Laurie Carter
Province
With gentle slopes, ample sunshine and hot summers, the Ikanagan is ideal for growing grapes. Vineyards, such as this one near Kelowna, continue to sprout. – CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
Toasting Okanagan wine country at Summerhill Winery.
Tasty fruit ready for the picking.
Quail’s Gate Vineyard bounty basks in the Okanagan sun. PHOTOS BY LAURIE CARTER – FOR THE PROVINCE
The climate is ideal for grape-growing.
Most wineries offer free tastings on certain wines, with a $2 charge for their premium tiers.
Orchards make way for vineyards on the Naramata Bench.
Nk’Mip Cellars in Osoyoos is North America’s first aboriginal-owned and operated winter.
The Bella Vista winery in Vernon offers a great view to drink in. RIC ERNST – PROVINCE FILE PHOTO
“Let’s face it, it’s a beverage made out of rotten grapes,” says Jolene Palmer, sommelier and educator at the Penticton & Wine Country Visitor Centre and VQA store.
Determined to help newbies overcome the wine-mystique intimidation factor and fearlessly venture into tasting rooms throughout the Okanagan, Palmer conducts free daily Wine 101 sessions — including a hands-on, nose-in-glass tasting demo that will prepare you to swirl, sniff and sip with confidence.
And if you really want to look like a connoisseur or simply avoid an impaired-driving charge after a day of tasting, Palmer insists you’ve got to learn to spit. She admits that it’s tough to get over the horror of publicly spewing a mouthful of $20-a-bottle Merlot into a spittoon, and tougher still to accomplish this feat without dribbling down your chin, but Palmer’s adamant that spitters get respect.
A stop at the centre is worthwhile to catch the latest on new wineries, changes and expansions. Pamphlets just can’t keep up. Wine Regions of British Columbia lists 11 wineries on the Naramata Bench. The number is actually 19 and counting. Staffers can give you the latest information and suggest tour routes.
Penticton is the hub of Okanagan wine touring. The area offers scores of B&Bs as well as hotels and a growing number of resort condos, and it’s a convenient starting point for day-trips to the five distinct sub-regions identified by the Pacific Agri-Foods Research Station in Summerland.
While winemakers are constantly experimenting with new varietals and many use grapes produced in various parts of the valley, you may want to look for some of the most notable in each area.
Around Kelowna, the heavier soil with sandy loam, clay and limestone favours varietals such as pinot noir, pinot gris, pinot blanc, riesling and chardonnay. Calona Vineyards, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, is B.C.’s original winery.
Located in the downtown core, the winery is open year-round for tours and tasting.
South of the city, a string of wineries includes Summerhill, which features a unique pyramid for barrel aging, a replica kekuli (traditional First Nations winter lodge), a settler’s cabin, and the Sunset Bistro with sweeping lake views.
And clustered around Mount Boucherie, an extinct volcano on the west side of Okanagan Lake, are five wineries. Mission Hill is notable for its commanding site, stunning architecture and four bronze bells in a 12-storey tower. Almost directly below, Quail’s Gate is just completing a major expansion. Its Old Vines Restaurant serves up one of the very best winery views in the valley.
The stretch between Kelowna and Penticton, while not identified as a separate sub-region, is home to a sprinkling of wineries such as Hainle in Peachland, where the latest news is a restaurant and cookery school. The McWatters family started Sumac Ridge Winery in Summerland 25 years ago. Their Cellar Door Bistro is open March through December. And another Summerland winery is proving that there is something in a name. Formerly called Scherzinger Vineyards, the rechristened Dirty Laundry label is gaining lots of consumer attention.
In his must-have Okanagan Wine Tour Guide, wine guru John Schreiner says the new owner, Ron Watkins, claims the first reason for the change is that he isn’t German. He’s also borrowed from a Summerland story about an early 20th-century Chinese railway worker who opened a laundry — with a brothel in the back room — which came to be known as the “dirty laundry.” Watkins plays on the theme with both corks and labels.
Directly opposite Summerland on the eastern shore, the sloping aspect and proximity to Okanagan Lake of the Naramata Bench provides for plenty of sunlight and long, frost-free autumns. Varietals produced here include pinot noir, pinot gris, pinot blanc, chardonnay and merlot.
