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Right Side Up

Stan suggested we stop at Lake Okanagan because, while Canadian wineries are not on a par with those in Washington and Oregon, they have an impressive reputation for ice wines.  If conditions are right, that is to say, if the grapes are ripe late in the season, and if the weather is cold enough (about -8 degrees C.) the grapes are crushed while frozen, resulting in much of the water in the grape staying frozen, so that it can be removed.  What is left just might become a very sweet and flavored dessert wine. 

Stan is a wine expert, having rolled a pickup, partially loaded with wine, into a ditch.  There is very little Stan does not know about upside-down wine. 

Lake Okanagan is about a hundred miles long, two or three miles wide, and very deep.  It helps define a micro-climate, even that far north, where vineyards thrive along the sides of the Lake, in what is a kind of Sonoran desert.  Sonoran?  OK!  It is dry, for the Cascades.

Mission Hill Family Estate is, indeed, a family-owned winery.  In scale and investment, it suggested that corporate assets might have built it.  A greeter assured us that the winery was family-owned, and that it would stay that way because the couple had a six-year-old son.  I assured the greeter that the son would soon be into drugs, or his cups.  "Maybe," she replied. 

The property, with its vineyards diving down the hillside, appeared to go nearly to the Lake.  On the Lake side of the grounds, an elegant, outdoor restaurant made our lunch a grand treat.  I had Beach Angel clams on the half shell, sparkling with flower petals. 

We stayed at the Lake only two nights, not because the room was too expensive, but because we could not afford the day trips.  Oh, the burden of doing wine research!  
I took care, after the wines were packed and chilled, not to drive upside-down. 

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