Fall is grape-harvesting season in the South Okanagan, a great time to tour the region and taste some of the fine wines made there.
October is an ideal month to visit "due to a more relaxed vibe in the tasting rooms, the fruit is hanging on the vines and then the transition of the (foliage) colours here," says Natasha Rojas, who runs Wine Tours Gone South in Osoyoos/Oliver.
Not only that, summer tourists are long gone, leaving room for autumn adventurers.
Visitors won't see many 2024-vintage wine bottles on shelves, however, due to a mid-winter cold snap that destroyed vines, forced vintners to rip out dead crops and search for imported replacement grapes from south of the border.
This summer, in something of a bounce-back year, grapes of all kinds grew in abundance in the Okanagan, according to Jeff Guignard, CEO of Wine Growers BC.
"Zoom in and we are having a gorgeous, gorgeous crop out there," Guignard says in the fall/winter edition of Vitis wine magazine. "I suspect winemakers are going to be giddy with excitement. I'm convinced we're going to look at 2025 as one of our best vintages ever, especially after a couple of really hard years."
Five Oliver-area wineries were destinations during a morning/afternoon with Wine Tours Gone South on the final weekend September, when we visited Kismet, Hester Creek, River Stone, Stoneboat and Silver Sage vineyards.
The Dhaliwal family's Kismet Estate Winery, now a huge player in the region, recently put a helicopter into service to quickly reach their 600 acres of vineyards.
The beautiful Hester Creek property, up an east-facing hill on Road 8, offers wine-tasting with the lunch/dinner delights of Terrafina, where restaurant-goers can build their own charcuterie board for around $40.
River Stone and Stoneboat are more boutique, and the popular Silver Sage attracts crowds with wines of a different kind (sip the spicy Flame aperitif, turn it into a Caesar or make a peppery meal).
On his tours, driver/guide Will Maclean doesn't just point out the best tasting rooms, he explains the agricultural realities behind each bottle of wine.
"When visitors understand the impact of a freeze or the struggle to find enough hands for harvest, they gain a much deeper appreciation for what's in their glass," he notes. "It turns a simple tasting into a lesson in resilience."
As the South Okanagan's wine industry grows with more vineyards, adding to the dozens already established, so too does the appetite for greater infrastructure and attractions. Guignard says he'd love to see a five-star hotel open in the area, higher-end restaurants and larger airport in Penticton — all great ideas for those who love wine and want to visit the region.
