouldn't it be great to own a vineyard, sometime?"

Now in its 29th year, the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival not only highlights the region's award-winning wines: It extends the "real estate season" by another six weeks or so past summer's unofficial ending on Labour Day.

The prospective purchaser of vineyard-oriented real estate is looking for an entirely different -- and more high-end -- property than the summer visitor looking at waterfront condos.

There is, in fact, such demand for agricultural property that Sotheby's International has created its very own "vineyard collection" of estate properties throughout the Okanagan Valley.

Real estate specialist Maria Peters has identified three key groups of investors or purchasers.

The first are current vineyard owners in the Okanagan wanting to expand their holdings. They know the wine industry and can accurately assess whether the land will make money for them or not.

The second, far larger, yet more complex, group is comprised of the romantically inclined, who come up for the wine festival and dream about someday getting their hands dirty by taking care of the vines and running what will surely be a very challenging business proposition.

Then, of course, there are the Europeans. Germans and Austrians in particular are responsible for creating B.C.'s wine industry once government provided incentives for planting high-quality vines in the 1980s.

Wine making in Canada offered the opportunity for young Europeans to purchase land and try to undo the "bad plonk" reputation of B.C. wines.

"Especially with Europeans, being a 'vintner' carries a certain cachet -- you are not just a farmer any more. Grape growing and wine making is an internationally accepted agricultural practice," Peters says.

Indeed, the next wave of European investment could come from major world brands such as Campari, who are looking to gain a foothold in North America.

Sotheby's is particularly active in the Naramata Bench area just north of Penticton on the less-visited east side of Okanagan Lake. Due to its more remote location and strict agricultural zoning, Naramata has been spared the development excesses experienced elsewhere in the valley.

With its gently terraced slopes, well-draining soil and west-facing exposure, the Naramata Bench has long been home to some of the Okanagan's most respected, but somewhat obscure, cottage wineries.

Sotheby's currently has several properties listed for sale. At $5.5 million, the Mistral Estate Winery is a fully-developed 16.5-acre property that is actually the very first stop for wine tourists heading north from Penticton towards Naramata.

With seven undeveloped acres held outside of the Agricultural Land Reserve, this property could potentially house a boutique hotel or a small spa resort at some point. The winery produces 55 tonnes of grapes annually and comes complete with a wine-tasting room. There is no residence on the property.

Next door, the Stonehill Estate Winery offers more than nine acres of vines planted primarily with an Austrian grape, Zweigelt. Zweigelt is becoming increasingly popular because it does not provoke the allergic "histamine" reaction (headaches, flushing) that some wine aficionados suffer from.

Again, the $3.975 million price tag does not include living quarters, but has a proven yield of more than 25 tonnes of grapes each year.

Both properties are part of the established Holman Lang Wineries that produces seven different brands from the Naramata Bench.

Before you uncork your own wine and get ready to toast your accomplishments, you should perhaps heed some words of advice from Chris and Evelyn Campbell, former Vancouver area accountants who now own the Blasted Church Vineyard.

In 2001, they "ran the numbers" before purchasing Prpich Vineyard near Okanagan Falls that already had 42 producing acres.

Chris and Evelyn came to the business as "fans of British Columbia wines" but with little in the way of professional experience, and had to craft a business plan that would satisfy the demands of the bank. "It's a combination of farming, manufacturing and marketing," says Evelyn, "and you really have to look beyond the numbers. We've never worked so hard in our life." Indeed, the previous owners of the winery simply ran out of time before making their dream come true.

In the seven odd years that the Campbells have owned Blasted Church, they have substantially expanded and now have a fairly booming business.

A huge key to their success was enlisting the talent of Bernie Hadley-Beauregard, who created the Blasted Church brand and its eye-catching labels.

Blasted Church produces 20,000 cases of wine each year, and has outgrown its original 42 acres and must now purchase grapes from other vineyards up and down the valley. Evelyn Campbell believes that business owners need to be prepared to go "well beyond their comfort level" to make their business succeed.

Of course, there are challenges, like the unseasonable cold snap that killed off vines around Christmas time last year. "It is farming, after all, and you need to have a financial cushion to allow for variability in yields," Campbell warns.

There are opportunities for people who just like the idea of living close to a vineyard. Though the Rise golf course in Vernon is still in receivership, the master-planned community has several acres of vineyard on-site and plans for a future winery are still on the books.

Some of the acreage behind the trendy Waterfront development in West Kelowna has been leased back to nearby Quail's Gate Estate Winery, but the vines are right there by the entrance to the property.

Sotheby's is also looking at future investment alternatives for groups of investors that may want to enjoy, rather than work full-time, on their vineyard. The company's vineyards.com website is the place to go for current information.

If you like the notion of socializing with other folks and leaving the dirty work to the farmers, then maybe owning a prestigious lodge is more appealing. Sotheby's is listing the Apple d'Or guest house, a marvelous log cabin/post-and-beam vacation property that is currently the only five-star rated accommodation in the Okanagan. The property features a small vineyard of Champagne grapes and an immaculately tended garden, with a generous fieldstone patio for enjoying the best view in the southern Okanagan.

The lodge itself has been meticulously crafted from local and recycled building materials, and exudes the kind of rustic comfort found in only the most prestigious country properties. As they say in the real estate brochures, with "too many features to mention," the Apple d'Or is currently being offered for sale at $4.2 million.

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STEVEN THRENDYLE, (2009, Oct 02). A toast to an Okanagan Valley home. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com/life/toast+Okanagan+Valley+home/2062652/story.html