Robin Ridge Winery

The Free Bacchus Story

Caroline Cottrill thought she and Tim would be grape farmers, making a little wine for fun. Tim “had an ulterior motive”. He wanted a winery. Today the couple own Robin Ridge, at Keremeos in the Similkameen Valley, and make the wine themselves, with help from their children Jo, Charley, Esther and Ava. Tim studied viticulture at Okanagan College, and Caroline is the general manager.

The winery calls Gamay its signature wine. Gamay is the grape of Beaujolais, and it makes a lighter red than Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon — bright with red fruit, juicy, fresh rather than heavy. In British Columbia it accounts for only three to four per cent of red plantings, by a 2020 count, though Tim says it crops generously, at about five tons an acre, more than Pinot Noir. He ferments his with the grape skins in open vats for up to two weeks, then ages it in barrel, and says the result is a fuller-bodied Gamay that gains from time in the bottle. The critic Anthony Gismondi gave the Robin Ridge Organic Gamay 2018 and the Robin Ridge Organic Gamay 2021 90 points each, and found both red-fruited and juicy.

The Cottrills went organic, the winery says, because they did not want their family exposed to commercial sprays. In a 2021 Wines of British Columbia feature, Caroline said the vineyards “have been organic for many years”, and that “in 2018 we were proud to establish the winery itself as certified organic”. The winery puts its estate vineyard at 18 acres on the Similkameen Bench, and Tim describes his soil as “a foot of coarse sandy loam over gravel and a lot of rocks”.

At Robin Ridge, the year on the label matters. The organic certificate comes from PACS, the British Columbia certifier, under the Canada Organic Regime, and it names each wine by vintage, from 2018 to 2023. Gamay is on it for every vintage from 2018 to 2022. A wine is covered only in the years the list names it, so the 2016 Frigate Meritage, still on sale at the winery, is outside the certificate.

The tasting room has a patio over the vineyard, and picnics are welcome.