ABSOLUTE | WINE
CedarCreek & Home Block
Years of Sustainability & Stewardship It was 1986. The Honourable Senator Ross Fitzpatrick, lifelong Okanagan resident, and powerful believer in all things Okanagan, decided it was a great time to build and open a winery. Which he did, and he called it Cedar Creek. He was fully aware that a North American Free Trade agreement was in the works, and that American wines would have much freer access to Canadian markets. Many were pulling out vines and replanting fruit. But not the Senator. He said, “We simply have to be true to what this particular soil, planted with the right grapes, will give us. The American wines are not the same. So we just have to be
focused on quality.� He said those words during an interview at his home, which is situated almost directly across from the winery. His vision proved to be both accurate and potent. Pinot noir and chardonnay were the estate stars, but there has been remarkable, sustained success with ehrenfelser, and with fruit from the far south of the Okanagan, the red wines have had great success also. There have been challenges, certainly. You can still see the char lines on the mountain behind the winery, from the great fire of 2003. At its height, one night in August, Fitzpatrick and his son Gordon locked the door to the winery, looked up at the fiery hills, and silently said goodbye to his winery. It was a sudden, virtually inexplicable change in the winds that saved the winery.
Douglas Drouin 52 | ABSOLUTE 2019 / 2020
