It’s always an interesting exercise when a winemaker is working with a certain grape variety but makes more than one wine from it. Looking at British Columbian producers, there are numerous examples. There are those like the Schales family at Summerland’s 8th Generation, who relish their German heritage, playing around with a few styles of Riesling.

If we look at a recent vintage, there’s their 8th Generation Riesling 2016 ($20, online), which is slightly off-dry but buoyed with fresh acidity, keeping all of those mango and lime notes afloat. Their 8th Generation Riesling Classic 2016 ($20) is a drier take on the grape. Although it bursts with pomelo, lemon, and Granny Smith apples, it finishes damn crisp and dry; it’s a perfect bottling for those fearful of sweet wines. Rounding out their annual trio is 8th Generation Riesling Selection ($25.50), which is easily the geekiest of the three. They keep aside 14 rows of Riesling vines that undergo a green harvest in August, leaving only one cluster per vine; all the vine’s energy gets concentrated on that cluster through the rest of the growing season.

After they harvest those bunches, the juice is pressed off and it goes through a wild fermentation. The resulting wine is massive, with gobs of citrus and stone fruit, and I like to follow the winery’s recommendation to decant before serving to unleash all of its potential.

Now, with Riesling we can see the desire to make different versions, as the scale from bone-dry to, let’s say, the ultrasweet nature of an ice wine is pretty long, and different people will be attracted to different styles.

But in the case of Pinot Noir, one would think that scale would be a fair bit shorter, particularly if a winemaker is making three different versions from the same vintage and they’re all being treated with French oak.

This was top of mind as I sat down to look at three new releases from West Kelowna’s pioneering Quails’ Gate Winery. I wondered if winemaker Nikki Callaway has actually made three Pinots discernible enough to warrant having three different bottlings, particularly when two of them are about twice the price of the other.

Let’s take a look.

Quails’ Gate Pinot Noir 2016

$26.99, www.quailsgate.com

The “regular” Pinot Noir from Quails’ Gate has always been solid, so I hardly had a doubt it would show well. After all, this is one of the initial Okanagan wineries largely responsible for putting the noble grape on our local map. Most of these grapes come from West Kelowna vineyards with largely 20-year-old vines and are soaked on the skins for five days, put through a ferment with wild and cultivated yeasts for just over two weeks, then aged for 10 months in French oak barrels.

It’s the palest of the three, but the aromatics have some oomph. Cherries, vanilla, and violets, oh, my! On the palate, those cherries are joined by raspberries and strawberries, a good handful of fresh sage leaves, and a fairly distinct dusting of white pepper in its lightly tannic finish. It’s perfumed and pretty, but there’s a definite backbone here, to be sure.

Quails’ Gate Stewart Family Reserve Pinot Noir 2016

$49.99

A fairly similar process: all of this fruit came from 20-year-old vines on Mount Boucherie (right in the winery’s ’hood), a wholly wild ferment took place after a few days of a cold soak on the skins, then, again, 10 months spent in French oak. This more site-specific Pinot has similar cherry fruit on the nose but it’s a touch more opulent, maybe with a little blueberry compote swirled in.

On the palate, it’s definitely more dense, with concentrated red and black berry fruit, and the oak lending more of a mocha note. That fresh, herbal sage note isn’t as apparent. It’s definitely a “bigger” wine, but still elegant nonetheless.

Quails’ Gate Richard’s Block Pinot Noir 2016

$54.99

From four single-site vineyard blocks on Mount Boucherie, four different Dijon clones (115, 667, 777, and 828) were vinified separately in steel tanks with a mix of wild and cultivated yeasts, then blended and fermented in French oak for 11 months.

The red and black berry fruit on the nose mingles with cloves, cinnamon, and bay leaf, with the rich palate echoing those characteristics and an added dose of light umami notes like sun-dried tomato and hoisin. I get a pinch more heat than the 13.5 percent on the label suggests, and the tannins are a little higher than I’d like, but all of that should fold in after another year or so in bottle, when the wine should start hitting its stride.

So, yes, we do have three distinct wines here. While $55 is certainly up there for local juice, the Richard’s Block is an age-worthy wine that rivals similarly priced Oregon and California outings, and I’d venture the same for the Stewart Family Reserve. My big take-away here is the solid value of the entry-level Pinot at $27, and how fortunate we are that Callaway has made enough of it, making it an easy find at most B.C. Liquor Stores.