Recommend a BC wine tour for a couple.

[JBR]

I would like to take Mrs. JBR for a wine tour in BC for her birthday in August. I’m not a frequent wine drinker or aficionado by any means.

Looking for recommendations... Kelowna vs. Victoria. Specific tours or wineries. Somewhere we can also get a hike or two in over the weekend.

Thanks.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by JBR

I would like to take Mrs. JBR for a wine tour in BC for her birthday in August. I’m not a frequent wine drinker or aficionado by any means.

Looking for recommendations... Kelowna vs. Victoria. Specific tours or wineries. Somewhere we can also get a hike or two in over the weekend.

Thanks.

Around Kelowna, you should hit places like Quail's Gate, Summerhill and Mission (which is the biggest, if not the best). I don't even know if there is anything good around Victoria. Look further south of Kelowna around the Burrowing Hill winery area.

[troutman]

Naramata Bench:
https://discovernaramata.com/wineries
http://www.bcvqa.ca/wp-content/uploa...GIrev_2020.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/naramatawines

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Around Kelowna, you should hit places like Quail's Gate, Summerhill and Mission (which is the biggest, if not the best). I don't even know if there is anything good around Victoria. Look further south of Kelowna around the Burrowing Hill winery area.

While those three are great wineries, they are also far and away the busiest.

If looking for a quieter spot with a lot of great wineries look around Vibrant winery.

[8 Ball]

Salt Spring Island was a good time.

[activeStick]

I've heard good things about Burrowing Owl which is in Oliver (short drive from Kelowna). Friends went there recently and said they also have good covid protocols.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by troutman

Naramata Bench:
https://discovernaramata.com/wineries
http://www.bcvqa.ca/wp-content/uploa...GIrev_2020.pdf

This thread is done!

[Torture]

Go to Penticton and drive the Naramata Bench. Lots of wineries to choose from, big or small. No tours required (at least, in pre-covid times, I think you might have to schedule some now), just walk in for a tasting. Fantastic patios and meals as well.

[daaznfob]

Look around 50th parallel wineries by lake Country. Great views!

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[GranteedEV]

Cedar Creek is a nice one!

[OMG!WTF!]

Kelowna for sure. There are a number of tours available but it's fairly conducive to self guided tours...provided you can drive without getting hammered. From Kelowna, Naramata is about an hour and 20 mins away but has the most vineyards and prettiest views. You might consider staying there. From Naramata Oliver and Osoyoos are within an easy day trip drive. There are bike wine tours there. I think there were even kayak wine tours at one point. There are usually chef's table sort of dining experiences in Naramata that are really nice. Generally, the smaller, lesser known wineries are more interesting if not out right better.

[Fuzz]

If you go to Naramata book a dinner at Hillside. It's got a great patio with excellent views, the wine is fantastic, and the food is not to shabby, either.

[Fuzz]

Oh, and don't waste your time at Red Rooster! Wine is the worst out there.

[Galakanokis]

I would go a little farther south and look at Naramata (already mentioned), Osoyoso and Oliver.

One thing I will recommend is booking it through a tour group that way you have a scheduled time and no waiting. Right now and no idea for how long you have to stand outside and wait if you just show up.

[Robbob]

Also worth mentioning, is that with wineries you now have to pre-book (with deposit) slotted times with everything that is going on. Me and the Mrs were planning on heading down over one of the weekends coming up and through research found this out. Makes it a little hard to just drive the bench, as we intended, and hit up wineries. Don't know how they treat walk ups.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

I would go a little farther south and look at Naramata (already mentioned), Osoyoso and Oliver.

One thing I will recommend is booking it through a tour group that way you have a scheduled time and no waiting. Right now and no idea for how long you have to stand outside and wait if you just show up.

This is excellent advice.

I've done both Kelowna and Oliver/Osoyoos, I won't go back to Kelowna. The vibe in Osoyoos is just so much more chill.

Haven't hit Naramata Bench yet, that's next on the list.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by JBR

I would like to take Mrs. JBR for a wine tour in BC for her birthday in August. I’m not a frequent wine drinker or aficionado by any means.

Looking for recommendations... Kelowna vs. Victoria. Specific tours or wineries. Somewhere we can also get a hike or two in over the weekend.

Thanks.

What's Mrs. JBR's tolerance for wine and what is the stuff she likes? I find that when I go, I wine out at around 5-6 wineries and my wife is done around 4. Not completely sloshed or drunk, but not really able to differentiate flavors and stuff after that in a meaningful manner and not enjoying it as much. It might not be a bad idea to only choose 2-3 and take it easy at each location rather than blasting through as many as you can like a mad man. Also, don't forget to bring a cooler with ice to avoid damaging your wine in a hot vehicle by essentially boiling it. It's also not a huge problem to share a tasting with your wife. No need to get one each for the two of you. I'd definitely suggest bringing food to do a picnic at some of the different winery locations.

I'm a huge fan of the Naramata Bench. Most of them are pretty solid in their own way. If you're not high end connoisseurs, chasing wineries based on ability to take nice pictures isn't necessarily wrong either.

