Rosé in rotation...
The backyard is a haven, accentuated with a cool drink. Plus some geography and meteorology.
It’s been a great summer here in Penticton with long weeks of consistently warm days and refreshing evenings. There’s been a little wildfire haze now and again (but far less than other years) and last night it actually rained enough to wet the ground a little for the first time in I don’t know how long.
The oasis that is our back garden is where we sit and decompress a little after the activity of the day. Armed with Negronis, G&Ts, or perhaps a glass of rosé or Riesling, we can tend the plants or just lounge and solve all the world’s problems.
Rosé is frequently our choice. There’s plenty of outstanding local product to choose from like the multiple expressions from the Seven Directions line at Bottega Wine Studio, the Pink Freud from Therapy or my own sparkling type Fizz Rosé available at One Faith Vineyards.
Some other great rosé-producing locals:
and new kid on the block, Solvero
As part of my job as a winemaker and a wine seller, I try to taste a variety of international products to appreciate what other jurisdictions are working on. This one has been one of our favourites:
We pick this up around the corner at our local JAKs store, where we can always be assured of some great advice from the staff. This was one of their reccos and it’s been on repeat since June.
SIDEBAR: They can grow wine grapes in Canada?
If you’re not familiar with my neck of the woods, it gets quite warm here in the summer. For those not familiar with anything but a stereotype of Canada, the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia is a bit of a weather anomaly. Being 49+ degrees north, summers are a little short. The valley extends into Washington State (changing its spelling to ‘Okanogan’) and is part of the greater Columbia River system.
But what the summers lack in length, they make up for in high daytime temperatures. That’s due to our low elevation, only about 350 meters above sea level and about 250 kilometers inland from the Pacific Ocean. It’s semi-arid country and the temperatures consistently climb to 30 Celsius often spiking to the 40s. At night, the valley vents much of that heat, frequently dropping into the low teens. It’s that diurnal swing that makes this area one of the finest grape growing regions in the world.