Commentary, nature, Photography, Wine

It’s Wine Time

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With the many harvest and wine festivals at this time of year, we have been visiting some of the more obscure and smaller wineries in the southern Okanagan Valley between Oliver and Osoyoos. This area is only 35 km (22 miles) to the south of us from Penticton.

The area is classified as semi-arid desert and the summer temperatures regularly climb into the low 40s (105-107F). Much of the valley is irrigated with water from nearby valley and mountain lakes and this allows a rich diversity of fruit and vegetables to grow, especially wine grapes.

This combination of dry heat and soil moisture causes the flavours of the wine grapes to be very concentrated which can produce some excellent reds.

It’s also good rosé country. Rosé results from some contact with the red grape skins to give it the distinctive hues that range all the way from light pink to orange to a light red.

This is not only good wine country. Opportunities for outdoor activities such as cycling, camping, swimming, boating, rock climbing and hiking are plentiful and varied. There are lots of good restaurants, and if you love fresh fruit and veggies, this might be your nirvana.

Happy Sunday.

20 thoughts on “It’s Wine Time”

  2. Given all the fires and smoke in B.C. this season, has there been any forecast on quantity and quality of this season’s wine crop, Lynette? I know the smoky hazy days here affected cereal crops. Have a great Sunday. Allan

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    1. Thanks, Allan. Apparently smoke taint affects grapes the most when they are buds, but evidently not readily in the later stages of growth. The upper valley was very smoky in both May and August and the lower valley in August.

      I know that researchers at UBCO together with the Universities of South Australia and Adelaide are jointly studying smoke taint and how to handle it. I believe they’re suggesting the addition of a countering yeast at fermentation and/or how to manipulate the process to incorporate it since many wines have a smoky component.

      The wineries we visited recently say that they aren’t worried about smoke taint because they are in the southern end of the valley. The whole thing is tricky because grapes produce an enzyme that controls smoke exposure and removes any smoky flavours in the fresh grapes, but that will reappear later after fermentation.

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    1. Thank you, Linda. Penticton is actually in the Okanagan Valley as well, in the southern end of its 200 km north-south Canadian portion. It continues into the US where it’s known as Okanogan County (with a slightly different spelling). The wide range of activities and temperate winters (with very nearby skiing in the mountains) were very appealing to us and together with all the other amenities, we made the leap. We love it here, especially as we’re now present full-time.

      The smaller wineries are often very good and just rely on reputation rather than wine tours and/or advertising to get noticed. We’ve been meaning to start visiting them but have always been busy. More time now!

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