Visit to Naramata - Day 2

The next day after packing up the campsite we were off to the other side of the lake. We stopped by the Bench Market (www.thebenchmarket.com/home.php) to grab a quick (and late) breakfast. I love that place! It’s filled with all sorts of great products, and the food they make there is always fresh and tasty. (Note: I find their coffee a little weak, and so drink americanos instead.)

From there it was on to the inn. They have bikes there that guests can use, which we used last year to go wine tasting. They're a little heavy though, so this year we brought our own. So after checking in, we hopped on our bikes and rode off in search of wine. Last year we were mostly tasting reds and avoiding the whites, reflecting our general preferences in California wines. We learned, too late as it turned out, that the magic is all in the whites on the bench (e.g. Joie!!! can you sense my enthusiasm for them?). This year we did not replicate that mistake. We started off at La Frenz (www.lafrenzwinery.com). We tasted their Semillon, Gewurtz, Alexandria, and liqueur Muscat. I liked the Semillon, but Chris didn’t so much. The Gewurtz was nice and we returned the next day to buy a bottle. (One of the advantages of tasting on bikes is you don’t buy much right away. So you’re less likely to open a bottle bought at the end of a day of tasting a few months later and go ‘what was I thinking?’) The Alexandria was a little too sweet, and the Muscat confused me. It had both floral and crème brulee going on at the same time. In the nose, this was intriguing, in the taste, not so much. I wish they hadn’t been sold out of so many things, because I really do like their whites (their Viognier in particular - clearly I’m not the only one) and we would have bought more.

Next we tried to go to Laughing Stock, but they aren’t open on Mondays. (Despite what I said about reds in the area, we really like their reds, their whites less so.) That’s OK, we already know we like their wine. So we did a little backtracking and went to Hillside Estates. They have a restaurant, and as it was getting closer to 3 than to 2, we figured some food might be a good idea. It was quite good. We had a caprese salad, crispy oysters, and the Okanagan cold plate. The salad was really nice. The tomatoes seemed fresh from the garden, perfectly sweet. (The kind of thing you don’t get in the city so much.) The sauce the oysters were served with was a little confused. I would have gone with either a spicy pepper/sundried tomato sauce or an apple cream sauce, not all in one. Sometimes less is more. But the oysters were so perfectly cooked that I loved the dish anyway. The cold plate had highs and (unnecessary) lows. The cheeses were great, the terrine was very tasty, and went perfectly with the cherries, there was too much tapenade, but it was perfectly fine, and Chris quickly ate all the gravlax, so I assume they were good too. The problem was with the tuna (which isn’t listed as being on the plate). It was very fishy, so much so that we couldn’t eat it. We both thought that they should have just gone with something else local, like some nice smoked trout or something. Why serve things you can get anywhere instead of highlighting the local products (which the rest of the plate did quite well)? Of course, lunch at a winery would be incomplete without wine. Chris had the Gewurtz (with the salad) and the Cab Franc (to go with the wild boar terrine), I had the Riesling (oysters). The two whites were perfect accompaniments, and the Cab Franc was surprisingly tasty. It had a real smokiness from the barrels, but not so much that it was overpowering. After lunch we popped down to the tasting room to try their other offerings. The ones we had at lunch were our definite favorites, and we bought a bottle each of the Riesling and the Cab Franc the next day.

Our last stop of the day was Nichol Vineyard (www.nicholvineyard.com/). One of the great things about going to less-developed wine areas (from a tourist perspective) is that you have a better chance of meeting the winemaker. Ross Hackworth was pouring in the tasting room the day we were there. Talking with the winemaker always gives you much more insight into the wines, something we really enjoyed. He was only pouring the Syrah on Monday, but we bought that as well as the Pinot Gris (which we’d had at a restaurant in Vancouver before) and the Gewurtz on his recommendation. The tasting room was going to be closed when we were heading out the next day, so we were trying to figure out how we were going to get the wines. He offered to drop them off for us at the inn later that evening! You don’t get that kind of service (or wine) in Napa!

Our day was not over yet, we still had dinner at the inn’s dining room. (After a game of scrabble over tea on the balcony outside our room.) When we were there last year dinner was good, but not fabulous. It felt like the chef was trying too hard. (The service and local wine list were excellent.) This year it was all great! We had two different salads as starters with some excellent local wine (I had the viognier from Marichal, can’t remember what Chris had), and then a halibut special and the house made pasta with goat cheese and spinach. Both were excellent. We finished up with a cheese plate (a variety of cheeses from Poplar Grove – the Harvest Moon is my favorite which I buy quite frequently at Pane e Formaggio www.pane-e-formaggio.com/home.html) and found a new BC red we love Pétales d’Osoyoos from Osoyoos Larose. We loved it so much we bought two more glasses to take back to our room, which we drank outside under the stars on the balcony.

I’ll let you know when we drink the wines we bought.