An Intriguingly Interesting Winery in Lake Country

 I love smaller boutique wineries and Intrigue Winery in Lake Country is no exception. 

We visited there recently for the first time and had a very enjoyable experience. 

Located amongst the vineyards (and across the driveway from O'Rourke's Peak's tasting room), the tasting room is fairly small with two stations to taste wine and then another room for waiting, if needed, where you can purchase your wine or other items. 

The other items include cheese, charcuterie, and other food items as well as chilled wines. You are then welcome to take these out to their fairly large patio area, which had numerous comfy seating areas, some of them covered to provide shade from the sun. I love when I see this kind of thing in a winery as you can make a day out of just one winery visit. 

Meanwhile, it was time to try out some wines in the tasting room. Since my first visit, I returned on a tour (yesterday) and both times I was so impressed by the enthusiasm and friendliness of the tasting room associates as well as their good knowledge of the wines and the winery. I was able to find out that the winemaker originally worked for Gray Monk but came over to Intrigue a couple of years ago. I was also able to have my wine questions answered competently but in a friendly, relaxed manner. 

Onto the wines!

Our first wine was the 2020 I Do sparkling rosé ($17). This is a blend of Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Merlot, Kerner (a German crossing of Riesling and Trollinger) and Ehrenfelser. This was a lovely, fun sparkler with flavours of strawberry and stone fruits. It had a wonderful nose and was a bit sweet - but not too much.  There's a regular format bottle as well as a smaller bottle that is a mere $7 and would be perfect for solo imbibing. Rated Very Good.

They also have just released another bubble that I observed yesterday (I think it is the Social Bubbly) which I couldn't try (drinking and driving people around doesn't mix) but my clients enjoyed it. It is described as being a little less sweet than the I Do with more of an apple/stone fruit taste. 

Next was the 2019 Riesling ($15). This was a dry Riesling with that wonderful diesel aroma and had flavours of lime and green apple. A good, basic, Riesling, you certainly can't complain about the price! Rated Very Good. 

The 2020 Social White  ($13) is an interesting blend of Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Kerner, Viognier, Muscat and Ehrenfelser.  Many of these grapes are grown in small quantities for this blend and it is just fine. You can really taste the tropical fruits of this patio pounder. There's a lot going on here, even if this is a simple wine, and, at 11%, you could sip this one all afternoon. Rated between Good and Very Good. 

Finally we tried the 2018 Merlot ($19). The grapes for this wine are sourced in Summerland which might be a bit cool for Merlot. This was an good wine but seemed a bit plummy to me. Still, you aren't going to find many $19 bottles of Merlot in the Okanagan. Rated Good.

I really enjoyed my two visits to Intrigue Winery in Lake Country. I am looking forward to trying some of their other wines in their portfolio. I will definitely make it one of my suggested stops for future tours to the area. 

And, oh, that enthusiasm!

Time to Taste Wine - No Fiddlin' with this Nero!

This time we try a Nero D'Avola from Sicily. This is a red wine that has strong acidity and is a great wine! Join Dave as he sips his way through another interesting Sicilian sipper. 

Watch the video and then maybe book a tour to try some tasty reds from the Okanagan. 

Enjoy!

Gray Monk Winery could be Habit-Forming!

Lake Country, just north of Kelowna, is home to several wineries - some of which I have visited but others, I have not. It’s also an area that sometimes gets left off of visitors'  wine touring. Recently, I thought I would remedy that by visiting some of the wineries that I had never been at before. The first one I visited was Gray Monk.

Gray Monk Winery was originally an orchard but when it was bought by the Heiss family in the 1970s, they decided to grow grapes and make wine. They imported Pinot Gris, Pinot Auxerrois, and Gewürztraminer grapes from Alsace, France - in fact Gray Monk is the English translation of Pinot Gris! 

Gray Monk was one of the pioneers of the BC wine industry as they began producing wine in the 1980s. It was also an estate winery - meaning they made wine from their own grapes  - and was a lot smaller than the other commercial wineries of its time. Since then, it has made a name for itself as a producer of excellent wines and even helped create the VQA (Vintners Quality Assurance) certification that most wineries in BC are participants. Eventually, the family retired from winemaking and, in 2017, sold to Peller Estates. 

It’s a fairly common Okanagan wine story - little winery starts up, makes excellent wine, gets bigger and bigger, gets bought out by a giant wine conglomerate and the wine that was so wonderful and innovative becomes bland wine juice that has mass appeal to beginning wine drinkers. Or, at least, that happens sometimes. 

And I was worried that it had happened with Gray Monk - which was why I had resisted visiting the winery.

As it turned out, I was (happily) wrong, wrong, wrong!

The view of the lake is pretty spectacular from the parking lot. After parking we entered the medium sized tasting room which looks and feels a bit like you are in the inside of a wine barrel (in a good way). Our tasting room associate was lovely - friendly and very knowledgeable. 

The first wine we tried was the 2019 Pinot Gris ($17) - interestingly, Gray Monk was the first winery in the Okanagan to grow Pinot Gris. This was a fruity wine with smells and tastes of apples and stone fruits. This wine was on the sweeter side of dry and was very enjoyable - Very Good. 

Next was the 2020 Estate Pinot Auxerrois ($18). It was a very crisp wine which reminded me of a Viognier. I enjoyed it but my wife was not a big fan. There were flavours of apple, lemon and pear - Good.

Ehrenfelser is a grape that you used to see a lot in the Okanagan but not so much anymore. The 2020 Estate Ehrenfelser was a fruity wine with a bit of residual sweetness and flavours of mango and other tropical fruits. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one. Very Good. 

The 2020 Rosé ($18) recently won a gold medal in California so it was definitely worth trying. This is a blend of Rotberger, Gamay Noir and Pinot Noir. Rotberger is a German crossing of (probably) Trollinger and Riesling. This wine was very light in colour and was refreshingly light in taste with aromas of berries and melons. This was a super interesting and unique Rosé and I rated it as Outstanding. 

The 2019 Monk’s Blend is a blend of Syrah (73%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (27%) and is sourced from both the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys. This was a bold wine that had rounded tannins and tastes of both red and dark fruits. At $20 a bottle, this is a Very Good wine.

Our final wine of the tasting was the 2017 Odyssey Cabernet Franc ($35). This was an enjoyable wine with lots of black fruit and earthy flavour but I just wasn’t as impressed with this wine - especially at the price - compared to the Monk’s Blend. Rated Good. 

Overall, I was very pleased with our visit to Gray Monk. The staff was knowledgable, they had a good range of wines, and the quality ranged from good to outstanding. Throw in the spectacular view and you'd be hard priest to find a better winery in Lake Country.

Time to Taste Wine - Another Grillo from Sicily - it's cheap, but is it good?

This week we taste another Grillo from Sicily in Italy. This one is made near where last week's Grillo was from. But is it good? Join Dave as he tastes and talks about this cheaper Grillo - and find out how he rated it!

Enjoy the video!

Time to Taste Wine - A Sicilian Sipper

 Sicily is home to a number of native grapes as well as standard European varieties. One of these grapes is the white wine grape, Grillo. This is an interesting grape on its own as it is usually blended into Marsala, a fortified wine. On its own, however, it makes a food friendly, good value wine.

Enjoy the video!