Music in the vineyard

Live music outdoors at Karlo Estates

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many wineries to revamp their operations to adapt to the new reality. Restrictions on indoor gatherings have meant tasting rooms being eschewed in favour of outdoor pavilions, food pairings now come in the form of picnic lunchboxes, and vineyard maintenance sometimes being done by a team bused in for a one-day blitz. At Karlo Estates the public face of the winery has basically been taken outdoors under a big-top event tent. Well spaced tables allow for dozens of visitors to maintain social distancing, with additional tables available in good weather, plus picnic blankets for anyone wishing to sit on the lawn. “We’re allowed to use the wine lounge, but we’ve chosen not to because we figure while the weather is nice we might as well stay outdoors,” says Sherry Karlo. “We’ve had to bring in more staff, because we always have to have a host to brief people when they first come in and ask them questions like ‘Have you experienced any COVID symptoms?’. We no longer give out menus—we post our menu on the entrance door frame and get people to take a picture of it, so it makes it contactless.” They are also using a new point of sale system designed by Rob Peck of Sugarbush Vineyards that allows them to take orders right at the table using an iPad. Visitors who come for a wine tasting have the option of using a govino wine glass, which is made from a special type of plastic that is scent-free and does not degrade when used for wine, unlike typical plasticware. The glasses are reusable and the visitors can take them home if they wish.

Guitarist Jeremy Kelly plays on the outdoor stage at Karlo Estates Winery.

In the vineyard proper, the winery was unable to bring in their usual temporary workers from Thailand, and have been relying mostly on a pair of university students for vine maintenance. “I have to say the vineyard is looking a little more rugged and natural than it normally would. It’s usually more manicured, but luckily we’ve been able to get up crews from Niagara. Instead of having three guys living on the estate and working every day, we’re bringing crews of 18 or 30 and they come in and work for one day, do what they need to do, and then go off,” says Sherry. “It’s a little on the dry side for the vines, and some of the hybrids are looking a little stressed. But a drought makes every subsequent vintage better because it forces to root system to go deeper looking for water.” The vines are just heading into what is known as “veraison”, where the grapes are changing from green to red or gold, depending on the variety. As far as last year’s harvest goes, the 2019 Patio Reserve Rosé has turned out to be very popular after being featured by wine writer Natalie MacLean. It’s a dry rosé that uses the malbec grapes planted by the late Richard Karlo. Richard’s dream of a wine made from six estate-grown varietals is coming close to being realized. Last year’s harvest is aging in barrels, and winemaker Derek Barnett will be doing the final blending and taste-testing around October or November, with Sextus planned to be released in December.

One of the other changes at the winery this year is the Friday and Saturday evening live music performances. “We thought it was a great opportunity to support local musicians and give people a way to get out and enjoy a normal experience in a COVID-friendly way,” says Sherry. “We’ve had really good feedback from our customers. One thing that’s really amazing is that it’s been so popular that we actually have not required any government assistance. Normally you’d get up to 75 per cent of your payroll subsidized, because of the lack of tourism, but we’ve had so many locals coming out that we don’t qualify.”

Last Friday evening, guitarist Jeremy Kelly performed on the outdoor stage at the winery. This was only his second paid performance since the pandemic hit, and he was glad to be playing in front of a live audience again. “It’s definitely nice to be able to do it, especially the outdoor venues,” he says. As a father of two young children, he took on the task of homeschooling the kids over the past four months, and that left him with little time and energy for his music. He did a couple of live streams in the early days of the pandemic, as well as some collaboration with other musicians, but his music mostly stayed on the back burner for the last while. He has had 20-plus years as a professional musician, and has a couple of CDs on Spotify, as well as contributing to numerous other bands. His musical preference lies in the swath between blues and country, which he says gives him a lot of freedom to interpret music the way he sees it. “I tend not to play the same song the same way twice, I try to do a little thing dynamically or maybe a little vocal lick or some guitar stuff, something to make it different.” He encourages people to go to live shows and support their local musicians. “I’ve heard people say when they went on lockdown the first thing they were doing was watching movies, watching TV shows, listening to music. It’s the arts that we all turned to. A lot of musicians around the world are hurting. It’s an industry that was the first to shut down, and it’s going to be the last to come back. At the best of times, being in the music business is not really all that fruitful and now it’s worse, and musicians are having a really hard time. Try to prop them up.” The music evening at Karlo Estates continue until the end of September.