So it was a boring, rainy Friday afternoon. What to do?? What else would I do...... So we figured we would do the Lakeshore Wine Route, Which consists of Tantalus Vineyards, St. Hubertus, CedarCreek, and Summerhill Pyramid. Then a couple of the "Fab Five" after that. The View and House of Rose. I wish I would of took some pictures but the though skipped my mind. Next time! I'm sure I will be back soon.
Tantalus was our first stop. We really liked the Riesling. It was really crisp and had a great flavour. They have a beautiful tasting room with a huge wall of windows overlooking the lake and vineyard. Worth a visit just for that.
Summerhill Pyramid was next. They had the first sparkling wine that I have tried so far. It won an award of some kind I don't remember now but they do make it the traditional Champagne way. I can see why it won though it was delicious! We also tried their Cabernet Sauvignon and their Baco Noir. Both had this strange Petrol taste that I've never experienced before, which is always fun to me even if I didn't particularly love them. It also shows you how important "Terroir" is when it comes to wine making. Where the grapes are grown makes a huge impact on the final wine. Even if it's the same grape variety in the same valley. Their Ehrenfelser, which is a German varietal white, was more on the sweet side compared to CedarCreeks. It didn't seem to have enough acidity to be very refreshing but that's just me. I also don't get the pyramid thing? I don't get what the point of it is. They did have a really nice view as well here though.
CedarCreek had some of the best wines of the day for sure. I really loved how much more balanced and fruitier their reds were compared to others of the day. Really liked their Syrah.
St. Hubertus was the last one for this area. They had the greatest Rose I've had so far. Really interesting strawberry jam on the nose and cranberry on the palate. So good!
So after these we took a scenic trip through South East Kelowna. Winding roads and Fruit trees all along the way. It was really nice. Most of the wineries we came across here were closed though :( with the exception of The View Winery. Their tasting room is in a old fruit packing house with the tin siding and red trim. Very industrial looking and really cool. We tried all their wines here plus a dry cider and a very interesting cherry fortified wine which i really didn't like but to each their own. The dry cider was awesome though and I can see myself sitting at the beach one day with a six pack of them if the sun ever decides to shine on me again soon. Anyway the wines were pretty delicious too. They had a Pinotage (The first so far) which was really good.
Last stop was House of Rose. Their wines were so different from the rest. All very fruit forward compared to others. They also have an icewine and rose blend which was really awesome for a fraction of the cost of icewine. Their wine shop was super cute too. There are a few more wineries around here I want to try some other time when they are open so I might come back to this one and pick some up.
Saturday we checked out the farmers market and did a tasting at Tree Brewing. We tried 8 beers and they were all really great and different. I loved the Winter Ale. Too bad it's seasonal though :(
So so far I've tried about 80 different wines at 19 wineries and one brewery. Life is good here in the Okanagan!
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