Short tour, long tasting
Tyler Harlton, the TH in TH Wines, jokes the tour of his Summerland winery takes all of 90 seconds.
“Literally, it’s a little garage with very little equipment, so it doesn’t take long at all,” he said. “But you can take as long as you like in the new tasting room and shop.”
TH Wines is a negociant-style winery, meaning Harlton doesn’t have any vineyards, but buys quality grapes from various growers to make wine under his own label.
As such, his premises doesn’t need to be on a vineyard.
In fact, his location is about as far away from the farm as you can get in an industrial area on Cedar Avenue.
As industrial parks go, it’s an artisan one with a micro brewer, coffee roaster and small-scale furniture maker also in the mix.
Despite it’s out-of-the-way location, TH gets a steady stream of traffic because it’s a member of Bottleneck Drive and is on the Summerland wineries association’s road signage, maps and marketing.
This spring, TH released a line up of six wines.
Five are available to everyone – 2016 rose, 2016 Viognier, 2016 Riesling, 2015 Pinot Noir and 2015 Cabernet Franc.
But the Malbec is for wine club members only.
Harlton considers the Pinot Noir ($33) his flagship wine for its bright strawberry and rhubarb fruit followed by black current and dark chocolate flavours.
TH Wines are available at the winery as well as the VQA store and Cherry Lane Liquor in Penticton, Urban Liquor in Kelowna and Turtle Bay Liquor Merchants in Lake Country.
In 1987, new owner Ross
30th anniversary
Fitzpatrick, who would go on to be a Senator, changed the name of his Lakeshore Road winery to CedarCreek from Uniacke.
The switch was more than symbolic, as Fitzpatrick would revolutionize the winery and the Okanagan wine industry.
“The Senator really put CedarCreek and the Okanagan on the map by completely replanting vineyards with premium grapes and winning Canadian Winery of the Year awards in 2002 and 2005,” said CedarCreek general manager Scott Locke.
In 2014, Fitzpatrick sold CedarCreek to Anthony von Mandl, the owner of famous Mission Hill Winery in West Kelowna, and the revolution continued.
Back-to-back, in 2015 and 2016, CedarCreek vintages won best red wine and best white wine awards at the prestigious Decanter World Wine Awards in London, England, for their Block 2 Pinot Noir and Block 3 Riesling.
CedarCreek is celebrating its 30th anniversary with events throughout the year.
Today there’s an invite-only party from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., but the winery tasting room and shop will be open for sipping and buying.
In the shop you’ll also find white releases like Ehrenfelser ($17), described as fruit salad in a glass, and The Senator ($19), a nod to Fitzpatrick, a unique and tasty combination of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.
There are also 30th anniversary offerings like 1.5 litre bottles of 2014 Pinot Noir and The Last Word Bordeaux-style blend for $135 and $175, respectively, and boxed sets of different years of Pinot Noirs.
On the 30th of each month this year, wine tastings and small bites in the wine shop are free and on the 30th of May, June, July and August, a special two-course meal on the Vineyard Terrace Restaurant is $30.
There are also yoga-and-wine sessions, barbecue cooking classes with chef Jeremy Tucker, a dinner series and concerts.
Check out CedarCreek.bc.ca for dates, times and costs.
She’s a Belgian blonde and he’s a wolverine.
Summer beer
They are two of the lighter special-edition suds by downtown Kelowna’s BNA Brewing Co. & Eatery that are perfect for summer sipping.
Pamela is a slightly cloudy five per cent alcohol Belgian blonde ale with low hop bitterness and Wolverine is a classic easy-drinking lager with 4.8 per cent alcohol.
Both are on tap at BNA’s tasting room and adjacent two-storey restaurant in the handsome brick building at the corner of Ellis Street and Clement Avenue that used to house the British North America Tobacco Company.
Wolverine is also being produced in cans for sale at liquor stores.
My son and I discovered and declared Pamela and Wolverine our favourites while on Smile Cycle Tours’ Craft Beer Crawl ($37).
It features group cycling a big picnic table on wheels from Central Kitchen & Bar to Kettle River Brewing, BNA and the Tree Beer Institute, all downtown, for tastings.
Lobster and Chardonnay are a match made in the ocean and the
Lobster and wine
vineyard.
As such, Township 7 Winery in Naramata is pairing butter-dipped crustacean from the Atlantic with the king of white wines, know for its complementary buttery texture, at its al fresco Father’s Day lunch in the vineyard.
In fact, Township 7 produces two Chardonnays, an elegantly oaked Reserve and an unoaked version.
The three-course lunch runs 1 to 3:30 p.m. and costs $55 per person.
Ideally, sharing this with your dad makes sense, but the event is also billed as a start-of-summer party anyone can attend.
This being the Okanagan, there are no hard-and-fast rules about food and wine matching.
So, if you’d prefer to drink another Township 7 white, rose, or even a red, with your lobster, go right ahead.
Book at Township7.com.
Steve MacNaull is The Okanagan Weekend’s business reporter and columnist. But he also loves to eat and drink, thus his new Fill ‘er Up column on the Wine & Dine page. Reach him at steve.macnaull@ok.bc.ca.