Wineland at Hester Creek! Okanagan Spring Festival Part 1

This weekend, I was in the Okanagan as my wife and I visited our daughter (the one that works at Meadow Vista...)

It was a great visit - especially because of Saturday - but we'll get there in a moment.

On Friday, we went out for a nice little dinner at Bacaro Kitchen and Drink. They do great tapas, share plates and even meals and we had a nice assortment of chef's board charcuterie, cauliflower curry, prosciutto wrapped portobello mushrooms, Korean pulled pork sliders and duck confit spring rolls. The spring rolls were particularly amazing and the charcuterie is always an excellent choice.

With all of those different kinds of food, it was a challenge to select a wine for everyone. We ended up ordering a Viognier from the Okanagan which turned out to be just about perfect! It was a 2015 TH Wines (from Summerland) Viognier (their 2016 is $25 but I would guess the 2015 is only available in restaurants now).  It paired well with the spicy sliders as well as the rich spring rolls and had enough zip to it to meet the challenge of the meats on the charcuterie board.

Friday night, however, was just a warm up to Saturday.

Our first stop was Hester Creek. Last visit to the Okanagan, we ended up buying a case of their wine which made us a member of their Wine Club. That's it - no commitment, you just have to buy a case of wine.

Now,  as members, we were invited to their 1st annual Crush Pad BBQ party! We thought, why not, and booked a spot at the BBQ as well as a cellar tour. All free, mind you!

When we arrived, it was rather nice - a bit cloudy but definitely warm enough for a BBQ.

There was a fairly good turn out and we were a bit dazzled by all of the options. There were tents and tables set up in the courtyard and a live performer who did some killer covers of tunes by famous oldies such as James Taylor and the Beatles.

We were given a wine glass and two tickets each and headed off to the wine table to get a glass of wine. There was a choice of a Trebbiano white, a Cabernet Franc and a Character Red. I chose the Character for the first glass and it was a nice mix of Syrah, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot. Ah, but I needed to pair it with something....

Why not the giant table of charcuterie?  There were crackers, toasts, bread, sausages, olives cheese, a tone of sliced meats and much more. It was the most amazing charcuterie display - basically a buffet - and was all excellent quality. It also paired well with the Character.

After the charcuterie, we crossed the courtyard to the BBQ station. The guy beyond the grill was Rod Butters of RauDZ in Kelowna and now runs Terrafina, the Hester Creek restaurant. He was cooking up some mussels, cheese flatbread, wild boar meatballs, and chorizo. It's a barbecue, so I wasn't expecting perfection but I found the mussels a bit bland. On the other hand, the meatballs and chorizo sausage were outstanding - and also paired well with the Character.

I was feeling that this was like a Wine version of Disneyland with food, wine, more food, more wine, music and sunshine. It was the Happiest Wine Place on Earth!

Next ride - the Library tastings!

The Library wines were all part of the Terra Unica series and were only available to Club member on the day of the BBQ. There was a Gerwürtztraminer (floral, nice wine), a Petit-Verdot/Malbec (good wine, fairly complex) and a Cabernet Sauvignon. I fell in love with the Cabernet Sauvignon - it had great complexity, medium tannins, and a great, one finish. I ended up buying 5 bottles ($32.95 each) and will drink a couple now and age the rest.

As if things couldn't get better, it was time for our Cellar Tour. This was guided by the two winemakers, Rob Summers and Mark Hopley. Incidentally, Rob was the person who gave us our wineglass and tickets at the beginning of the day!

We received a tour of the cellar including the giant tanks and the many, many barrels of wine. Then we gathered around one area of the cellar and began a vertical tasting.

Here come da' Judge!

A vertical tasting is when you taste the same wine by the same winery but with different years. The wine we were tasting was the signature Hester Creek wine, the Judge.

Cheers!

We started off with the 2011. It was good but actually tasted a bit young or at least not stunning. The second one was a 2013 and it was amazing. It actually tasted like it was older than the first one! It had a roundness and smoothness that the 2011 didn't have. I ended up buying a bottle of that vintage ($45). Interestingly, the 2011 was $65 but I thought it was not nearly as good. Finally, we tasted a 2014 that was going to be bottled in August. It was definitely fruit forward and a bit young but it was easy to see that it had great potential.

After the Cellar Tour, I had my second glass - a Cabernet Franc. I really enjoy Hester Creek's Cab Franc but unfortunately I couldn't drink the whole glass as I had to drive. Spitting and dumping wine was something I did all day as it is the only way to make it through a number of wineries.

We had another winery to visit so, after I grabbed a cracker and chunk of cheese,  we went to the wine shop, made our purchases, and headed on down the Golden Mile to our next destination, Road 13.

My wife and I wandering the vineyards of Hester Creek.

Easter Dinner

What could be better than a wonderful Easter dinner of roast beef, potatoes, and plenty of other tasty foods? An Easter dinner with friends!

That's what we had last night. Good friends, good food, good wine, good times!

One person I was talking to last night was the girlfriend of our friends' oldest son. Her name is Caitlin (spelled the same as my daughter) and she has done both the WSET 2 and WSET 3. I was really pleased to hear how much she enjoyed WSET 2 - she said that she would have been happy to keep on going each week to class indefinitely! That sounds great! She also wants to take her WSET 4 but the price tag for that (~$10,000) is a bit out there.... The WSET 2, by the way, is still no bargain at $1000.

The first wine was one that we brought. It is one of my favourite Okanagan grapes, the Cabernet Franc - ($31.99). This is another of Tinhorn Creek's wines and is a very drinkable wine. There were some tannins (which made it go along fairly well with the roost beef) and some tastes of plum and currant (although I couldn't place if it was red currant or black currant - still working on that palate). It was nicely balanced and, even though it is just a 2013, I think it really was good to drink now.

After a small glass (I was the family designated driver, after all), I tried a wine that another friend had brought. The Alamos Malbec ($13.99) is an Argentinian Malbec that the friend loved because it tasted good and was inexpensive. I found it to be a smooth wine but not overly complex. It certainly is drinkable and I can imagine having this with a grilled steak with a bunch of guys hanging around the barbecue. It's not as strong a taste as most malbecs that I have had which was interesting.  Interestingly, their website only has wines as recent as 2013. It seemed to me that this might be a good weeknight wine - especially with some sort of beef or pork dish.

After our great dinner, we headed home.

The last tasting of the day was a Meadow Vista Cloud Horse ($22). Full disclosure - my daughter, Caitlin, works in the wine industry and is the manager of Meadow Vista. Meadow Vista makes honey wine - or mead - and I wouldn't usually go out and buy honey wine. However, she often will bring us a bottle to try and sometimes I am surprised.

Cloud Horse was one of those surprises. It was a pleasant wine for drinking - light and clear. It had a honey taste (so surprising) as well as a butter hint as well. It would make a good drinking wine or perhaps with some cheese as it's a bit sweet and would offer a good contrast. Maybe I'll actually have to go out and buy some.....

That's it for my Easter weekend - I will continue to post whenever I learn something interesting or drink an interesting wine. Feel free to drop me a comment!