Get your wine with a side of street cred
Cool and cult. Small and sensational. Boutique and brilliant. They are the garagistes. These tiny wineries produce less than 2,000 cases a year and, as such, you’ve probably never heard of them, let alone tasted their breathtaking bottles.
However, if you drop by the Garagiste North Small Producers Wine Festival tomorrow from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Sperling Vineyards in Kelowna you’ll be able to taste, and buy, vintages from 23 of these mavericks.
Since these wineries are diminutive, it will be the owner and-or winemaker who is pouring samples.
They are called garagistes after the French term for the renegade small-lot winemakers in the Bordeaux region who made wines out of their garage.
Very few of the Okanagan garagistes actually make wine where the car should be parked.
Most have a custom crush done by a bigger winery under their license with themselves as winemakers or the existing winemaker helping out.
Grapes usually come from the bigger winery or are purchased from a third-party grower.
Garagistes are generally too mini to own their own vineyard, winery, tasting room and wine shop.
That’s why having the pop-up store on site is so important.
Fest goers can buy their favourites by the bottle as they leave.
There will also be live music and chefs from Raudz Regional Table will be selling gourmet pizza by the slice.
Some of the garagistes include vinAmite, Giant Head, Black Cloud, Lariana, Marionette, Forgotten Hill, Botegga, Winemakers Cut and Mocojo.
If, god forbid, you want something to drink besides wine, Vice & Virtue Brewing and Truck 59 Cider will be there too.
Garagiste has been held at different locations around the Okanagan annually since 2014.
In 2015 it was featured in the London Financial Times as one of the five best wine festivals in the world on a list with events in Italy, South Africa, Australia and the U.S.
It’s put on by Jennifer Schell and Terry Meyer-Stone of The Wine Party.
Both are garagistes themselves, Schell with Kelowna’s Shell Wines and Meyer-Stone with Osoyoos’ Anarchist Mountain Vineyard.
Tickets are $49 at GaragisteNorth.com and include the tastings and Riedel tasting glass.
Wine lovers in the south of the Valley who want to come to Garagiste North can catch the Uncorked Okanagan shuttle leaving from the South Okanagan Events Centre in Penticton at 1 p.m. Sunday and returning right after the event.
Tickets for the tasting and shuttle are $99, also at GaragisteNorth.com.
Winning organics
Covert Farms in Oliver has come home from the International Organic Wine Awards in Germany with five gold medals and one silver.
Among the more than 1,000 wines entered from 28 countries, Covert scored gold for its 2017 Rose ($24), Grand Reserve 2015 Pinot Noir, Grand Reserve 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon, Ancestral Pinot Noir sparkling and 2016 Pinot Blanc.
The Grand Reserve 2015 Zinfandel ($50) earned silver.
As a testament to their popularity, all but the Rose and Zinfandel are sold out.
You can get a hold of those two wines at the winery or online.
The Rose is mouth-watering and full of cherry and strawberry aromas and flavours.
The Zin is full-bodied with a pepper-dried-cherry-plumeucalyptus-mocha-and-fig profile.
Covert was the only Canadian winery to enter the competition.
“This competition allows us to be measured against organic wineries around the world at a time when the international wine community continues to increase production of organically grown and produced wines,” said winemaker and co-owner Gene Covert.
“To be acknowledged at a high level as the competition grows is fantastic.”
Best architecture
Mission Hill Family Estate in West Kelowna is keeping exceptional company on the list of the 19 best winery designs around the world by Architectural Digest magazine.
The design bible ranks Mission Hill as No. 5 for its stylish concrete bell tower, loggia, Terrace restaurant, Marc Chagall tapestry gallery, tasting room and wine shop surrounding a courtyard featuring a 1,200-seat outdoor amphitheatre. It’s all set stunningly atop a dormant volcano. Mission Hill was designed by Seattle starchitect Tom Kundig.
No. 1 on the list is Antinori nel Chianti Classico in Italy’s Tuscany region for its curved steel facade with spiral staircase and vineyard planted on the rooftop.
Rounding out the top five are Epoch Estate in Templeton, California, Trinchero in Napa, California and Kunjani in South Africa.
Pinot party
To coincide with International Pinot Noir Day, Blue Mountain Vineyard in Okanagan Falls is hosting its Summer Social today from 5 to 7 p.m.
The party include tastings of the 2016 Estate Pinot Noir, of course, along with the 2017 Estate Pinot Gris, beer samples from Vice & Virtue, small bites from Oliver Eats, live music from Joshua Smith and Jenga, bean-bag toss and bocce games.
Tickets are $25 at 250-497-8244.
Taste of Argentina
The promotion of wines from Argentina at B.C. government liquor stores wraps up next weekend with tastings of three wines on both Friday and Saturday at the Orchard Park location.
The 1884 Estate Grown Malbec, Don David Cabernet Sauvignon and Tinto Negro Mendoza Malbec will be poured.