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.
World riders to cycle South Okanagan
Belgian national cycling champion Axel Merckx leads an epic ride through the heart of British Columbia’s wine country On Sunday, July 10, British Columbia’s South Okanagan will see up to 2,500 cyclists take to the roads for the start of the sixth Prospera Granfondo...
Some dietary fats still getting a bad rap, says UBC researcher
UBC research shows that some of the fats we consume are getting a raw deal when it comes to deciding what’s good for us. Long thought of as the bad guys in the commercial diet industry, fats are now getting a second look thanks to research done by UBC’s Deanna Gibson....
Manipulators less convincing online than in person, UBC research shows
If you have to negotiate business with a narcissist or psychopath, you’re better off doing it on Facebook, research from UBC’s Okanagan campus shows. In one of the first studies of its kind, UBC researchers found that traditionally successful manipulators who...
Okanagan educator spearheads program to save bees
Educator/artist Nancy Holmes is the co-founder of the Border Free Bees project; see what you can do A swarm of kindergarten kids is buzzing through the field, their excitement contagious. “I’ve found a bee,” shouts one. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that phrase said...
Kitchen Confidential with wild mushroom forager Scott Moran
See how food foraged from nature finds its way to the best Okanagan restaurant kitchens Scott Moran does something few other people in the food business do. He goes right back to food origins. Moran is a wild food forager harvesting dozens of wild plants and mushrooms...
2017 Western Canada Cup: Early Bird Tournament Package On Sale
The biggest Western Canadian Junior ‘A’ Championship is coming to Penticton in 2017. The Penticton Vees Jr. ‘A’ Hockey Club, in conjunction with the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), has been awarded the 2017 Western Canada Cup (WCC) April 29 to May 7, 2017. The...
