Wine tour recommendations - Kelowna - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Robbob · 08-09-2013, 09:57 PM

So part of the deal for attending a couple young stars games in September is that I agreed to go on a wine tour with the wife. Win win if you ask me. Anyways, looking to do a tour on the Friday before the Van-Cal game at 7:30pm. Ideally it would be a afternoon tour giving me enough time to get to Penticton from West Kelowna for the game.

Can anyone recommend a tour?

troutman · 08-09-2013, 10:16 PM

What do you mean by a tour? You want to taste wine or see how they make it?

I suggest visiting the wineries around the Naramata Bench, just outside Penticton. Take your wife for lunch or dinner at Hillside.

http://naramatabench.com/our-wineries/

You could also visit about 10 wineries around Summerland (Bottleneck Drive).

http://bottleneckdrive.com/about-us/wineries/

There are now 200+ wineries in the Okanagan.

Fobby · 08-09-2013, 10:27 PM

Do you have a visa infinite card? They have free tours at most of the popular places.

Northendzone · 08-09-2013, 10:31 PM

Mission hills

agulati · 08-09-2013, 10:34 PM

We have been to Mission Hills and enjoyed their tour.

JohnnyB · 08-09-2013, 10:53 PM

What type of experience style or quality of wines are you looking for? Weeks of wine touring and drinking Okanagan wines is how I spend my summers. Hard to keep up with all the new wineries, but the Okanagan has lots of different sides to experience as far as wine goes.

Wormius · 08-09-2013, 10:58 PM

Summerhill has any interesting tour. The pyramid thing is a bit hokey, but the wine is good and no charge for the tour and tastings, although there is a separate charge for tasting ice wines.

Grey Monk doesn't charge for tastings either.

Not sure about prices of tours and tasting these days of other places, it has been years since I have gone on one. We usually grab a case once a year from House of Rose, because it's quite good and not as expensive as the others for some nice reds.

sun · 08-09-2013, 11:10 PM

Did a wine tour in Naramata last summer. Really enjoyed Van Westen, Laughing Stock, Poplar Grove Cheese and a couple others I'm blanking on. Tons of cool wineries to visit in the area.

Street Pharmacist · 08-09-2013, 11:12 PM

Naramata is beautiful. I live in Kano's and we'll just get lost driving around going from winery to winery

JohnnyB · 08-09-2013, 11:27 PM

Naramata is beautiful. If you go there you should also visit Mapleleaf Spirits in Penticton. They produce some of the best fruit spirits I've had. They are small and truly outstanding. They've had some of the highest recognition available internationally for the types of spirits they produce but haven't been well known domestically because of BC's awkward regulations for distillers until this year. Also, they are great people.

flylock shox · 08-10-2013, 12:13 AM

There's plenty of wine touring in West Kelowna itself, and in Penticton (Naramata) too. The only worthwhile tours between the two are in Summerland.

Assuming you're driving, the logical thing to do would be to do a Naramata tour so you don't smack into me on the highway because you overimbibed at Mission Hill.

Naramata has tons of wineries in a comparatively small area within 15 minutes of where the Young Stars games are held. It's your most sensible option. Of the wineries there I'd recommend Elephant Island (fruit wines - a change of pace) and La Frenz (excellent white wines) be part of any tour you do. Hillside, Poplar Grove, and Red Rooster have restaurants.

The only qualm with Naramata is you'll have to suck up a few 3 dollar tasting fees (or just buy some wine - much easier to swallow).

SeeGeeWhy · 08-10-2013, 12:28 AM

Dirty laundry is fun and all of the wines are great. Just outside of west kelowna.

Black hills, Road 13, are great stops on the way to naramata which I agree is not to be missed.

In naramata, you could visit about 6 places in the span of an hour and feel like you're taking your time. Hillside has nice food but so does lake breeze and the view there is fantastic.

Robbob · 08-10-2013, 09:05 AM

Sorry I was kind of vague. Looking for maybe a guided tour so we could hit a few places up for tasting and not worry about driving. I did see a hop on hop off for the marinara area, but initially dismissed it being on the other side of the lake and we are starting out in west kelowna. I have been to a few tasting in sumerhill and larch hill.

Maybe Naramata would be the best area for convenience.

Madman · 08-10-2013, 10:15 AM

I'm in the area right now and while we don't do the "tours", I have seen this guy around a bit and it seems like a decent "tour".

http://uncorkedokanagan.com/

Northendzone · 08-10-2013, 10:15 AM

I have seen a wine tour bus tooling around town, but I can't recall the exact name of it.

Dan02 · 08-10-2013, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Dirty laundry is fun and all of the wines are great. Just outside of west kelowna.

Second this one, by far my favorite.

Enoch Root · 08-10-2013, 01:54 PM

I too am going to the tourney with the wife, which means wine tasting for me as well. So thanks that I could also benefit from this thread.

And sorry for derailing but I would like to ask another question - I asked in the golf thread but didn't get much response: any recommendations on golf courses? Any that you think are good value or hidden gems?

Thanks - and we will definitely be going to naramata, as well as Mission Hills and Quail and around there.

flylock shox · 08-10-2013, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I too am going to the tourney with the wife, which means wine tasting for me as well. So thanks that I could also benefit from this thread.

And sorry for derailing but I would like to ask another question - I asked in the golf thread but didn't get much response: any recommendations on golf courses? Any that you think are good value or hidden gems?

Thanks - and we will definitely be going to naramata, as well as Mission Hills and Quail and around there.

Try WOW golf on Penticton's west bench. Quiet, overlooks the lake, and reasonably priced I believe.

Matty81 · 08-10-2013, 02:17 PM

I'm not much help on tours but there are some nice wineries on the bench in Naramata, some places like la frenz that are so small they aren't VQA so aside from a few good restaurants you can only try them by visiting. People have given you a good recommendation for a nice day there. Lots of bus services and bike rental places in Penticton... I think one of the cab companies there does van tours too, also the heritage inn in Naramata has a good restaurant if your're looking for a nice meal.

If your're staying in Kelowna, Quail's Gate and Mission Hill are the two biggies, mission hill is one people who aren't really into wine can get into too because the grounds are so nice and if you do one of their tours and lunch you could spend half a day just there easy, plus they have concerts/events at night in the summer, Cedar Creek and Oak Bay are decent too and Tantalus is the best small one in my opinion. There's a cluster of 5 up in Lake Country that make for a nice day and tonnes down south in OK Falls/Oliver that would probably take two days to cover.

Golf I don't know Penticton well, in Kelowna the best value by far is Tower Ranch. It is a great course, the housing development around it kinda flopped and so the course is super cheap to play compared to Predator, Gallaghers, the Bear etc. and the calibre of the course is great.

kermitology · 08-10-2013, 02:23 PM

My two favourite wineries in Canada are Sperling Vineyards and Meyer Family Wines. Ann Sperling is an outstanding winemaker.