Pictures and Stories of Life

A few days ago we visited a couple of wineries to do a bit of buying. In one case, we were visiting a winery that had produced a new red blend we wanted to try.

While we strolled to their shop, we passed these growing, fattening merlot grapes.

I’m not a particular fan of merlot – I prefer it in a blend rather than on its own – but it was great to see these grapes doing well.

We then stopped at a special winery to pick up a case of an old favourite: pinot gris. The first time we tried this particular version of pinot gris – it was pink-tinged and completely lovely – we were enjoying lunch on Granville Island in Vancouver and joked about how we wanted to live where it was made. Fast forward a couple of years and we had a home in the Okanagan Valley from where that lovely wine originated.

Every year since we have gone to that small, family-owned, unassuming winery with its unadorned shop and small but gorgeous deck overlooking Okanagan Lake to purchase a case of the wine that was partially responsible for bringing us here.

And every year we have enjoyed it. Summer in a bottle. The Okanagan in a bottle. Beautiful.