Okanagan Valley, BC, Canada May 4-8

cdub

Last week a colleague and I spent five days driving up and down the Okanagan Valley, arguably Canada's top wine region, and a beautiful place in the summer time. Spring is a bit different - no growth on the vines but also no traffic. By my calculations we visited 24 wineries in four days and according to my mileage receipt, drove 2258 kilometers (1400 miles).

We met many wonderful people and six vineyard dogs (ranging from a wiener dog to a bull dog, to a Burnese mountain dog).

Wines I would recommend from this trip (for those of you lucky enough to get your hands on highly coveted and often sold out BC wine) include Road 13 Winery’s new pinot noir rosé (2008 vintage), Laughing Stock Vineyards' 2006 Blind Trust red and Portfolio (bordeaux blend), and a seminal summer favorite, Tantalus Vineyard’s 2007 old vines riesling. Our best meals were at Burrowing Owl Winery’s Sonora Room (I make a point of stopping there every time I’m in the valley and I never leave disappointed), and RauDZ in Kelowna.

Here are a sample of my pics. For more pics visit www.cdubphoto.smugmug.com and for more of the story, check out my blog at www.cdub.ca.

Cheers!


2009 Canadian Wine Annual - a must-have resource with info on every winery in Canada


CedarCreek Estate Winery


Vineyard of Quail's Gate Estate Winery in Westbank


This is how little growth there is this time of year. Vines are just starting to bud.


Vineyard of Blasted Church Winery in Okanagan Falls


Nk'Mip Winery in Osoyoos (right next to the USA/Canada border) - interesting fact is that it is half-owned and operated by a first nations band, and that band enjoys 100% employment because of the success of the winery and is making lots of money... A shining example of prosperity in western Canada!


LaStella Winery in Osoyoos


View of Okanagan Lake from our hotel room in Westbank

a110p0

Thanks for sharing your trip. It looks like beautiful country. Another
place to add on my list of places to visit.

Alvin

cdub

a110p0 wrote:

Thanks for sharing your trip. It looks like beautiful country. Another
place to add on my list of places to visit.

Alvin

Thanks! For the sake of bearings, the Okanagan Valley's wine country is about 3 hours' driving from top to bottom (north to south) and only a couple of miles wide. The main centre is the city of Kelowna, which is essentially the north end of wine country. It's a city of about 150,000 people. Kelowna is 6 hours west of Calgary and 5 hours east of Vancouver. The south end of the valley literally touches the USA/Canada border (Washington State/BC).

It's a great trip to make for sure - the wines are reminiscent of Washington State's, and the airport in Kelowna handles small jet international and domestic traffic.