Kelowna vineyard ready for new buyer’s vintage

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4855 Chute Lake Rd., Kelowna, B.C.

Asking Price: $18.5-million

Taxes: $15,348 (2022)

Lot Size: 40 acres

Agents: Richard Deacon with Engel & Volkers Okanagan

The backstory

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On the southern shore of Lake Okanagan is an unusual opportunity for a well-heeled oenophile: a 25-acre vineyard with space to expand.

It has been the home base for the Schlieth family since 1979, with two brothers – Ervin and Dan – sharing the land today. The family grows grapes for the valley’s famed Grey Monk Estate Winery and is literally next door to the Summerhill Estate (both award-winning vintners) but for wine-lover and listing agent Richard Deacon, the opportunity is to potentially start your own vintage.

“The zoning allows for somebody to put in a winery or ecotourism, so this is probably better suited to someone who’s going to build Kelowna’s next iconic winery,” Mr. Deacon said.

Over the years the family has added two family homes – as well as a farm worker living quarters and a log cabin – to the estate, and have switched uses for the land over time as well. The story the brothers tell starts with their parents and a dream.

“They came from a wine region in Germany, and it was their dream to own a vineyard,” said son Ervin Schlieth. His parents, Kurt and Verena, had grown up farming cattle in the Baden region in southern Germany close to the Swiss border. They emigrated to Canada in 1954 and his father worked in forestry and logging and in the early 1970s bought the Downie Street Sawmill in Revelstoke, B.C., which was sold in 1978. The couple were looking for a new venture when they drove past a vineyard in Kelowna. “There was a beautiful vineyard with a for sale sign. My mom was quite surprised, they didn’t realize this was a wine region,” Ervin said.

The homes

Ervin was 14 when his family moved to the vineyard with stunning views of Lake Okanagan. The land was planted with labrusca hybrids, typical of the period these hardy “fox grape” species were often made into table wines or fortified wines.

“It’s hard to describe, it was unbeatable … it was just paradise,” Ervin said. “There was an old farmhouse we lived in for a few years while my dad built his dream home: the Tudor-style house, with a traditional German interior [built in 1981].”

That house still stands today, remarkably intact. It’s a massive home, close to 7,000 square feet that marries traditional and 1980s contemporary finishes.

True to a forestry family, it’s filled with wood: the main floor central hall has a coffered ceiling and floating wood staircases that curve up to the second floor and down to the fully finished basement. The walls on this level are white stucco, the doors and trim all stained wood and brick accents are used in fireplaces and other structural elements, and the floors are either tile or hardwood.

Beams with decorative milling line the ceilings in the rooms off the central hall, and the kitchen has a carved wooden seating nook and built-in cabinets. There is a conventional oven and electric range, but also a wood-burning stove in the centre of the space for a homey cottage feel.

Off the kitchen is a dining room with corner windows offering the vista of the vineyard, the lake and the western shore beyond. Connected to the dining room is the main family room with wood-panelled ceiling, a huge fireplace and a walk-out to the wrap-around tiled patio that covers the back-half of the house. Back through the hallway is a main-floor bedroom with full six-piece bathroom next door.

The second floor is carpeted and has six bedrooms (and room for more). In the basement is a large tiled in-floor hot tub, with separate sauna room and shower adjacent, as well as a finished den and more storage space.

Mr. Deacon suggests it’s likely an operator might see value in converting this main house to an inn, or just removing it altogether to maximize the arable land. The same goes for the second home on the site – a sprawling 4,000-square-foot ranch home – which was built in the late nineties for Ervin on the northern side of the property.

There is one other structure on the site worth considering: the barn was built in the 1920s and was apparently once used for drying tobacco and the loft area boasts an impressive amount of floor space with potential for weddings or other programming.

The vineyard is what sets the price point though, it’s worth far more than all the buildings on the land.

Grape Expectations

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Initially the family had workers to manage the vineyard (the previous owner’s son stayed on to manage the operation for a number of years after the sale) and sold the grapes under contract to a local winery. Farming didn’t appeal much to the brothers then: Ervin became a pilot and eventually moved into the log cabin with his wife, and his brother, Dan, became a logger.

After 1988′s Canada-U. S. Free Trade Agreement was signed some of the trade protections for Canadian vineyards fell away and the family capitalized on a joint federal-provincial program offering up to $8,100 an acre to pull up “undesirable” local varieties in order to kickstart a switch to “vinifera” varieties used in fine wines. But rather than diving back into wine, the family allowed the land to be leased to cattle farmers.

About 10 years passed before brother Dan, tired of the dangerous logging life, proposed restarting the vineyard with those high-end varieties.

“My brother planted five-acre blocks at a time,” said Ervin, initially planting pinot noir and gewurztraminer and later pinot gris; today there are 25 acres of vines on the 40-acre site. “My brother is a perfectionist: we’ll see a flag on the post, and he’ll say ‘That post is out of line by an inch’ … everything was done with such precision,” he said.

A few years into the process of renewing the vineyard one of their vine brokers mentioned a local wine legend just up the lake north of Kelowna was looking to buy. “George Heiss from Grey Monk came out to the property, and he sat down and said ‘We’d like to buy your grapes and anything you grow on your land,’” Ervin said. They have remained an exclusive supplier ever since.

Both brothers have children, but in an echo of the past none of them appear to be interested in farming grapes. Three generations of Schlieths have lived here, so it’s bittersweet that it’s drawing to a close. “[The children] are saddened by the fact we’re selling but we’re entering a new chapter of our lives here,” said Ervin. “We look forward to somebody carrying on the legacy. There’s no better location in the Okanagan.”