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

Hollywood and Wine

Hollywood and Wine

First I have to give credit where credit is due. Hollywood and Wine was one of the only wineries, or maybe it was the only winery, we went to that is certified organic (before they put it in the bottle because the bottle takes some sort of other certification) but none-the less, they are organic and we’re lovin’ it.  AND a quick note, they just opened in 2007 (as far as my research tells me) so they are still babies.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the wine shop or vineyard because Jordan is a slow poke and they don’t actually have a website, but do not be fooled, they may be small but they are not worth passing by.

Setting – 4/5

                Now I am giving this winery 4/5 for different reasons then you would suspect. When you drive up to the property you won’t even be sure you are in the right place, it seems as though you are driving to someone’s house.  But that is because you are going to someone’s house, the owner’s house! The wine shop is a little room set up outside of their home and the couple who own the property and have hand in the wine, run the wine shop! What a concept! The wine shop is ity bity but is wonderful and in a class of its own. The walls are covered with hand paintings done by the lady of the house, and those paintings are also printed on the bottles of wine they are selling. Oh and the lady who did the fabulous paintings and had hand in the wine is serving you your tasting! One wall is actually completely covered with photographs of celebrities, and wait a moment, who’s that there in the photo with them, ITS THE OTHER OWNER!  The husband runs some sort of movie trailer business in Vancouver and loves to make friends with all the celebrities. We stood with him for about 15 – 20 minutes while he told us all about every single person in every picture before we even tasted a spot of wine. God I love this place.  It felt like they had taken us into their living room and we were just shootin' the breeze.

Staff -  5/5

I think I’ve talked enough about how much I love these two people. There aren’t many wineries where the owners are chatting you up and serving you wine.

Tasting  - 4/5

 I hate this score because there is no way this tiny vineyard can compete with the big shots but I really feel the need to stress that their wine was organic and they were doing us all a big favour but they only had 4 or so wines to taste, but they did so at no charge. For a small vineyard this is pretty good. God damn it I’m so bias.  Oh and did I mention the owner was the one serving us ?

Wines – 3.5/5

                This score is hurting me to write because I love them so much but alas, they didn’t have much to choose from, mostly very earth dark reds, two whites from what I remember, some were pretty steep in price, but of course I understand their reasoning . Damn it I love you Hollywood and wine  don’t hate me.

Overall Score – 29389284309234203/5 I can’t put a number on you Hollywood and Wine. I just can’t properly give a number to your incredible value.

Dirty Laundry

The very first winery we visited was Dirty Laundry

Setting – 4.5/5

Beautiful, overlooking vineyards and the Okanagan. Petite but welcoming and romantic. Gorgeous garden and vine covered sitting area. A old train even passes through the lower part of the vineyard which was great. In a word: intoxicating.


Staff – 5/5

Our tasting “guide” if you will was pleasant, good natured, in no rush with us. Had no age bias (which we got a lot throughout the day), and explained each wine. She asked us everytime how it was and shared her opinions on each wine with us. She even told us the store of the winery’s name. She was a pleasure.

Tasting – 4/5

No charge! Yay! We tasted quite a few wines, at least 8. They had a very large white selection but quite a few of them were sold out. Not a huge selection of reds, found them to taste fairly similar from wine to wine.

Wines – 4/5

We loved over half of what we tried, and they were average prices and below ($15- $20) I believe we bought the Riesling and we have yet to try it.

Overall score – 5/5, we just loved you Dirty Laundry you cheeky thing you. Definitely would go out of my way to visit here again, and to those of you wondering if you should go, I HIGHLY recommend it.

You can find out more about Dirty Laundry at their website http://www.dirtylaundry.ca/

Summerland 2009 - Winery Reviews

In late August this year, Jordan and I made a trip up to Penticton, BC for a weekend. For those of you who don't know Penticton is located in the Okanagan, where some of BC's finest wines come from. So, naturally we had a wonderful weekend wine tasting and lots of wine buying. We loved and loathed some of the wineries so passionately that I thought hey, I'm gonna write a review on each of the wineries. That is actually what inspired this Weeping Wine-o blog.

Anyways, lets cut to the chase. We visited both Summerland and Naramata and not to overwhelm anyone I will do a review each wineries separately in batches divided up into Summerland or Naramata.

I rated each of the wineries in 4 categories with a score out of 5:

Setting – The feel, look, ambience of the winery and tasting room. Presentation is everything.

Staff – I couldn’t do a review of these wineries without mentioning the staff, they make or break a tasting, honestly.

Tasting – The actual  wine tasting, this score is based on the number of wines, the tasting fee, the wines tasted and the overall experience.

Wines – How much/how little we enjoyed the wines we tasted at the tasting and their value relative to cost.

**The wines we bought will be reviewed on a separate post later because we haven’t worked our way through many of them yet and I’m waiting for Jordan to take photos of them !

So let’s get started!

First a little bit about Summerland. It’s about 15 minutes out of Penticton and has lots of prized Gewürztraminers and dessert wines. We did a little self guided tour called the bottle neck drive. Actually we only did the bottom half but it was still more than enough.

You can visit their website at : http://www.bottleneckdrive.com/wineries.html

An opening note.

Well hello there,

How nice of you to stop by. This, if you couldn’t already tell, is my wine blog.

I feel the need to justify with my first post, why I, Kyla Rose, am writing a wine blog. Who does this 20 year old think she is, she’s only been legal to drink wine for a year!

Well, first off, as the disclaimer states, I may not know more about wine than you or anyone else for that matter. BUT I do love it, do drink a lot of it, happen to have a job involving it, and do want to talk about it.

I guess the purpose of this blog is to do some reviews of different wines I've tried, share some stories pictures and good finds as well as a chance to learn from other people. There really are no restrictions here, so I’m not going to make any promises about content except most of the time it will have something to do with wine or food or both.

Welcome.