From pinstriping and airbrushing to winemaking: Gina Fernandes Harfman brings an artist’s approach to Nostalgia Wines
Whether it’s a barrel program or easy-drinking wine with pin-ups on the labels, she’s keeping lost art forms alive as the Oliver-based winery evolves
Oliver Twist Estate Winery is now known as Nostalgia Wines, with winemaker-owner Gina Fernandes Harfman features pin-up art by Southern California’s Ralph Burch on the labels of one of three wine series. Photo by Nostalgia Wines
GINA FERNANDES HARFMAN’S path as an artist started as a child: anything art-related came naturally to her, and she loved it. She went on to study fine arts at Kelowna’s Okanagan University College. Her boyfriend at the time, who restored classic vehicles and was an automotive painter, introduced her to car culture—and a whole new art-filled world.
“I ended up getting hooked on the art and history of hot rodding, kustom kulture, pin ups, and that music era,” Harfman tells Stir. “It was a completely different art path than I was taking in college. It was more upbeat, alive and so fun. I self-taught myself by purchasing every issue of Car Kulture Deluxe, Ol’ Skool Rodz, Rod & Kulture, Hot Rod Deluxe, et cetera. These magazines featured hot rods, customs, pin-ups, bikes, art, music, history, airbrushing, pinstriping, car shows, and advertisements all over North America. Anything to do with the retro world was in those magazines.
“From there I researched some of the pioneer pinstripe artists like Tommy ‘The Greek’ Hrones, Von Dutch, and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and famous woman and pin-up artists like Olivia De Berardinis or fantasy artists like Boris Vallejo.”
From there, an airbrush changed Harfman’s artistic trajectory. Today, she pours her creativity into winemaking at Nostalgia Wines, the winery she owns and operates on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver. Harfman, who comes from a family of farmers, sees winemaking as an art, her artistic skills and background being highly, perhaps surprisingly, transferable.
“My father caught on to my newly discovered passion, and he bought me my first airbrush for Christmas,” Harfman says. “He had his share of muscle cars, classics, and motorbikes in his younger years. He understood me and supported my paths in art.
“Honestly, I picked up the airbrush, filled it with paint, set my air pressures and freehanded the Grinch and a bald eagle scene in a matter of a couple of hours,” she says. “It was so fascinating to me, this new artform that wasn’t even taught at the college I attended.”
Harfman enrolled in airbrush and pinstripe classes in Las Vegas, learning from Hawaiian artist Dennis Mathewson, Canada’s Blake Mccully, and the late Seattle-based Mike Lavalle, who is known for inventing the real fire look using airbrushing techniques. She worked alongside her boyfriend with her new business, G’s Airbrushing, while running a five-acre orchard and fruit stand. Her portfolio consisted of motorbikes and choppers, automotive, dune buggies, semi-trucks, and a variety of helmets; she also created wildlife art, cartoon caricatures, real fire, old school flames, lettering, and more.
Winemaker Gina Fernandes Harfman comes from a long line of farmers. Photo by Nostalgia Wines
Harfman’s shift from the art world to the wine world came naturally and gradually, the two realms always being interconnected for her.
“Wine has always been a part of me and my family,” Harfman says. “Being half Portuguese, my family would have wine at every lunch and dinner. My uncles would make their own batches in their basements or garages. When I was preparing for a family occasion in 2009, I made my first wines with grapes from my father’s [Ken Harfman] vineyard and another local grower.
“It was Gewürztraminer and Merlot, and I custom pinstriped the labels for the event with 350 guests,” she says. “I had to make a lot of wine—knowing my family. And I loved doing it, so that September I enrolled in Okanagan College to learn more about winemaking.”
Harfman ended up working as assistant winemaker at Cassini Cellars while helping Denice Hagerman at Oliver Twist Estate Winery. In 2012, while on the bottling line, Hagerman asked her "Why don’t you buy the winery from us?" Harfman was shocked; she was 32 years old and had just had her first child. Hagerman worked with her to make it happen; she sold her orchard and fruit stand for the down payment.
At the time, she wanted to put her own twist on Oliver Twist, so she introduced a new line of wines that allowed her to experiment with blends, adorning the labels with pin-up artwork by Ralph Burch. One of the most widely published pin-up girl artists, he uses airbrush, pencils, pastels, acrylics, and other media for his vignettes, which range from martinis to motorcycles. She called this fun line up the Nostalgia series.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the winery, a milestone it’s marking with a new name and new look. Rebranded as Nostalgia Wines, it makes three tiers of small-lot wines, produced in quantities ranging from 24 to 675 cases: the Family, Nostalgia, and Pin-Up Collections.
