With a full 10 days of travelling in a pandemic, we’ve discovered a new key point when rating a location we visit: the smell of the hand sanitizer. In the early days of the pandemic, everyone tried their hands at making some to respond to the ever growing demand. The resulting smell could be less than pleasurable but, hey, better bad smelling hand sanitizer than no sanitizer. More than six months past those early days, we’re having a harder time believing it’s not possible to find good smelling hand sanitizer. Specially if you’re a restaurant or a winery you should care that my hands don’t smell like crap. What do you smell when you bring something to your mouth? The food or drink and your hands. Nobody should be smelling crap while eating or drinking.
We started the day at The Hatchery Organic Winery. An easy going spot that works hard at not taking itself too seriously. The wine is excellent but not everyone will like the attempt at humour that comes with wine tasting. We loved it!
We then tried to get in at Mission Hill and get into the store. We already had given up on the restaurant and tasting as they are by appointment only. Turns out that during the long weekend even the store is by appointment only. We were disappointed but not surprised.
Then it’s a stop at Quails Gate Winery. They had wonderful views. It was made obvious to us by people posing with their glass of wine, taking selfies and, in one case, doing a full-on photo shoot in front of the vines. The wine was good and service was attentive. The downside of it being Labor Day Monday was that parking, even if pretty large, turned out to be a nightmare. Space was at a premium and we had to wait for multiple spots and failing before managing to get into one. How does one fail to wait for a parking spot you might ask? Turns out, it’s not because 2 or 3 people go to a car with bottles of wine in their hands that they are done at the winery. Indeed we waited in front of a Tesla to see a number of its occupants go to the trunk, drop some of their bounty, sit in the car for a while, then get back out again and leave. It’s as if they remember they still had space in their wine cellar and had an urge to fill that void. We can relate but considering there’s a winery every couple of meters around here, they could do everyone the courtesy of filling that void elsewhere!
Our wine adventure ended at Kalala Organic Winery. It was one of the most efficient tastings we’ve ever had. Less than a minute from entering to the first wine being tasted and less than 5 to do all 4 tastings. We walked out with 2 excellent wines and ordered some online.
Tip: a lot of wineries went with online stores and you can order cases of really great wine now.
Last stop was an hour away. We wanted cheese for apéro and found a local cheese maker to the valley. We sprinted there, got the cheese just before closing and then took it slow on the way back. On our way back we stopped at a fruit stand to grab some local produce (peaches, nectarines, cherries) and made it part of our apéro fares now. I’m sure it will be awkward to have people over for apéro and serve wine and place a basket of fruits in the middle of the table but, if we lived here, it’s likely what we would do.
The evening ended with a late diner at the best wine and tapas place I’ve yet to visit. Salt & Brick in Kelowna delivered flights of local wine (3x 2oz) for tasting. Their plates are bigger than the usual tapas place but delicious and with a menu that changes every day based on what’s available. The food was well executed, tasty and original. We were two happy campers.
Tomorrow: More wine... and desert!