What’s in a Name? The genesis of the Wave Crest Ruby Blend

August, 2009

A few weeks into my stay on Lopez Island, and a dilemma presented itself. We were about to blend three wines in order to obtain… what exactly? According to recent EU legislation, not a rosé, as this can now only be applied to the result of the traditional “saignée” method – leaving the skins in contact with the must to extract colour. These rules do not yet apply to wines made outside the EU, but Brent Charnley, the winemaker, preferred not to chance it so the word rosé was instantly discarded. 

The wine itself was the fortuitous result of circumstances which had been troubling Brent for months. Having bought a reasonable amount of Sangiovese grapes from Yakima valley, he had been fairly confident that a straight red would be released in due course. However, through one of those flukes that can puzzle even the most experienced of winemakers, the fermentation had stuck.  

I recalled visiting a very knowledgeable South African maker in Gisborne, New Zealnd, only to discover that instead of being given the tour round the vineyard, I was told to go it alone, with sheep as my only companions. On my way out he asked whether I could come up with a good reason as to why the fermentation of his Sauvignon Blanc might have stuck. I was as befuddled as he was, watching him busily testing new yeast strains in order to find a solution to his annoying conundrum. 

Brent had paid a fair price for the Sangiovese grapes to his usual supplier in Prosser and could ill afford to pour the wine down the drain. 

The other fluke was a batch of Riesling, supposedly finished dry, but which had turned out on the sweeter side of the spectrum. The option existed of bottling it as a single varietal in smaller sizes, but it was doubtful whether the local market would be receptive to yet another sweet Riesling. Once again, the financial aspect was troublesome. 

Exactly one month after arriving on the island, Brent asked me to stay on after work and to join him in the tasting room. He had received eight samples from Mt. Baker Vineyards, where he had worked prior to planting his own, and asked me to do a parallel tasting with him in order to choose the most suitable blending sample. 

He was quite cunning, though, only revealing his true intentions half way through the tasting. After much conferring, we agreed on the Chasselas – the wine had a lovely zingy acidity, was light and vibrant, with relatively low alcohol. A chemistry lesson followed, as we poured and blended into test tubes, altering the percentages this way and that until we agreed on the best proportions. This was my first ever wine experiment and I loved it. It brought back childhood memories of chemistry lab sessions with my father in the shed at our house in Buenos Aires. 

Several members of Brent’s family were brought in to taste the resulting samples, until the decision was made to make the final blend with 45% Chasselas, 30% Sangiovese and 25% Riesling. The bottling and labelling were scheduled, and the bottle shape was chosen to resemble that of some Loire wines such as Saumur and Anjou. But there was no name to print on the labels, and so proceedings were temporarily suspended, while heated discussions took place. 

Rosie ? Rosy ? Both controversial. Both voted down almost immediately. The first one too closely associated with rhyming slang for tea, the second one with American suffragettes. 

Wave Crest had to stay, as Brent had already changed the name of his table wines after the 2004 tsunami in Asia gave his Tsunami range unwanted connotations. So, after much deliberation, one of the most affable and enthusiastic of the tasting room employees, Debra, came up with the winner. She held the bottle up to the light and said the colour reminded her of a precious stone, more specifically a ruby. After making certain that port legislation would not interfere, the Wave Crest Ruby Blend was finally born. Within days the labels were printed, a session scheduled for labelling, and, after allowing a bit of time for bottle shock, the wine was released. 

The result is a light, off-dry, beautifully aromatic wine, perfect for sipping on its own while sitting on the veranda, and also ideal paired with curries and spicy dishes. Apart from proving extremely popular at the cellar door, many local restaurants in the San Juans are ordering it. At 11% alcohol and fourteen dollars a bottle, it is proving hard to resist. If only I’d realized where my father’s early attempts to interest me in chemistry would lead me! But they have certainly paid off.