Grapes gathered in grief in B.C. now yielding special vintage in memory of little Manitoba girl

As a busy harvest winds down at Corcelettes Estate Winery in B.C.'s Similkameen Valley, owner Charlie Baessler is amazed at this year's crop.

"Volume is up. Quality is up. So it's one for the books for us," he said, cradling a bunch of grapes still growing on the vine late in the season.

But his mind is on fruit harvested two years ago on one heartbreaking day, barrelled and set to mature and only now being bottled. 

The wine is called Olivia The Brave, a red Syrah, produced in memory of Baessler's Manitoba niece, whose young life was cut short by a congenital illness. 

"We've never made a wine like this, and no one ever will.  It's a wine that can never be recreated," Charlie said.

"It's bigger than grapes.  It's bigger than wine."

On Oct. 22, 2020, Charlie and his wife, Jesce, were supervising that year's harvest when they got a call from Charlie's brother, John.

"It was a horrible moment; you know my brother had a hard time explaining the situation to me on the phone, and when he got the words out, I remember falling to my knees in the vineyard."

The Baessler's niece, Olivia, had died just weeks short of her fifth birthday.

The little girl was born with a congenital condition, esophageal atresia, that only affects 50 to 75 babies a year in Canada. At 15 months old, she survived a first-of-its-kind surgery in Canada to connect her esophagus and stomach using magnets. 

Olivia continued exhausting treatment at Brandon Regional Health Centre. Doctors, parents and family across Canada watched her grow, laugh and battle until the last breath.

"Olivia was full of life. She really enjoyed the short minutes that she had. She was very brave," Charlie said.

But in the moments after the heartbreaking news, the winery planted a new seed.

"We stopped work, literally dropped our tools," Charlie recalled.