Clos du Soleil Winery is pleased to announce the addition of Steve Roche to our team as Vineyard and Operations Manager. Roche brings a wealth of experience in organic viticulture with 21 years of vineyard management and viticultural experience in both warm and cool climactic regions. A native of Cape Town, South Africa, Roche has a Diploma in Viticulture from Elsenburg Agricultural College in Stellenbosch, South Africa. He moved to the Okanagan one year ago after spending the previous 8 years in Ontario.
Winemaker and Managing Director Michael Clark said, “I’m thrilled to have Steve join the Clos du Soleil team. Every year we continue to push ourselves to produce the most expressive wines from our Similkameen terroir.” Roche will be taking a lead role in the development of the new “Les Collines” vineyard property, which was acquired in 2017. “Steve will be playing an essential role in this process, and we are looking forward to the important contributions he will make to our organic and biodynamic practices.”
Roche is very excited about the unique potential of Clos du Soleil’s vineyard sites and is already hard at work in maximizing the potential of these sites. Clark’s non-interventionist winemaking philosophy means that fruit quality and terroir expression are front-and-centre in all Clos du Soleil wines. Roche believes “that we are the custodians of the land for generations to come. I see it as our duty to leave the soil in a better condition than when we found it.” High-quality viticulture is essential to Clos du Soleil and Roche will be playing a lead role in pushing that quality ever further.