Ironically, Fort Berens Winery in Lillooet is named after the never-built Hudson's Bay Company's fort on the 1850s Gold Rush Trail.
Ironic because, while the winery has name, label and location tie-ins to gold, Fort Berens' latest and greatest achievement is platinum.
It's in the form of a platinum medal for its 2020 Reserve Cabernet Franc ($45) at the 2023 BC Lieutenant Governor Wine Awards.
Of the 500 wines entered in the awards, only 13 garnered platinum, while 64 gold medals were handed out.
Gold used to be, well, the gold standard, the top, the pinnacle the best.
But, since platinum is an even more rare, pure and brilliantly natural white precious metal than gold, it has become the new preeminent colour for metals and awards.
Fort Berens Winery held an invitation-only party last weekend to celebrate the platinum win and mark the significance of the award to the winery and Lillooet.
After all, Fort Berens is one of only two wineries in this region in the Fraser Canyon 170 kilometres west of Kamloops (the other is Cliff & Gorge).
Because it's located well outside BC's most-recognized wine region of the Okanagan, Fort Berens' accolades are so much sweeter and proves, time and again, that exceptional wines can be made in the hot, dry and beautiful Fraser Canyon.
The platinum-worthy Reserve Cabernet Franc is made with grapes grown exclusively in Fort Berens' own vineyards in Lillooet.
It has luscious aromas and flavours of plum and blackcurrant and is velvety soft and smooth.
As such, you can drink it on its own or pair it with charcuterie or a steak or burger off the barbecue.
Although it is $45 a bottle, the Reserve Cabernet Franc is worth the slight splurge.
After all, Fort Berens has similarly priced reds in its portfolio with the 2020 Reserve Meritage ($42) and 2020 Reserve Red Gold ($55).
The Meritage is 60% Merlot and 40% Cab Franc and also silky smooth and the Red Gold is 67% Cab Franc, the rest Merlot, with a big-and-bold, yet sophisticated, style.
Invite any one of these three remarkable reds to Canada Day celebrations, get togethers, barbecues and parties this weekend.
Fort Berens' six other new releases are 2022-vintages whites and roses that are also appropriate for any Canada Day bash, picnic, patio, boat or bike ride.
We're talking about the Pinot Gris ($24) with its pear-and-honeydew-melon profile; Gruner Veltiner ($26) apricot-lime-and-vanilla; Chardonnay ($25) lightly oaked peach-and-lemon; Riesling ($23) off-dry, green-apple-and-grapefruit; Dry Riesling ($26) elegant, complex and textured from partial aging in neutral oak barrels; and Rose ($23) bright raspberry-and-pomegranate.
Fort Berens wines are available in the wine sections of Save-On Foods grocery stores and online at www.fortberens.ca.
Bottle envy
OK, I'll admit it.
I bought this wine because I was inextricably drawn to the shape and design of the bottle.
Ruffino Aqua Di Venus Pinot Grigio ($24) from the Friuli region in northeast Italy is alluringly contained in a seductively curved clear-glass bottle with vertical cuts.
The design and texture of the bottle is unique and exclusive to Ruffino and is meant to look and feel like the shell in which the wine's namesake -- Venus -- was born.
Venus, of course, being the Roman goddess of love and beauty, the daughter of Jupiter and ocean nymph Dione (thus the shell birth).
The 'Aqua' part of the wine's name is a reference to the Friuli region of Italy, where the grapes are grown and the wine is made, which faces the Adriatic Sea.
As a result, the Pinot Grigio is as fresh and delicate, like the Adriatic Sea breezes that kiss the grapes as they ripen.
Thus, a hint of delicious sea salt in the wine, which also has a bright profile of peach, pineapple and hazelnut.
This is all a roundabout way of saying that while the wine may have been superficially selected for its gorgeous bottle and label, it is quality, devine Pinot Grigio that should be purchased time and again as a patio sipper or food-friendly pairing with cheese, seafood, salad, chicken, pizza or pasta.
It's available at BC government liquor stores.
Steve MacNaull is a NowMedia Group reporter, Okanagan wine lover and Canadian Wine Scholar. His wine column appears in this space every Friday afternoon.
