Okanagan wine tours appeal to all tastes

“They have this Pinot Noir select, which is very, very good,” Pipes said. “I had never really paid much attention to the B.C. wines until that point, when somebody else told me about them from the outside.”

Pipes has since gone on three Okanagan wine tours, visiting several operations, including Kettle Valley. He said that the Burrowing Owl Estate Winery probably remains his favourite, because of the quality of its Pinots and Cabernet Sauvignons. But, he noted, the highlight of these tours comes when he discovers a smaller, family-run operation, like Wild Goose Vineyards and Winery, which doesn’t get a great deal of media hype but which, in his opinion, produces superb wine. “It’s the ones that you don’t hear about that are the best,” Pipes said.

Oenophile John Schreiner, a retired financial journalist, has chronicled the growth of the Okanagan wine industry in numerous books. The third edition of his Okanagan Wine Tour Guide (Whitecap, $19.95) will be released just in time for the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival, which takes place from April 30 to May 9. In a phone interview with the Straight from Osoyoos, he said there were approximately 100 wineries profiled in the 2007 edition, whereas the new book highlights 130 operations.

“Until the bit of a recession that we went through in 2008 and 2009, the British Columbia wineries were basically able to sell everything they produced,” Schreiner said.

He attributed the industry’s growth to early producers in the 1990s, including Black Hills Estate Winery and Burrowing Owl, creating terrific wine that achieved immediate “cult followings”. Schreiner pointed out that other wineries flourished on their coattails, creating a momentum that exists to this day. And this burgeoning popularity of Okanagan wines has created a booming business in wine tourism from late April through October. “I keep seeing these busloads showing up at wineries that I’m visiting,” Schreiner said.

He suggested that wine tours are critical to the success of some of the smaller companies because it’s far more profitable to sell bottles directly to consumers than through other distribution networks. He also said that knowing something about a winery in advance can make a visit much more enjoyable and noted that some of the finest meals in B.C. are available in winery restaurants.

“Beyond that, the fundamental thing is to remember how big the Okanagan is, and don’t try to tour the whole area in two days,” Schreiner added. “The valley is over 100 miles long, with over 100 wineries. At best, you can do four or five wineries in a day—maybe more if you spit [rather than swallow the wine].”

Schreiner’s books are not the only source of information on the topic. The B.C. Wine Institute Web site features maps of the Okanagan, as well as suggested tours. The BCWI map for the north and central region extends from Salmon Arm to Penticton and includes the area around Naramata, which, according to Schreiner, includes about two dozen wineries.

“Tourists do that because it’s so compact,” he said, adding that there are also plenty of wineries in Kelowna and West Kelowna, including Mission Hill, which he described as the most spectacular winery in the area. The map of the southern Okanagan includes the “Golden Mile” of wineries near Oliver and extends into the Similkameen Valley.