The covered patio at the Outlook.
A visit to the Okanagan Valley’s Garnet Valley Ranch in Summerland, BC, reveals a 320-acre property that blends seamlessly with the surrounding natural landscape. Purchased by Okanagan Crush Pad in 2012, it saw its first vines planted in 2014. Pinot Noir is the main variety on site, accompanied by Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Meunier, Chenin Blanc, and Gamay Noir. Okanagan Crush Pad’s Free Form label offers a Blanc de Noir sparkling wine, a Pinot Noir Rosé, and a Riesling, all crafted from fruit sourced from Garnet Valley Ranch. Last year, the inaugural release under the Garnet Valley Ranch label featured the 2016 Traditional Method Sparkling wine, the 2021 Chardonnay, and the 2021 Pinot Noir.
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Support BC Wine!
BC’s wine industry has long been celebrated for its quality and innovation, but recent years have brought unprecedented challenges. Like the rest of the hospitality industry, BC wineries suffered immeasurable losses due to the global pandemic and have yet to see a return to pre-COVID tourism levels. The 2023 vintage was marked by exceptional weather conditions, leading to a mixed bag of outcomes for winemakers across the region. Now, as the industry looks ahead to the 2024 season, it faces a new and daunting obstacle: a winter deep freeze that is expected to result in no grapes being harvested in the Okanagan Valley.
Our latest article for The Daily Hive HERE takes a deeper dive into the current challenges and what options are available for wineries moving forward.
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One of the best views in the Valley.
Climate change continues to be a growing concern worldwide and conscious consumerism has forced business industries to shift their view on sustainability from an optional nice to have to a minimum requirement. The wine industry is no different and one of the wineries helping lead the movement in BC is Summerland’s Okanagan Crush Pad (OCP). For more than a decade, sustainability, both in the vineyards and in the winery, has been at the heart of what they do. Their newest project, Garnet Valley Ranch not only embodies this spirit in the winery, but also demonstrates it beautifully through a truly memorable personal experience at the property itself.
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Haywire Winery’s new look [Photo: Haywire]
In business, it’s generally understood that not adapting to changing circumstances will generally lead to a company’s demise. In the case of Okanagan Crush Pad, they face the opposite challenge in that their original model has been so successful, they’re now transitioning their business sooner than expected into a full-time winery. Haywire Winery personifies ‘the little winery that could’, transforming from a small virtual wine anchoring the OCP portfolio of wines, into the headline act.
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BC grapes almost ready for Harvest.
The Okanagan Wine Initiative (OWI) is a collaboration of some of the top wineries in BC, who got together with the purpose of promoting the region’s wines to the international marketplace. Their purpose statement on their website states it well: “The Okanagan Wine Initiative was formalized in 2018 by a group of winery owners seeking to elevate the region’s rich and diverse narrative through business excellence and the promotion of quality Okanagan wines outside of British Columbia, Canada.” This summer we met with three of the 5 wineries that currently make up the OWI and asked them to tell us more about their project.
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