Why Ortega is the White Wine You Should be Drinking Right Now
[Photo: At Vigneti Zanatta, winemaker Jim Moody strolls through the Ortega vines that grow outside his front door. Photo by: Jeffrey Bosdet.]
BY JOANNE SASVARI
Floral, Peachy, Sippable, Easy.
Ortega is not a noble grape. Nor is it fashionable among wine connoisseurs. But here on Vancouver Island, we love it anyway.
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Ortega came to the Island as part of the Duncan Project, an experimental planting in the 1980s to see what, if any, wine grapes would thrive here. Many of the vines were planted at what is now Vigneti Zanatta in the Cowichan Valley.
“We started with the Duncan Project, and the Ortega came from the Becker Experiment in Summerland,” says Jim Moody, co-owner and head winemaker at Zanatta, who joined the winery in 1991. He recalls that they had a five-acre plot planted with “oodles of varieties,” and says, “Over time I pulled them out and planted it with Ortega. It was one of the varieties that my late father-in-law [Dennis Zanatta] really enjoyed.”