This area has to be the biggest surprise for people who haven’t toured the region for a couple of years. Orchards are disappearing and new vineyards being planted as fast as the land can be cleared. One exception is Elephant Island, where Miranda and Del Halladay have married orchard and winery to make fruit wines. Don’t think cloying sweetness here. Their blackcurrant and crab-apple wines leave you with a nice tart pucker.
Therapy — really working a theme with inkblot labels and wines named Freudian Sip, Pink Freud and SuperEgo — is one of the newcomers, occupying the property where Red Rooster (now relocated and vastly expanded) got its start. Hillside has stayed put with its Barrel Room Bistro still open year-round. More dining options include Mahdina’s patio at Lake Breeze and a one-stop wine tour at Cobblestones Wine Bar in the Naramata Heritage Inn.
Around Okanagan Falls, the range of soils and aspect favour riesling, gewurztraminer and pinot noir. Here the highest elevation vineyards in the Okanagan — Hawthorne Mountain — are terraced into the hillsides and more of those catchy new names have been coined. Legend has it that in the 1920s, when owner Major Hugh Fraser’s British wife decided she’d had enough colonial living and packed her bags, she left a note saying, “See ya later.”
The winery has adopted the phrase to brand its premium line, which includes a red Meritage called Ping. This wine is named for one of the major’s beloved dogs. You’ll find Ping’s headstone, along with one for each of the major’s other canine companions, in a memorial under a tree in front of the 1902 heritage house with its recently expanded tasting room and a patio.
In Oliver, the old fire hall has joined the wine age, housing the Toasted Oak Wine Bar & Grill and the Wine Country Welcome Centre and VQA store. This is another great place for one-stop tasting when time or stamina rule out hitting more wineries.
However, you shouldn’t skip the Golden Mile, south of Oliver on the western slopes of the valley, where well-drained gravel, clay and sandy soils produce merlot, chardonnay, gewurztraminer and more.
At Tinhorn Creek, you can taste why Palmer teaches that you shouldn’t turn up your nose at screw caps. Many wineries have started using them on their premium lines as the best way to avoid cork taint. Tinhorn Creek offers a self-guided winery tour, demonstration vineyard, art shows and a summer concert series in its outdoor amphitheatre. This is also the starting point for the Golden Mile hiking trail — with two- and 10-kilometre versions that take hikers by the ruins of the Tinhorn Creek gold mine.
Far less developed, but no less successful, the log-cabin tasting room at Fairview Cellars is presided over by a plaid-shirted farmer in a baseball cap. Bill Eggert’s reds, especially the Bear’s Meritage, a merlot/ cabernet sauvignon/cab franc blend, sell out fast.
Across the valley and stretching south, the Black Sage/Osoyoos sub-region flattens out and on very deep sand produces Bordeaux varietals, chardonnay and syrah/shiraz. In her Wine 101 session, Palmer explains that they’re the same grape but those labelled syrah are Rhone-style while those labelled shiraz are Aussie-style.
Burrowing Owl, the best-known winery in this area, has expanded its facilities to include 10 guest rooms with private balconies. From the restaurant, you can take a self-guided tour of the bell tower.
And near the border in Osoyoos, Nk’Mip Cellars is the first aboriginal-owned-and-operated winery in North America. Part of a four-season destination complex, it offers accommodations ranging from a lakeside camping/RV park to the upscale Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa with an adjacent golf course and the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre.
IF YOU GO
– Tours help eliminate the boggle factor. Check these out: Tour deVine, www.tourdevine.bc.ca; Top Cat Tours, www.topcattours.com; Okanagan Wine Country Tours, www.okwine
tours.com.
– Four annual festivals celebrate the grape. The Summer Festival, held at Silver Star Mountain Resort in Vernon, is a weekend of wine seminars, arts, music, outdoor tasting and outdoor recreation (Aug. 9-11).
Fall is the biggie (Sept. 29-Oct. 7). It features more than 165 events during the height of the harvest.
Icewine rules at Sun Peaks Resort in Kamloops from Jan. 14-19, 2008.
The Spring Festival marries food and wine from May 1-4, 2008.
— www.owfs.com
