With a legendary family history behind her, Christa-Lee McWatters excels as the founder and general manager of Time Family of Wines, which includes three different brands within that umbrella.

Our City Tonight (OCT): It is great to have you back with Our City Tonight. Please tell our viewers about each of the three award winning BC brands and what makes them unique within the Time Family of Wines.

Christa-Lee McWatters (CL): We have Chronos, which is our relatively new brand and was just launched last year. We have Evolve Cellars and our premium McWatters collection.

OCT: What are some of the stand outs that you featured at this years Vancouver international wine festival.

CL: Let’s start with the 2022 rosé from the Chronos brand. It’s summer and nothing says summer like a great rosé. Our Chronos rosé is 100 per cent syrah, which is different than a lot of rosés in the Okanagan valley. One of the things I love about it is that I can taste watermelon, strawberry, and a little rhubarb characteristic. 

It's a little bit lighter than what we’ve done in the past with just very little (grape) skin contact only about 45 minutes on the skins. That is why it’s a little lighter this year in color. The team is very excited about this wine because it just won a gold medal at the Cascadia international wine competition in Washington state.

OCT: We are always excited about trying your new wines and one of our favourite brands that you have is the name’s sake for your late and much-loved father, Harry McWatters, who is referred to as the grandfather of BC Wines. I know you’ve shared with us that you had to convince him to do this collection in his honor. Please tell us a little bit more about the legacy of the McWatters Collection of wine.

CL: The wine we have here in front of us is part of the McWatters Collection, and it is our Meritage. Anybody that knew my dad knew he was very passionate about Meritage and was very passionate also about educating people on how to correctly pronounce Meritage. It is pronounced Meritage like heritage, and he could not stress that enough.

The one we are tasting here is our 2020 vintage that we just released. This wine is big, it’s bold and it’s kind of like my dad was. It is primarily Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, about 10 per cent Cabernet Franc, 5 per cent Petit Verdot, and 5 per cent Malbec so nice big, rich, bold characteristics.

OCT: What would you pair this wine with?

CL: A beautiful steak is perfect. We just launched a new restaurant at the winery called Orolo. We don’t want to call ourselves a steakhouse, but we are a house that serves steaks. We have our own dry agers as well, so we’re ageing our own meat. And in fact, we are raising our own cattle as well. So, this wine goes perfect with one of our dry-aged steaks that we offer right at the winery.

OCT: Before we move on, let’s talk a little bit more about the restaurant and the journey that took place to open and what one can experience when we’re there?

CL: We opened just at the end of April so we’re a newly renovated restaurant. We are still a winery first and foremost, but we’ve also added a cocktail program and a cocktail bar. Of course, we are heavily focused on our wines and you can still tour the winery while you’re there. We’re also focused on the dry-aged meat, with a few vegan options. In fact, our culinary director was a vegan for three years, so there are a lot of vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

OCT: It’s important to mention that Time Wines is an urban winery and you are located right in the middle of Penticton, B.C.

CL: We’re not your typical winery, we do not have the beautiful views of the vineyards from the winery although we do have a vineyard, but it’s in Osoyoos. We purchased an old movie theatre in downtown Penticton that was built in 1955 and we converted the theatre into a winery.

OCT: One of our favourite sparkling wines is from your Evolve brand.

CL: We have always been huge bubble fanatics at the winery including myself, and our wine maker, Lynzee Schatz. A lot of people know us from our Evolve Effervescence, our Pink Effervescence, and our Elan Effervescence. We are so excited to launch the newest product that we have in the Evolve brand. 

We now have two new traditional sparkling wines. All of the Effervescence wines were made in the Charmat method which is more of a Prosecco method. These new wines are made in the traditional method so have been aged entirage for four years. This wine is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and a little bit of syrah just to pick up the fruit which gives it a little bit of strawberry and rhubarb characteristic. This is part of our new Elevate series for the Evolve brand.

OCT: What would you pair with this new wine?

CL I find this sparkling wine to be a little bit more refined so you could even pair this with a truffled popcorn if you wanted to be simple. This wine would be excellent with oysters, smoked salmon, and the classic pairing of caviar is pretty amazing.

Discover more about Time Family of Wines, Christa-Lee and her whole team plus the great urban winery right in the middle of Penticton at TimeWines.ca. For the filmed interview version go to richmondsentinel.ca/videos