Bella Wines in Naramata sells business to up and coming Similkameen winemakers – Penticton News

Partners in life and the wine shop, Bella Winery owners Jay Drysdale and Wendy Rose are passing the reins of their business to another couple of budding winemakers.

The sparkling wine house located just north of Naramata has become known for focusing on single vineyard varietals of Okanagan Valley grapes for their bottles of bubbles.

They announced the new ownership on June 19 to Brianna (“Bree”) McKeage and Rajen Toor, who own and operate Ursa Major Winery.

For the next 18 months, these four locals will work on transitioning the business over and its relocation to the new production facility in the Similkameen Valley.

This summer, the tasting room and wine sales will remain out of the usual shop on the Naramata farm.

“The next six months basically, is the four of us are working as a team. So we have lots of vineyard work to do, we have an upcoming harvest to do,” Rose said.

“Jay and I are still very much supporting Bella’s sales because we have inventory. Raj now is no longer [operating Ursa Major] as a virtual winery, so we’re supporting him. Raj and Bree have the energy to help us out with a lot of what’s happening here with leases that we have.”

As they work into 2025, with Drysdale and McKeage having their first co-harvest under their belt, then the couple said they will start to be more hands-off.

“Next year, it’s about them standing on their own two feet with the comfort of us there to support them and be advisors,” Rose added.

After purchasing a vineyard in Keremeos in 2022, McKeage and Toor have been working on finishing a new production facility and tasting room there, to build out that property as being at the location for Ursa Major and Bella.

The 14-acre plot has 10 acres under plant right now.

Drysdale and Rose said the timing worked out well for them to pass off the reins, and are looking forward to seeing them grow Bella.

Small beginnings

Bella started in July of 2011, with their first harvest in September of that same year. They would open up a tasting room at their family-run farm in June of 2015.

When Drysdale and Rose met, both of them were ready for a new adventure. Drysdale said he wanted to build a boutique sparkling wine house, and Rose was all in.

“How it came off the ground was us meeting and just having a very shared passion for this style of wine. And I think it was just right place, right time,” Rose said.

Drysdale had spent years in the kitchen as a chef, before making the move into the wine industry and even working for the Wine Institute.

The decision to make specifically sparkling wine came due to two reasons.

“Everyone asks a chef, ‘What wine would go with this meal?’ Which is a great question, but if you don’t know the person’s taste buds, it’s really hard to make a recommendation,” Rose said.

“But the safest recommendation is always sparkling. And so that’s one aspect, but also, sparkling is a very technical wine to make, and Jay doesn’t like anything easy.”

Drysdale added that at that time, he had not seen anyone in the local industry specializing or focusing on one grape varietal.

“No one just said, I’m only going to make Riesling, and that’s it,” he said. “When we started, whether we hadn’t chosen bubbles, which — as I agree with Wendy — it was our comfort wine. As a sommelier, it was the go-to wine, and it just fit every occasion.

“Had we not chosen bubbles, I think we would have chosen a single grape and explored the depths that a single grape could do in the Okanagan because what I wasn’t seeing was wineries taking our region seriously, everyone was so afraid to put their eggs in one basket, not realizing that one basket led to 20 micro baskets.”

Growth as a winery

Over a decade ago, the couple aimed to make 2000 cases of wine to start.

“Jay and I never wanted a big winery. We always said to people we would never be more than 3000 cases because we wanted to keep it small. We wanted to be hands-on. We wanted people to be able to experience our tasting the room through us,” Rose said.

“It’s hard for wineries like us, we’re just blessed that Jay has run restaurants as well as worked in them, so he had a very solid business acumen, and me, coming from a background in finance and operations, and then obviously, Jay, having the skill set to make the wine meant that a husband and wife team could run a winery without having a bunch of consultants and experts to tell us what to do.”

Drysdale said they underestimated how much administrative work was involved with trying to run a winery.

“So we definitely, in the beginning, fumbled through a bunch of things,” Rose added.

“As well as the fact that at the same time, the industry itself was having to come to grips with wines that were unfiltered and unfined and cloudy and tartaric, and VQA was just not prepared for the style of wine we were making, so we were constantly having to push that door open.”

Bella said they were the first to offer an all-natural traditional method sparkling wine and the first to release an Ancestral Method sparkling wine in the Pacific Northwest.

“Literally, 99 per cent of our customers are coming to us because of the focus we have. So it eliminates a lot of trial and error with customers,” Drysdale added.

“I think the focus has rewarded us more than we ever anticipated.”

Soon the wine shop started to see international acclaim and attention, being one of the few pure sparkling wine houses in North America.

‘We’ve had zero marketing budget our entire lives here, but we’ve been blessed to have some pretty spectacular wine writers and reviewers pass through our doors because we do just focus on bubbles,” Rose said.

Industry costs tough

As costs increased throughout the years and the wine industry saw climate impacts on their grapes, running a small operation became challenging.

“When Jay and I started a winery back in 2011, 2000 cases was like a lifestyle company. And then through the cost of packaging and logistics and everything else, all of a sudden it was 2500 cases, and then it crept up to 3000 cases,” Rose said.

