Wine touring in the Okanagan
Tracy and I hitched a ride with her parents who were going up to Kelowna for the Dragon Boat Festival to go wine touring.
We’ve been up there before, so we decided to do a more specific tour of our more favourite places rather than the shotgun approach we did before.
I put a bookmark summary on del.icio.us. There are other bookmarks for wine + okanagan from other users as well.
Wineries we visited:
- Thornhaven
- Dirty Laundry
- Spiller Estates
- Lake Breeze
- Greata Ranch
On the way to Dirty Laundry, we stopped by Thornhaven. Picked up a nice buttery Chardonnay for myself, and a dessert wine for Tracy.
(Previously Scherzinger) Our favourite winery in the Okanagan, it’s had some renovations done and they’re moved to a larger tasting room. They still have great Gewurztrameiner, although the ‘Woo Woo’ that was apparently award winning wasn’t our favourite. We picked up two bottles of the Riesling which is Tracy’s favourite. Also got a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and a dessert wine. Did I mention this is our favourite winery?
A fruit wine specialist, and a newcomer since our last visit, so we decided to check this one out instead of going to Elephant Island again.
We meant to go to Lake Breeze for lunch, but unfortunately for us there was a wedding taking place that afternoon, and they weren’t serving food to the public. We still picked up some wine of course! We also met Maggie, the best dog evar. She’s a lab/standard poodle cross, or labradoodle. If you’re a dog person, it’s totally worth it to visit this winery just to meet her. I picked up a Cab Merlot that’s going to go perfectly with a big steak.
Recommended by Tracy’s aunt, this winery is right off the highway, and is very nice. I found a pinot noir for Thanksgiving, and we got some unoaked Chardonnay, and also some Rose that was cheap (but we never tasted it).
We also went to the Naramata Heritage Inn for lunch, and Summerland Sweets to stock up on jams and syrups.
On Saturday night, Tracy’s aunt and uncle treated us to a Kelowna Rockets hockey game, where they were playing the Vancouver Giants. It was a lot of fun, and a lot cheaper than the Canucks!