Six BC Wines for White Wine Day

Happy National White Wine Day!

To celebrate, we’ve got a list of six exciting BC wines that will be perfect for your next occasion or dinner this summer.

White wines have been around for at least 4,000 years and through those years wineries have only gotten better at creating tastier vintages. With crisper tones, white wines have a more acidic, floral, and fruity taste, giving them a lighter flavour combined with subtle overtones.

Try these:

1.     Blue Grouse 2021 Ortega - $25.99 online or in select wine stores in BC. The wine reflects the best of Cowichan Valley’s warm summers. Ortega is Vancouver Island’s signature grape, and Blue Grouse is Vancouver Island’s signature winery, so this wine is the perfect representation of the region. Whole cluster pressed, this fruit-forward wine is bright, savoury, and well-balanced.

2.     Singletree 2020 Gruner Veltliner - $19.10 online or get it while you can at Vij’s Restaurant. Only 111 cases made. The wine was fermented in stainless steel to bring out delicious aromas of nectarine, pineapple, and melon. There are also flavours of Meyer lemon, apple, and citrus. Pair this refreshing white wine with some roasted asparagus and smoked fish.  

3.     Blasted Church 2021 Unorthodox Chardonnay - $22.00 online or at the winery in Okanagan Falls, BC. Its ‘unorthodox’ name is a nod to the wine being the only one made in Canada with Chardonnay Musque. This lesser grown in BC Chardonnay offers waves of bright floral and spice, and a splash of stone fruit, all supported by a vibrant undercurrent of fresh citrus.

4.     Haywire Switchback 2018 Pinot Gris - $29.99 online, at Legacy Liquor Store or Marquis Wine Cellars. A special wine from a special place lovingly organically farmed and tended to. This wine shows the adaptability of Pinot Gris to represent the region and more importantly its site and micro-climate. Truly a wine that can only be known as “Switchback”. Harvested in two batches and whole bunch pressed, it was naturally fermented before resting on lees for 10 months. The wine itself has a creamy mouthfeel along with lively acidity that displays citrus and stone fruit characters. Critics love this wine, and you will too.

5.     Chronos 2020 Riesling - $28.99 online or at Save-On-Foods. Crafted with precision by winemaker Lynzee Schatz at TIME Family of Wines, this unrushed wine brings out the Okanagan Valley terroir exquisitely. Fermented in two different tanks with different yeast strains, blending them together brought out their sweetness and acidity. To enjoy this vibrant, bright, and juicy wine, sip it during a meal with an orange-miso halibut and a beet carpaccio.

6.     Coolshanagh 2018 Chardonnay - $30.00 online. Our premium pick, nothing brings out Okanagan terroir better than this wine. The new world Chardonnay was handled with care, it was fermented through 25% new French oak barrel, 25% concrete tank and 50% stainless steel. The Chardonnay has a classic Okanagan mineral streak and integrates flavours of popcorn, wet stone, and rich ripe fruit flavours.

The Okanagan Summer Vineyard Events Continue

To do in the Okanagan this summer…

LIVE music every Thursday night at Okanagan Crush Pad !

Live at Crush Pad - Summer Music Series

Okanagan Crush Pad - Summerland, BC

16576 Fosbery Rd Summerland, BC

Every Thursday

from July 4 to August 29 – From 7-9 PM attend Live at Crush Pad and listen to a variety of live music performances while you drink locally-made wine at Summerland’s Okanagan Crush Pad. Tickets are just $25 per person. Gates open at 6:30 PM.

Live at Crush Pad features renowned artists including Trailerhawk, The Fugitives, Rob ‘n Walker, Tiger Moon and many many more!

Okanagan Crush Pad’s wine brands (Narrative, Free Form & Haywire) will be available for purchase. Guests can also buy food from on-site food trucks.

View the upcoming musical acts and purchase your tickets online HERE.

Find more information and RSVP to Live at Crush Pad on Facebook.

Meet Skip and Judy Stothert #withTownHall

By Leeann Froese It’s a new week to introduce you to one of the fabulous personalities in the world #withTownHall!

This does not mean they work as part of our team, or are our client (although sometimes they are).

We just interact with so many amazing people that we want to expand networks and introduce them to you, and you to them. This week #withTownHall, we introduce you to Skip and Judy Stothert.

Skip and Judy Stothert have been partners in life and love since they met on a blind date in high school and have been together ever since. Skip ran a successful highway paving business (Green Roads Recycling) while Judy taught Interior Design at BCIT while handling a select stable of clients. In 2003 Skip and Judy relocated from Deep Cove in North Vancouver to a 52-acre-site seven kilometers north of Naramata, directly above the water.

Skip and Judy named their new home Coolshanagh which means "a meeting place of friends" because it was part of Judy's family tradition.

It was on this site that Skip and Judy first cleared and planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the best suited varietals for the land after much research. Renowned global terroir specialist Pedro Parra called their site among the top 15% of key sites in the world, with some of best exposure and soil structures for grape growing he had seen in the Okanagan.

After selling their grapes for a few years, Skip and Judy decided to make their own wine in 2012 at Okanagan Crush Pad, under the Coolshanagh label, beginning with Chardonnay. Subsequent vintages have been released and the production of Coolshanagh Pinot Noir is underway.

Our team is very proud to have done the packaging and to promote this tiny producer.

With all of this shared about Skip and Judy, will you please help us give them a big hello?

Leave a comment below – or go give this post a like or share on Facebook or Twitter, Skip can be found on Instagram at Coolshanagh.