Coming soon!

Some of the topics I am working on for my upcoming posts are a review of the wineries we visited in Naramata, a blurb on my favourite go to wines, a review of some of the wines Jordan and I have tried, pictures from our Penticton trip and the wineries and maybe even a video if Jordan feels so inclined!

Thanks

&

Happy wine-ing,

Kyla

Thornhaven

Thornhaven

This was probably my favourite winery overall on the bottle neck drive. It had a great balance of everything.

Setting – 5/5

                Absolutely gorgeous scenery, amazing view, fantastic lounge patio. I just really liked this place. It was fancy and beautiful but it also had a small winery feel, it was really a place you could get comfortable in.

Staff – 4.5/5

                The young lady who served us was great. Super attentive, asked us how we liked each one, offered her own opinions, gave us loads of information about the wine, the winery, laughed with us, she was really great and had a light-hearted way about her that really helped us relax. She wasn’t there to impress/intimidate us or act uppity. The only reason I didn’t give this one  a 5 is because the gentlemen who was helping other customers with their wine tasting was incredibly loud and sometimes it was hard to hear our “guide”. That being said the two hosts interacted very well, weren’t afraid to slip across one another or talk to the whole group about different winery news ect.

Tasting – 5/5

                No tasting fee yay! And they let us taste a butt load of wines. We had almost everything, reds, whites and some gorgeous dessert wines.  There was no rush, perfect pace. One thing I would have liked, although it doesn’t take away from the score, is a stool or something to sit at the bar because we had to stand through all that wine.

Wine – 5/5

                We bought 3 bottles. More than any other winery we went to. Enough said. Okay, maybe not enough said, they had beautiful wine, just wonderful, a beautiful award winning gewürztraminer, beautiful rose, and some amazing dessert like wines. Everything was fabulous.

Overall Rating – 5/5

                Don’t miss this place, it’s the whole package, small yet beautiful and sophisticated with wines to match.

If you want to know more about Thornhaven you can go to their website:  http://www.thornhaven.com/

Sleeping Giant Fruit Winery

Sleeping Giant Fruit Winery

Sleeping Giant Fruit Winery is a branch of Summerland Sweets, and holds a tasting room in the Summerland Sweets shop.  They have some amazing flavours of delicious fruit wine, mostly all very sweet.

Setting – 2/5
                I’m only giving this such a low score because its inside another shop full of sweets , and sweets make me fat. Besides that it was a basic little room with all the wines displayed so you could just grab them. All done in wood. Small tasting bar. Not much to it.

Staff – 2/5

                Didn’t say ANYTHING about the wines, didn’t say much in general, and didn’t even give us a chance to ask questions before she rushed by us and skipped onto the people who came in beside us. The only reason she is getting a 2 and not a 1 is that she wasn’t awful or anything.

Tasting – 3.5/5

                There was no charge and we got to try quite a few. The only reason I didn’t give this a four or five is because they didn’t have tastings on many of their dessert wines which we would have liked to try. And we didn’t get a chance to talk about the wines or ask questions. Rushed.

Wines – 5/5

                Fun, delicious, different, f*cking great. They had such a huge variety of tastes and sensations from peach, to blackberry, to strawberry rhubarb (which we bought) to the always sold out waitlisted PUMPKIN wine. With fruit wineries you can have such a huge mix and a lot of fun and they didn’t lack in any way here.

Overall Rating – 4/5

                Their wine made up for everything that was lacking. Definately refreshing and a must visit place.

Silkscarf

Silkscarf Family Boutique Winery

Setting – 3.5/5

                This was actually the first winery we were going to go to but then we pulled out of the drive way because we couldn’t decide if we should go in. It’s unfortunate that when you drive up you are confused and not sure if you are in the right place because inside is a lovely wine shop but when you pull up into the gravel driveway it looks as though you are going to be storming onto someones porch. Only when a lady from another winery told us to go back did we give it a second chance. The wineshop is smallish, pretty enough, modern looking, makes you not want to touch anything because all the shelves are glass. They do have stools to sit on during your tasting which is a great idea.  Wasn’t overtly welcoming or overly beautiful but it’s nice.

Staff – 3.5/5

                She wasn’t overtly friendly or had much to say, probably because she had an age bias, or maybe it was because it was close to the end of the day. She was nice enough I guess.

Tasting – 3.5/5

                It was quick! That’s what I remember mostly. They also charged us a tasting fee I believe that was redeemable with purchase. I think .. I can’t remember sorry. But we were only allowed to chose 4 wines to try. They wine was pretty good but way out of our budget for the ones we really liked.

Wines – 3.75/5

                I want to give them a 4 but their prices were pretty steep on most of the wines($25 was the bottom range and the good shit was quite pricey) . Hey, I’m assessing overall value here.  I believe we really liked the ones we tried and ended up buying an expensive Rose that Jordan simply could not live without. It was very sweet kind of like a desert wine, if I remember correctly.

Overall  - 3.5/5
                Not my favourite, but still an important place to visit on your tour.

You can find more information about Silkscarf on their website http://www.silkw.net/

Sonoran Estate Winery

Sonoran Estate Winery

Meh.

Setting - 3/5

             Beautiful view over the Okanagan, they really have a prime peice of real estate. Their tasting room is nice enough I guess, has some original pieces of art but it was a bit too cold for me. There weren’t really any chairs or anywhere you could sit down for a second and ponder with a pal unless you went outside onto the patio. I mean it wasn’t like it was awful it just wasn’t OH wow like we had seen at so many wineries before. But they did have a public washroom which was great because at this point in the tour I was about to piss myself.

Staff – 3/5
Meh. She was nice enough, not very engaging and didn’t say much about the wine. She wasn’t awful or rude but I think she definitely had an age bias on us.
 
Tasting – 2/5
I guess the score automatically goes down if they charge you for the tasting. BOO! It was only $3 each that was redeemable with a purchase so it wasn’t as bad as some places but I am against any sort of charge, especially when the baby wineries like Hollywood and Wine can do it for free. Besides my beef with the charge, we didn’t really find any of them too exciting. We tried quite a few (6 or so) but none of them really shook us up except the dessert wines. YUM. She also didn’t tell us anything about the wine or anything exciting. Meh.

Wine – 3/5
We really didn’t enjoy any of them a lot except for the dessert wine which was delicious and definitely the right price at $30 for a bottle. Everything else was meh and was priced between $15 - $45

Overall Score – 2.75/5
Really fell flat with us, in a word : Meh.

You can find out more about Sonoran at their website : http://www.sonoranestate.com/index.asp