Photo: Sascha and Anna Heinecke Crowsnest Vineyards is a rare example of a British Columbia winery where ownership has successfully transferred to the next generation. In 2018, Sascha and Anna Heinecke, who are brother and sister, purchased the winery from their parents, Olaf and Sabine Heinecke. “They were ready to sell a long time ago,” Anna says. (The winery was first put on the market in 2013.) “It is a lot of work, and you get tired of it. They wanted to retire.” The first change the brother and sister made was to convert the vineyard from overhead irrigation to drip irrigation. It was ..read more

Photo: Shannon, Dick (centre) and James Lancaster Dick Lancaster, one of the owners of Black Widow Winery on the Naramata Bench, and I were once members of the same winemaking club. While I eventually stopped making wine to concentrate on writing about it, Dick went on to excel as a winegrower. That can be seen from the scores I gave to three recent releases from Black Widow. Here is an excerpt from my 2020 Okanagan Wine Tour Guide, to provide some background. It began in the summer of 2000 when the Lancasters, while looking for just a getaway cottage, bought this 2.8-hectare (7-acre) prope ..read more

Photo: Winery proprietors Joka and Wilbert Borren With four wineries close to each other, Upper Bench Road on the eastern side of Penticton makes for a comfortable day of wine touring, with time to take in several other nearby wineries. Think of this as an easy introduction to Naramata Bench, with enough wineries to fill the rest of the week. Let me recommend starting with the low-key Four Shadows Vineyard & Winery at the south end of Upper Bench Road. Here is an excerpt on the winery from the 2020 Okanagan Wine Tour Guide: Wilbert and Joka Borren, both immigrants from the Netherlands ..read more

Photo: Tightrope's Lyndsay and Graham O'Rourke While most British Columbia Syrahs now are grown in the South Okanagan or the Similkameen, the Tightrope Syrah is a reminder that this Rhône varietal was planted first in the Okanagan on the Naramata Bench. In 1990, Nichol Vineyards, which is near Naramata village, imported from France about 1,350 Syrah vines. These were planted against a west-facing cliff which reflects the heat of the sun across the vineyard. Then in 2000, Richard Roskell planted primarily Syrah in the seven and a half acre Marichel Vineyard. Other growers also have since pla ..read more

Photo: Heleen Pannekoek and Rolf de Bruin (Courtesy Fort Berens Winery) When they moved from Holland in 2008, Heleen Pannekoek and Rolf de Bruin took a big chance when they established Fort Berens Estate Winery at Lillooet rather than in established winegrowing regions of British Columbia. That risk has worked out well for the winery owners; and for communities in the Fraser Valley. The current releases from Fort Berens are among the winery’s best. At last year’s WineAlign National Wine Awards, Fort Berens was judged number three among the ten best small wineries in Canada. That is quite imp ..read more

Photo: Meyer winemaker Chris Carson Based in Okanagan Falls, Meyer Family Vineyards has a proud slogan: “crafting single vineyard wines of excellence.” The winery backs that up in the current release of four single vineyard Chardonnays made by winemaker Chris Carson. These rank among the finest from the Okanagan – and there now are many first-rate Chardonnays made in British Columbia. Meyer Family Vineyards, owned by JAK Meyer and his wife, Janice Stephens, began making Chardonnay in 2006 from a small Naramata Bench vineyard. Today, Meyer farms 23 acres of estate vineyards, including the Mc ..read more

Photo: The new Rainmaker winery on Black Sage Road Rainmaker Wines is a paradox: when it opened its tasting room last year, it was a new winery on Black Sage Road but also a winery principals have almost two decades of experience in the BC wine industry. The explanation is simple. This is the second winery to be operated by Kim Pullen and his son, John, - or perhaps the third – since they sold Church & State Wines in 2017. While the smart new facility for Rainmaker Wines was being built, they kept a foot in the wine business with Second Chapter Wine Co., located on Tinhorn Creek Road. A ..read more

Photo: Clos du Soleil's Michael Clark Those who share my delight in wines made with Syrah will be elated with the news from Clos du Soleil’s winemaker, Michael Clark, on a recent release of three wines. “We have not had a Syrah available for the last several vintages, but starting with this 2020 vintage, Syrah will be a permanent part of the Clos du Soleil portfolio,” he writes. The grapes are from the Blind Creek Vineyard at Cawston which, in the past, has produced stunning Syrah wines for Road 13 Vineyards when both the vineyard and the winery were owned by Mick Luckhurst, one of three par ..read more

Photo: Winemaker Philip McGahan The first wine for which I awarded a 100-point score was the CheckMate Little Pawn Chardonnay 2o15. The amazing thing is that, vintage after vintage, Little Pawn manages to win 100 points from me. I have just tasted the 2020 CheckMate Chardonnays with winemaker Philip McGahan and Little Pawn, at least in my estimation, remains a perfect wine. The other wines are excellent as well. The consistency of Little Pawn, I believer, reflects the Black Sage Road vineyard where the grapes are grown so well. I would have expected one of the other CheckMate Chardonnays to ..read more

Photo: Red Rooster winemaker Elaine Vickers The current releases from Red Rooster Winery push the boundaries; not radically but surprising from a winery that has been owned by Andrew Peller Ltd. since 2005. There is a cloudy Chardonnay, a carbonically-fermented red and the only sparkling wine in British Columbia made with Malbec. And there is a promise of more wines that do not always follow the beaten path. The winemaker who is stirring things up, at least a little, is Elaine Vickers, a one-time professional player of extreme frisbee. She joined Red Rooster in 2019 after previous experienc ..read more