A Week Wine Tasting Through The Okanagan: Day 4
By Erin
The final leg of the Great Okanagan Adventure with Okanagan Wine Festivals had arrived. Waking up reasonably early (after sunrise), I celebrated this last day taking in the stunning Summerland scenery before the hustle and bustle of another jam-packed day of eating and drinking.
Day 4 – Naramata & Penticton
First stop: breakfast. Our happy caravan of winos stopped in Penticton at The Bench Artisan Food Market, a simultaneously quaint and urban eatery and food market filled with BC treasures like artisanal cheese, ethically raised eggs, freshly baked pastries and local charcuterie. Hoovering back a breakfast burrito and organic coffee (you know, I had gone 12 hours without a feast and was starving).
After a filling breakfast, owner and Executive Chef Stewart Glynes, afraid we hadn’t consumed enough calories this trip, sent us on our way with a box of cookies, brownies and other home-baked goodies.
The truck wound its way through vineyard lined roads, twisting and turning and climbing higher and higher until we finally stopped at Bella Wines – a brand new winery that focuses only on Chardonnay and Gamay sparkling wines.
It was an endearing sight. A gentle giant in a well-worn Lee Valley ball cap, one baseball-glove sized hand gently cradling a delicate, antique, etched-crystal Champagne coupe while the other clutched a bottle of pale pink sparkling wine, his big soft palm easily blanketing the label.
This was Jay Drysdel. The 6-foot-something owner and organic winemaker of Bella sparkling wines on the picturesque Naramata Bench in Okanagan, British Columbia.
Humbly telling his story of organic wine making, he showed us around the grounds of his two-year-old winery. Rows of Chardonnay and Gamay vines, just planted last summer, “full of life” with natural flowers and weeds as ground cover, bees, birds and insects roaming through the ground. He pointed to his neighbour’s pristine vineyard – conventionally farmed – and noted how the use of chemicals has left it clean and precise but somehow lifeless as well.
Taking us inside his nearly-finished wine boutique (it’s complete now), he let us pick a Champagne coupe for the tasting. Building the winery during the day, Jay and his wife scour eBay and Etsy at night, finding the delicate crystal stemware to compliment his vibrant and energetic bubbles.
Let’s talk about that for a moment, shall we? After all, the fizz is the reason we were invited to Bella. Jay buys organic and biodynamically farmed grapes from vineyards in Oliver, Keremeos and Naramata. He produces six labels – all single vineyard and no blends – for a total production of 1,000 cases. Oh, and he keeps it as natural as possible nixing the common practice of dosage, resulting in tart, crisp sparkling wine with a no more than five grams of residual sugar.
“With no dosage you get a truer expression of the vineyard,” Jay reasons. “We have acid like no other place on earthAnd we need to figure out how to work with that acid.”
Jay’s end goal is to create BC sparkling wines that are as identifiable for their sense of place as champagne is to Champagne or prosecco is to Veneto. His 10 year goal is to create four chardonnay sparkling wines, all from the Naramata Bench just to show the differences in single vineyard plantings. My favourite of the flight was the Sparkling Gamay from the Oliver vineyards for its feminine expression of red berries and light floral notes.
Read my wine reviews here.
Next we moved onto Maple Leaf Spirits in Penticton. Run by Jorg Engel, who moved here with his young family from Germany about 10 years ago, Jorg opened the craft distillery to take advantage of the premium Okanagan fruit that was so readily available.
In the European tradition Jorg produces a Kirsch, Pear liqueur similar to Poire William, a maple liqueur and a cherry liqueur – which is dynamite over vanilla ice cream.
His artisan spirits are in demand, and are featured in many BC restaurants.
Then it was off to Pentâge Winery in Penticton for what was easily the most impressive lunch of the trip.
Already located on a majestic site, carved in a hillside and overlooking Skaha Lake, Pentâge has upped its game with renovations that included recently blasting out granite from the hillside to create a wine making facility that is a showpiece unto itself.
Pentâge makes about two dozen different varietals for a total of only 5-thousand cases annually, from classics to Malbec, Tempranillo, an appassimento-style Cabernet Franc and a Rhone-inspired Viognier, Marsanne, Rousanne blend.
Read all wine reviews here.
After touring the facilities, we sat down to a lovely lunch catered by Joy Road Cuisine du Terroir catering. We’re told these are the caterers of the Valley, though the happy and humble chefs Dana and Cameron would not be the ones to say it. With a heavy emphasis on local and seasonal (right? It is the Okanagan), Dana says she’s let down clients who were enthralled with a certain dish only to be crest fallen the next week when it was no longer available.
“Love it for that time,” she says with a smile. “Then, love something else!”
Not only was the food itself spectacular – heirloom radish and ricotta salad, duck confit and asparagus mimosa, and lavender honey creme brûlée with a short bread cookies – but the scenery – again – was out of this world. With an al fresco table set on the edge of hill and surrounded by water, trees, foothills it was a memory that will last a while.
Care to see a video of our lunch setting? Click here.
Stuffed and happy, we loaded back in the truck for our final official stop of the day at the brand new site of Cannery Brewing Company. At the time of our visit, the former wear house was still heavily under construction as crews scrambled to build a pub, brewing facilities, and a store all in one.
Still, in that easy Okanagan nature, owner Patt Dyck a woman of boundless energy and enthusiasm showed us around the new facility and gave us a tasting of their prized beer.
Naramata Nut Brown Ale is a staple of Cannery Brewing and has “a stubbornly loyal following,” said Patt, which I thought was terrific with a creamy smoothness and flavours of caramel and roast nuts. Their Blackberry Porter also got my vote, as its made with real blackberries, the dark berry note added complexity without confected sweetness.
And as quickly as it had started … it was all over. Our Great Okanagan Wine Adventure had come to an end. With no more planned stops, places to see or people to meet, we did what any group of friends would on a Thursday night and headed to a local pub for a few drinks and some snacks. Then we headed headed home to pack for an early flight out of the Okanagan.
Thanks to the Okanagan Wine Festivals and all the wineries, restaurants and breweries who made our whirlwind trip such a fabulous experience. Plans to return are already in the works.