Like Willy Nelson, we’re on the road again. We’ve left the now redeemed Revelstoke, and made our way to the Okanagan valley.
Our first official stop of the day was a wine tasting at Fitzpatrick Family Vineyard. We had a tasting reserved at 14:00. We had planned our day around making it to the vineyard for the tasting. The one thing we hadn’t planned for is our enthusiasm at leaving Revelstoke. Our original plan had us leaving our hotel around 9:30am so we could get to breakfast in town by 10:00 and hit the road a little before 11:00. What actually happened was, we were eating breakfast before 9:30 and on the road by 10:00.
Being an hour early meant we had to find somewhere to stop on our way. What better place to stop before going to a vineyard than stopping at another vineyard. What goes best with wine? Well, more wine of course! We stopped at Off The Grid Organic Winery. They had a great selection and, most important of all, a food truck!
When going around from winery to winery, the one key to success is keeping Karine fed. Understand that, as the designated driver, I do not drink until we park the car at the hotel for the day. We’ve learned in New Zealand that a tasting pour can vary greatly and can easily end up close to half a glass. There’s no way I’m sober enough after a couple of tastings if that’s what they are pouring. Better be safe and not risk it and let Karine be my wine scout. And, the secret to an effective wine scout is regulating her alcool intake by keeping her stomach filled.
We chose Fitzpatrick because they specialize in traditional sparkling wine. They essentially make canadian champagne. You can’t actually call it champagne since it’s made 8000 km away from the Champagne region in France. Other than that small detail they make a good Brut.
Our day concluded with a little shopping. First buying camping wine glasses. Our hotel wasn’t going to come with wine glasses and we didn’t want to consume throwaway cups every night for our four nights in the valley. Second, we needed groceries to build ourselves a spread to go with our wine for the evening. It should say a lot about our priorities when we though of buying wine glasses but nothing in term of utensils. We managed to get a knife at the groceries so we could, at the very least, cut cheese and bread for our diner.
Tomorrow? More wine!