Retirement is not an option for Donald Triggs, a key player in the blossoming of Canada’s modern wine industry and co-owner of soon-to-be launched Culmina Family Estate Winery.
A native of rural Manitoba, representing the sixth generation on the family farm, Don left the nest to complete a degree in agriculture from the University of Manitoba and an MBA at Western. He started his career in Ontario doing sales and marketing with Colgate Palmolive. In 1972 he moved to John Labatt’s wine division where his experience ranged from fixing troubled sectors of winery operations to running large wine producers in Canada and abroad.
In the hope of staying in Canada with his family, Don joined Fisions PLC based in Vancouver, taking their troubled North American horticultural division from money loser to industry leader. With the 1989 North American Free Trade Agreement around the corner, Don risked everything. He joined forces with Alan Jackson and former Labatt colleagues who pooled their life savings to buy the brewer’s wine division.
Renamed Vincor International with Don as CEO, it grew to become the biggest wine enterprise in Canada and seventh largest in the world. When Constellation Brands US acquired Vincor in 2006, Don resigned and set out to build Culmina with wife Elaine as partner and daughter Sara as sales and marketing manager.
Don has lured Bordeaux-trained Pascal Madevon (formerly winemaker at Osoyoos Larose) to the promising scenario at Culmina.
Read more of the original stories celebrated in our 30th-anniversary issue.
Fore! Juvenile Diabetes: July 28
The Kelowna Golf and Country Club is inviting members and non-members to a ladies golf tournament on July 28, 2011, to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Info and registration: eileensallis@shaw.ca or 250.762.0307.
Tonsorial Wisdom
Wireless social networking gone retro … I’ve given up on the coffee shop. I don’t know how much more thumb-waggling I can take. Semaphore was easier to understand because the flag positions actually meant something…
Reading to Dogs
Dylan finds a comfortable spot and settles in to hear a story about star-crossed lovers who must fight for their lives in a sinister science fiction future. He pricks up his ears at certain passages but, otherwise, he is impassive, seemingly entranced …
PechaKucha?
There’s a funny thing about words. Take, for example, pulchritude. It means beauty, but it sounds more like an adolescent attitude disorder brought on by eating too many Twinkies. “Don’t give me any of that pulchritude, young lady!” So …
Anya Mayoss-Hurd: Miss Teen Canada Contender
Anya Mayoss-Hurd’s sign should be fire. The 16-year-old redhead arrived in Canada from Birmingham, England, on the day lightning set Okanagan Mountain Park ablaze. She used the experience in a required speech for the Peachland Ambassador program that led to her coronation as Miss Teen Okanagan at the Miss Teen British Columbia competition. Now that speech is helping to carry her to the Miss Teen Canada finals in Toronto on July 9.
Summer in the Valley
We asked you to show us your favourite Okanagan summer activities and we’re knocked out with the results. Obviously our readers are active, outdoorsy and often startlingly adventurous. Take a look – and check out page 25 for contest winners plus a chance to play a round of golf on us.
0 Comments