The Great Wine North

We entered Canada without firewood or onions.  What would we do?  Well we’d go wine tasting of course.  Because regardless of how far we drive, fly, snowmachine, swim, or row a boat, Barb and I seemingly always find our way to a tasting room or twenty.

We scouted this out much like we did our last Willamette, Oregon trip by posting queries on CellarTracker Forum, scanning the interweb, and stopping at the first travel hut in country to pick up a winery map.  We got some excellent advice from fries at CT and he/she seemed to know what we were looking for.  They listed the touristy, big name wineries in the area, then listed those “for a perfect anecdote to the excessive hype” of some of those.  We tried a few of each, but if you’ve learned anything from reading this blog, you should know Barb and I prefer the off-the-beaten-path experiences in wineries and in other stuff.  For some reason the wine tastes better to us when we’re surrounded by real people and less foo-foo.

Our first day targets were the wineries of the Southern Okanagan Valley, the Golden Mile, Osoyoos, and Oliver, the Wine Capital of Canada.  Before this trip I didn’t know Canada had a wine capital, but after this trip, I think Oliver makes a strong case.   A couple of the larger places, while very beautiful and classy, caused us to turn around before tasting.  At Burrowing Owl, the tour buses and general push of the crowd caused us to stop not much past the foyer.  At Black Hills, which we had heard was a nice place with fantastic wines but needing an appointment, the experience was rather odd.   We drove by, notice a sign “OPEN” and decided to stop.  OPEN must mean something different in Canadian English than American English. Because at Black Hills, OPEN meant open if you have an appointment and want to spend a couple of hours at the alloted time touring the winery to have a chance to buy some “sold out” wine at exorbitant prices.  The wines were sold out unless you wanted to buy a gift box (very lovely btw) containing 4 bottles. We passed on the chance to sign up for a tour at some later time and date and a chance to buy sold out wines.

The other stops at Twisted Tree, Desert Hills, and Stoneboat were more interesting and we found good wines that covered an array of varieties we’d never tried before, Tannat, Gamay, Carménère, and a whole host of heirloom German whites that I can’t spell, much less pronounce, at Stoneboat.  We also found our favorite stop of the whole weekend, Fairview Cellars. Yes, it’s on a golf course, but that’s just a coincidence. The place is a small logish cabin type tasting room (pictured), and though I didn’t have to go, Barb was quite impressed with the display of glassware and winemaking equipment present in the restroom. It was sanitary though, and Fairview’s wines, primarily Red blends, Cab Sauvignon and Merlot, were very good, in addition to being a surprize. We had read about ice wines, Rieslings, and other cold weather grapes from Okanagan, but these Bordeaux reds I’d compare to anything from Washington, or even… gulp, Napa.

Our Day Two in Canada included a brisk morning, a fantastic breakfast at Smitty’s in Osoyoos, and vain attempts to use the shower house.  Barb had scouted it the day before and learned that coinage was needed to operate the showers.  She loaded up on Canadian quarters and we were set.  I entered, stripped down to my flip flops and prepared to quickly get my money’s worth: Looney for 5 minutes.  The quarters went straight through the slot in all three stalls.  No shower for me.  Later we learned a Looney is NOT the word for shower, but rather the $1 coin with a Loon on the backside.  Oh well, if we stunk on the second day at any of the tasting rooms, we’re sorry.  

The wine took us further north past Okanagan Falls, where some campers had actual fires going at a provincial campground; we’ll keep that one in mind for future trips, and up to the Naramata Bench.  Another absolutely gorgeous lake and several neat tasting rooms La Frenz, Lake Breeze (the Pinot Blanc was my favorite wine of the day), and Zero Balance.  Elephant Island Orchard Wines was also a favorite (even though I like my Bing wine better), as was Blasted Church, not only for the wines, but also the creative label art (I got a poster!) and the story behind the winery’s name.   Late afternoon stops back in Oliver included Road 13, interesting Syrah, and Antelope Ridge.  The proprietor of Antelope Ridge was a very sweet French lady who knew Washington wines.  “Ah, oui, do you know Christophe Baron?”  Yes, we know of Christophe but haven’t really had a chance to sample or buy his wines.

By Day Three we had the system figured out, used a couple of Looney’s each to wash off the campground, and headed for home.   On the way, another detour for wine tasting took us into another gorgeous valley, the Similkameen.  If Canada is off-the-beaten-path for wine touring, the Similkameen is off-the-path of off-the-path.  Our kind of place.   Sascha at our first stop, CrowsNest, was an absolute hoot and we spent quite a while discussing the Canadian terroir, shipping rules, tariffs, sausages and bread.  Sascha is the breadmaker and cook for the family hostel; his sister Ann, the winemaker.  Other wine finds included Orofino, our favorite Merlot in Canada,  Eau Vivre, and Seven Stones.  We even bought some Chardonnay from the Similkameen.

We also had another interesting encounter with the border patrol heading back into the U.S.  All weekend we’d heard various versions of what duty we’d need to pay for any wine we were carrying home.  Something around $2/case going this way, outrageous 150% or more tariff going US to Canada.  We were prepared to pay going South, kept all the reciepts and approached the gatehouse at Nighthawk.  Nighthawk doesn’t appear on any maps, and the border station agents there were quite surly that we’d chosen that spot to re-enter our homeland.  It was the straightest route out of the Similkameen, so they couldn’t really complain, but they did.  They also couldn’t collect the duty; didn’t have the forms or whatever, so I suspect they thought we were intentionally bypassing the duty.

No, but we did have another onion we’d bought for our hot dogs. That made them really mad, but since it was only half a yellow onion, we were allowed to come home.  A green onion apparently would have sent us to Leavenworth or Alcatraz for a dime. 

So any Canadians coming to WBC’10 at Walla Walla, leave your onions at home and enjoy some of the finest the U.S. of A. has to offer.  Forget about those Georgia Vidalia’s, Walla Walla’s are where it’s at when it comes to sweet onions.  Walla Walla onions go especially good with Christophe’s Cayuse Syrah.

Or so I’ve heard.