WOKE WINE: Campbell Kind
Christine Sismondo on sustainable, carbon-zero wines coming to an LCBO near you this weekend.
Generally speaking, winemakers are a pretty eco-conscious lot.
Even leaving aside organic, natural and biodynamic wineries, there’s no shortage of conventional winemakers who have spent the last 20 or so years working to reduce their carbon and environmental impact by investing in, among other things, alternative energy and/or water conservation.
The reason they’re so woke is largely because nothing motivates people to act on climate change more than having to deal with its effects first-hand. After decades of relatively predictable patterns, the last 10 or 20 years have been a total shit show for many growers and winemakers. Grapes often have to be picked earlier in hot regions; annual average rainfall is less reliable; traditional varietals are no longer feasible in certain regions and, in cool climate regions, late frosts and freak hailstorms have damaged entire harvests.
Despite this, many consumers pay way less attention to this aspect of wine (or how the people picking the grapes and making the wine are treated) than value or taste. A new brand, Campbell Kind Wines, whose first wines will be released in Ontario on Saturday, Oct. 26, promises to help change that and raise our awareness—as well as offer up some tasty new wines at affordable prices. I think they call that a hat-trick, but I’m not really into sports.
Kind Wine is the brainchild of Stephen Campbell, a former restaurant owner who backed away from that side of the industry in 1994 when he bought the Lifford Wine Agency and helped transform the private agent business. And not just when it came to distribution, either. Lifford became carbon neutral in 2005 (by planting 90,000 trees in Canada) and, about 10 years later, gained a rep for being a leader on Canada’s natural wine scene, largely thanks to Campbell’s daughter, Nicole, whose “Grape Witches” project (that she works on with Krysta Oben) has helped make obscure (and occasionally bizarre, but usually delicious) natural wines more accessible to the public.
But back to Kind Wine. What is it exactly? Well, in keeping with the family legacy, it’s a project that sources sustainable, carbon-zero wines from various producers who share their values—both in terms of conservation and treating workers well. For example, one of the wines comes from Telmo Rodriguez of Spain’s Ribera del Duero region, who Campbell describes as a “modern guy looking backwards,” working with old varietals to make contemporary wine. Campbell also works with Bruce Jack in South Africa and New Zealand’s Steve Smith, an outlier in a region known for mass-produced wine of varying quality.
This weekend’s LCBO Vintages release features the following three Campbell Kind Wines—a South African Syrah ($14.95; 10522) a Tinto from Ribera del Duero ($19.95; 10705) and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ($19.95; 10556). By accident, I tasted one of the wines outside the vintages release, an IgT Rosso Veronese, that was bold, dry and food-friendly, basically everything you want in this kind of wine. It’s one of five other expressions that won’t be at the LCBO but will be available for private order.
Sadly, that was a trade-off for the Ribera del Duero, which I haven’t sampled yet. That said, having tasted three others, I have high expectations for a wine produced by a renowned winemaker working in what may well be my favourite region. I did taste the lively and smooth Syrah and it was a revelation, quite honestly—a lovely and perfectly restrained balance of light berries and pepper. And the New Zealand white is lively, grown-up and herbal, with a touch of sage and just the right amount of the signature stone fruit the region’s wines are known for.
It’s rare to feel enthusiastic over an entire new portfolio, but, well, here we are. There are about 850 cases on shelf at the LCBO, so there’s enough to go around, but we imagine it’ll be snapped up fast.
So, you know the drill, start hoarding for the holidays now.