In a vintage where a wine reveals exudes the very highest quality, Harfman assigns it to the Family Collection. There’s Red Meritage ($37.99) and Syrah ($39.99). The Nostalgia Collection, starting at $21.99, includes four varietal whites (Chardonnay, Viognier, Pinot Gris, and Kerner, which makes up just one percent of B.C.’s vineyards) as well as a dry Rosé and Merlot. Described as “the bottled memory of the Okanagan”, the Pinot Gris has flavours of orchard peaches, apples, and pears. (Two other varietals, Petit Verdot and Malbec, are available exclusively to Recollections Wine Club members.) These two tiers feature abstract labels that might bring to mind sand, water, jewels, or other images.
The Pin-Up Series, meanwhile—with labels that feature Burch’s artwork—consists of fun, easy-drinking wines: Boogie Woogie White, Pink Cadillac, Rockabilly Red, Chantilly Lace (a sparkling wine made mostly of Kerner, with the current vintage having a splash of Chardonnay and aromas of pear and honeysuckle), and Cherry Baby (made of 40 percent Merlot and 60 percent of three types of cherries that are de-stemmed by hand and frozen before fermentation). (These ones range in price from $19.99 to $29.99.)
Photo by Nostalgia Wines
Harfman works closely with winemaking consultant Christine Leroux, who studied at the University of Bordeaux. With a National Diploma of Enology, Leroux did practicums at Petrus and Chateau Margaux, gaining expertise in Bordeaux-style wines and barrel selection. Rounding out the team is general manager Sheila Whittaker, who is a certified sommelier by the Court of Master Sommeliers, French Wine Scholar, and Italian Wine Scholar with a diploma from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) and assistant winemaker Brendan Miu. The first man to work at Nostaligia, Miu has a degree in materials engineering, a Master’s of Oenology from the University of Adelaide, and more than five years of international winemaking experience.
Harfman describes her winemaking techniques as more artistic than scientific.
“I love to play with flavours that bring out the fruit characteristics in the wine,” Harfman says. “I am a fourth-generation South Okanagan farmer, with the luxury that I have grown or tasted every fruit and vegetable that you can imagine grown here. My family has had a fruit market here since the late ’50s. My grandparents even grew bananas, figs, citrus, and sugarcane in their greenhouses in Osoyoos.
“Like a chef, I’ve created my wine recipes through trial and error from using different blocks of vineyards depending on their terroir and fruit cropping, press fractions, yeasts and enzymes choices; and different winemaking techniques like stirring lees, types of maceration, and extractions. These are some examples that can manipulate a wine’s profile.”
Nostalgia’s barrel program is an art all its own—“maybe even a lost art like pinstriping is now”, Harfman says, due to new and modern technologies moving in, like concrete and egg-shaped fermentation vessels.
“There’s an industry trend away from using oak in red wines, as you can make delicate and fresh reds without it,” Harfman says. “Plus, barrels require a lot more physical work, and buying barrels is very expensive.
“However, I believe the results are worth every penny,” Harfman says. “In my opinion, choosing barrels can only be based on experience. Like creating a recipe, you have to taste and then adjust and create blends based on your experience. Some barrels add texture that focuses more on the sides of your mouth, others up front. Some give sweetness, astringency, spices… They all enhance different qualities in the wine.”
Nostalgia Wines works with different coopers—barrel makers—who complete the barrels with several toasting levels and wood from various forests. Harfman uses up to 50 percent new barrels, with a majority of French oak barriques and a few American oak barrels. (People can try the barrel program reds with the 2018 Merlot, 2018 Malbec, 2018 Petit Verdot, 2018 Family Collection Meritage, and 2018 Family Collection Syrah.=
Harfman isn’t one to sit still or to get bored, as a single mom to two kids and living on the estate as jack of all trades. “I am the owner, the winemaker, admin person, landscaper, grass mower, and I oversee all areas of the business and vineyard,” she says. “I do love my career, though; I wouldn’t change it for the world. It has such a sense of accomplishment for me. From working in the vineyards, harvesting the grapes, and seeing it all come together in the tank and then the bottle… Seeing our guests taste it, purchase it, join our wine club, and continue to buy my creation and support my little family—this just makes my heart swell.”
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