The following are kinda basic thoughts for wineries I went to in the Naramata Bench:

- 8th Generation. Mostly light and easy going wines there. Refreshing stuff for summer and it has outdoor tastings. Prices are reasonable for the wineries in the area. Their Rose and red stick out, but I like most of their stuff. I usually go here first. It's one of the first I'll pass on the way from Kelowna and it's a good baseline.

- Elephant island. You gotta go. It has wines made of all sorts of different fruit. From what I saw last time I was there, you can bring your own picnic/charcuterie and the winery would give you a guided tasting and recommend fruit wines that would pair well with the food you brought. No idea if this continues with the Covid situation. It did have an outdoor tasting area with kid toys IIRC. It was so good, my group of friends had quite a few that actually went more than once to try more things.

- Lake Breeze. I didn't really click with the majority of the wines they offered, but a bunch of friends liked it, so it might have just been me. The spice jar wine they offered really stuck out though. It was the only one that was actually interesting enough me and I purchased a bottle as a result. Plenty of outdoor area to try wines IIRC. My group ended up tasting underneath some tower.

- La Frenz/Bench 1775/Terravista. I was kinda wined out by this point, but I seem to recall these ones were light and sweet (which kinda turned bland and meh since I was kinda wined out and I'm also not a huge fan of super sweet). I did seem to recall I purchased a few bottles at these locations though, but I cannot recall the particular attributes of the winery wines.

- Serendipity. My wife and I love quite a few of the red wines here, but not everyone does. I find that the depth of flavour in their red wines is amazing, but some of my friends find it is too "busy". I always grab a bottle here. I'm generally only impressed by their reds though.

(We hit all these wineries in 1 day)

My buddy loves the Osoyoos and Oliver area wines. He's more of a wine buff than I and the stuff he brings over is quite nice.


When I went to wineries in the Victoria on my way to Tofino a little over a year ago, I thought they were OK. I'd say they're basically on par with quite a bit of the stuff in Kelowna which is mostly safe and typical stuff IMO. It's good, but it doesn't really stick out. vs some of the stuff in Osoyoos, Penticton, Naramata and Oliver can be kinda wild and strange in a good way.


There's also ciders and craft breweries in the area as well. If wine isn't your thing, you can also consider throwing one or two of these in between for you.

[VladtheImpaler]

I wouldn't do Kelowna either, but Summerhill and Quail's Gate are both very good, with Summerhill producing the best Canadian wine ever - 2007 Cabernet Franc. Personally, I would do Naramata and start with Burrowing Owl - I think that is the overall best Canadian producer with a lot of good selections across the board.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

I wouldn't do Kelowna either, but Summerhill and Quail's Gate are both very good, with Summerhill producing the best Canadian wine ever - 2007 Cabernet Franc. Personally, I would do Naramata and start with Burrowing Owl - I think that is the overall best Canadian producer with a lot of good selections across the board.

For the ones in Kelowna, I'm always one to be interested in tasting a Foch wine. They're not super common, but very interesting to try.

Summerhill is the pyramid one. It's pretty good overall, I agree. I consider it a decent baseline winery.
Vibrant Vine has a few that isn't bad but also a bunch of meh. They're a little more weird on purpose though.
There's a little one called Sperling winery. I liked their Foch and Speritz (bubbly).
Tantalous ice wine is nice, but pricey.
Volcanic Hills IMO is one that I think is underrated.

Tantalous is probably one of the only ones with a nice walking area that can rival the ones on the Naramata bench IMO.

I've gone to quite a few more in the area over the years, but nothing to write home about. Also, if you can find it here in liquor stores, I generally really don't see a reason to try wines from the winery if I can just pick up a bottle at a store for an event to share and "try". This is the Mission Hill, Quail's gate etc. group of wineries from the Kelowna region.

I somehow don't think I have tried burrowing owl though.

[Nandric]

Hit up the Naramata bench for sure! My parents retired to Penticton so I actually just got back from a visit showing them their the grandson yesterday. We did a day of wine tours and even with Covid they are still pretty busy out there, but also taking it seriously with about 90% of the wineries having their staff masked up and if the weather is good, the tastings are all outside on the patio (Bonus!). As well, they are requiring you to book appointments for most of them ahead of time as well as pay the tasting fee up front. They are still honouring the refund of the tasting fee with purchase of the bottle so its business as usual.


We did 6, which near the end was pretty tough and we did 45min between each booking with for shorter drives gave us plenty of buffer time for tasting and chilling. Doing a booking every 30min would be doable but if any tasting ran slightly long you start falling behind pretty fast.


Our favourites were Hillside, Deep Roots, and we were surprised by Howling bluff which had a bunch of good wines. As mentioned above, Lake Breeze's spice jar was pretty good but everything else we didnt enjoy as much. With Lake Breeze their view and food are pretty fantastic so it would be worth having a meal there. We ended with Elephant Island, and like DoubleF said they have some interesting takes on fruit wines and normal wines there and doing their fruit wine taster after 5 wineries was a good way to switch things up!


If you have any questions let me know, but we've done a ton of wineries along that stretch of road over the years and have first hand experience with the covid situation so might be able to answer some.