Brianna Toor Winemaker

Brianna Toor

Winemaker French Door Estate winery

French Door Estate Winery is a family owned ( Jason Shull) and operated winery and vineyard. Founded in 2019, located on the beautiful Black Sage Bench, South of the town of Oliver, British Columbia . Audra and Jason Shull acquired the vineyard and the buildings of Montakarn Estate Winery on Black Sage Road. They renovated the former winery, adding superb winemaking equipment that is needed to make both big red wines and whites packed with flavour.

The associated winemaker is Brianna Toor. Brianna works under the guidence of Pascal Madevon.

After a brief stint in finance, Brianna’s wine career stemmed from her lifelong server experience. After completing her WSET 3, Brianna moved her focus to vineyards and production by engaging in seasonal pruning in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley region. In early 2020, Brianna moved to Australia to work at Yangarra Estate Vineyard in McLaren Vale, then following that she became the Assistant Winemaker at Dirty Laundry.

Brianna also has a degree in Winemaking from UC Davis and she is very passionate about sustainable and low-intervention wine production.

Brianna has brought her passions with her to French Door, where she is developing a vineyard management program that can deliver world-class grapes to our fragile environment here in the Southern Okanagan.

“I’m looking forward to continue building on our soil health and structure on the estate. Every bottle of French Door wine starts from our soils, so focussing on the basics and ensuring that our vines have the foundation they need is paramount to the quality we are known for.” – Brianna

She describes herself as a “component winemaker.” “It is like cooking,” she says. “You have a full spice rack with options.”

Her approach is usually laid out in the technical descriptions of how she puts wines together. Typical is her note on the vinification of a blended white wine called Lys, made with 71% Viognier, 21% Riesling and 8% Sémillon. “When creating this blend,” the note reads, “each varietal was handled with care. The Viognier was split into three separate ferments to build complexity. The grapes were placed into two stainless steel tanks and four neutral French oak barrels. The Viognier was then fermented at 19◦ Celsius to develop pear notes and to ensure a longer ferment. The barrels were stirred twice a week during fermentation. Simultaneously, the Sémillon was pressed directly into neutral French oak barrels with no stirring, while the Riesling was put into stainless steel tanks at 18◦ Celsius to maintain all of the grape’s phenolics. Once each wine was fermented separately, they were blended … in stainless steel tanks, and the wine was aged on lees until bottling.” That seems like a lot of work for a product the winery sells for $26 a bottle. But since all of French Door’s wines involve comparable detailed winemaking, Bree Toor seems to have been given a mandate from winery owner Jason Shull to make the best wines she can and let him worry about the economics.*1

Recipients 2023 British Columbia Lieutenant Governor;s Award.

*1 John Schreiner.

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