Wine column: What's an alluvium fan? And why is it so good for wine?

Thousands of years ago, glaciers melted and water rushed down the Fraser Canyon.

Along the way, the torrent collected gravel and sand and smaller pieces of sediment like silt.

When the water hit flatter land it spread out in a triangle shape creating alluvial fans of all that gravel, sand and silt.

In Lillooet, unique benches of land were created from these alluvial fans.

Fast forward to modern day and this is where Fort Berens Estate Winery has its vineyards.

Besides being a heck of a geological formation, these alluvial fans are integral to the Lillooet and Fort Berens' terroir -- that sense of place that encompasses all the factors that go growing grapes and making wine from latitude and elevation to climate and soil.

In this specific case, the alluvium fans terroir imparts a pleasing minerality and complexity to the grapes and the wine.

Fort Berens is honouring this with a new Alluvium Series of wines -- Alluvium 2022 White ($20) and Alluvium 2022 Red.

The wines "are meant to be enjoyed now with all of life's great adventures," according to the winery.

The Alluvium White is an aromatic blend of mostly Riesling and Pinot Gris.

It's fresh and fun with that aforementioned minerality and aromas and flavours of fuzzy peach, honeysuckle, lemon and lime.

It's the wine you drink with barbecue chicken, fish and chips, creamy pasta, curry or Thai food.

The Alluvium Red is a bold, yet smooth, blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon with a blackberry, cedar and vanilla profile.

We're thinking steak or stew as the ideal food pairing.

Both wines will also go nicely with cheese -- camembert, gouda or cheddar being the best options.

The wines are available at: https://www.fortberens.ca/Wines and Fort Berens wines are also sold at Save-On Foods and private liquor stores and restaurants.

Moon Curser sold

Moon Curser Vineyards, the boutique Osoyoos winery that brought us award-winning wines we'd never heard of (Tannat, Dolcetto and Touriga Nacional), has been sold.

Chris and Beata Tolley, who founded Moon Curser in 2004 from an old orchard that needed replanting, are passing the torch to well-known South Okanagan grape-growing family Sukhi, Gurjit and Harjit Dhaliwal.

The Dhaliwals plan to keep Moon Curser's legacy going with bottling more wines in March events throughout the year.

Steve MacNaull is a NowMedia Group reporter, Okanagan wine lover and Canadian Wine Scholar. Reach him at [email protected]. His wine column appears every Friday afternoon in this space.