Stir Sips: Charme de L’île makes for distinctly BC bubbles
Some refer to the sparkling style as a local Prosecco
Unsworth Vineyards winemaker Dan Wright (left) and Chris Turyk, the winery’s sommelier and marketing director.
IT SOUNDS OH-SO-FRENCH, but Charme De L’île is in fact hyperlocal. The name (meaning “charm of the island”) describes sparkling wines made by Gulf Island and Vancouver Island wineries using the Charmat method and that reflect their terroir.
To achieve effervescence via the Charmat method, the carbonation process captures bubbles in the wine in large, pressure-resistant stainless-steel vats. (The méthode Champenoise, by contrast, is a bottle fermentation process.) The origins of the charmer’s approach apparently go back to 1895, when an Italian named Federico Martinotti devised it, but French inventor Eugène Charmat later improved on the method and laid claim to it.)
The style, sometimes called a local Prosecco, is slowly becoming more popular in B.C., with Mill Bay’s Unsworth Vineyards being a pioneer.
“The idea was from our former winemaker, Daniel Cosman,” says Chris Turyk, Unsworth Vineyards’ multitasking sommelier and marketing director. “He was very passionate that Charmat method sparkling wine was an underappreciated style, and that if we approached it with a mindset of quality that we could make sparkling wine in a similar method that was as good as the best Prosecco available. He was right.”
In addition to producing their own Charme de L’île, Unsworth also bottles the style for nearby Enrico Winery. (Cosman now makes wine at Enrico, while Dan Wright is winemaker at Unsworth.)
Unsworth’s Charme de L'ile ($21.65 via the winery) is a non-vintage wine. What’s currently available is mostly from 2019, with Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir making the bulk of the blend.
“Charme is a fabulous style of sparkling, because it has a fresher fruit and vibrant ripeness to it that isn't necessarily the flavour profile of traditional method sparkling wine,” Turyk says. “It is extremely versatile in that it is great with most dishes that Champagne is good with, but the door is also opened to more exotic flavours and aromas in dishes that might overwhelm the more coy and non-fruit driven flavour profile of traditional method sparkling wine.”
Think everything from wild salmon to Indian food.
“I generally gravitate towards our Rosé Charme de l'île [$21.65], which is 100-percent Pinot Noir,” Turyk says. “It has an unmistakable red fruit and red apple characteristic that is so singular to the grape and hopefully is a characteristic given to the Island in Pinot Noir rosé sparkling.”
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