“We’re small. We have a war chest to weather one thing. But do we have a war chest to weather COVID, increased costs, logistics, two hard winters, different changes in buying patterns and knowing that now to be a lifestyle winery, you have to be 5000 cases?

“We just didn’t have the financial means to scale beyond 3000.”

Following mid-January’s cold snap, a report conducted by the wine industry projected wine grapes and production to be 97-99 per cent lower than usual in 2024.

Since then, some wineries have seen grape bud breaks and signs of life in some of their vines, but the cold is reported to have caused severe damage to 32 grape varietals in nine Interior regions.

“Trying to climb back from low production when you’re already a small winery is pretty tough on cash flow and everything,” Drysdale added.

“This has become a millionaire’s playground for just what it takes money-wise, to get into it. A lot of the industry doesn’t have millions kicking around to set up shop.”

Handing the reigns to friends

Deciding to give Bella over to McKeage and Toor was not a tough decision, as the couple has known them for at least the past six years.

“I’ve actually known Raj since he was in high school. He used to hang out with a friend of mine’s son, so I got to know him as kind of a teenager that way,” Drysdale said.

“And then, he skipped 10 years, and all of a sudden he’s hanging with grown adults and winemakers and all that. And our circles started crossing.”

Rose met McKeage when she used to be a board member of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

“She put in an application for a scholarship, and I was the head of the scholarship community committee,” Rose explained.

“When I met her, I had this scholarship induction, I came home and told Jay, ‘She’s a powerhouse. Holy Christ, she’s gonna, put the world on his ear and then some.’”

The group kept in touch and years later, Toor walked into the Bella tasting room with McKeage on his arm.

“Seeing the two of them together, we were like, ‘This is a power couple,’” Rose said.

“I think that also contributes to our story, because it wasn’t just random two people who showed up and decided to buy a winery and are working with us for the next 18 months, we know each other.”

Drysdale said this partnership has managed to allow them an exit strategy while giving the other two a growth strategy, which feels like a win-win.

“Now it’s just over the next year, and a bit is really just sharing what annoying knowledge we have, administration and that we can hopefully save them some time and numbers and money and leave this in a position so that they’re off and running and I know it’s in good hands.”

Change in the tides of industry

Rose said with over 92 different wineries available for sale in the province, it’s surprising for her to see most of the wineries selling at the “classic, antiquated model.”

“I like to call it the real estate model. In that, they pick a price lump sum, they find somebody who puts it up somewhere, and they wait back for someone to approach them to buy them, and that is not a viable model right now. You have to find your buyer that aligns with your story,” she said.

“Ours makes sense, because Raj and Bree align with who we are, and they farm like we do, they make wine like we do, and we’ve known them for some time.”

In their deal, Bella said they have decoupled the brand and the inventory from their house and vineyard.

“Bree did not buy our house and vineyard, and by decoupling it, it makes it more approachable,” Rose said.

“I think of a larger winery that’s for sale right now, for $10 to $15 million but that is a house, vineyard and, years of inventory to get carried forward, like all of this stuff, what kid who’s a seller hand, can afford that?”

The pair would like to see more options for budding winemakers to buy a plot of land and get a license transfer to it from an established winery brand.

Community support shines

“Our little joke in the tasting room is that Jay makes the bubbles for me and I choose to share them with the world.”

Rose said after they announced the sale and change in ownership on social media, the pair got to see how much the community loved their small wine shop.

“Of course, we want to charm our customers, but we never really think about how this brand fit into all of their celebrations or all of their highs and lows in life, and so to get all these stories repeated to us over the last week and change has just been pretty, pretty touching,” she added.

“The overwhelming amount of support and love for our brand that we have felt since last week, we never expected and we never knew, the people who have gone out of their way to sort of tell us their Bella origin story, and they’re all so touching. I think that for the two of us, [this] has possibly been the best moment in our history.”

What’s next?

While the couple still has their hands in the winery business for the next while, they haven’t completely decided where they’re going from there.

“We know we have another adventure left in us. I mean, for me, the first phase of my life was the tech industry, and the second phase of my life, owning a winery. Third phase, I know I’ve got it, and I’m ready to give everything I’ve got and it’s just well, what’s that going to be?” Rose said.

“And I think the other question for Jay and I is, ‘Where is that going to be?’ So as much as we have enjoyed our time living in a desert, Jay grew up on the coast, and so did I, and we both desperately missed the ocean.”

Drysdale knows he still wants to keep the farm active on their plot of land.

“I think farming is definitely the passion, figuring out how to put more nutrients into our fruit and vegetables, how to heal our soils with animals and natural amendments,” he said.

“I think I want to get bored so that I can get inspired again, and I’m a little too tired to commit to anything. Wendy and I have zero regrets. We’re very proud and passionate about all of this, but we’re also tired.

“We’ve been going pretty much seven days a week for a few years now, and we just kind of want a little bit of downtime and want to find our passions again and I don’t think it’ll stray too far, but that’s kind of where we’re thinking anyways, right now.”

Bella Winery will be open for tasting on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. until September at 4320 Gulch Road, Naramata. For more information on their wines, head to their website here.

Photo: Contributed