Save these dates for wintery fun

Season events coming up

Allison Markin - Nov 15, 2023 / 11:00 am | Story: 457299

Photo: Contributed

The District Wine Villlage.

It’s not officially winter, but it is definitely winter event season and time to “calendarize” a few things.

This includes pre-ordering and planning to pick up holiday culinary feasts. A personal favourite is getting a Coulombe Family Tourtière from VinAmité Cellars just south of Oliver. It feeds six. You do the assembling and you can take all the credit when it comes out of the oven. Pick up on Dec. 22 or 23, but before then, plan on exploring Oliver-Osoyoos wine country.

Winter in Wine Country takes place in the southern part of the Okanagan Valley Nov. 24 to 25 and Dec. 2 to 3 as wineries celebrate the season. Highlights will include Hester Creek Estate Winery, which will have complimentary mulled wine, Culmina Family Estate Winery will welcome Audrey’s Breads with their baked goods and Nostalgia Wines will have a pop-up shop with gift ideas.

The South Okanagan Fire and Ice Festival will run from Nov. 24 to Dec. 3. The Fire and Ice Carnival at Spirit Ridge Resort will surely be memorable.

Further north, the wineries around Okanagan Falls and Kaleden—collectively known as the Heart of Wine Country— will host Holiday Cheer this coming weekend (Nov. 18 to 19). Highlights will include Santa at Blasted Church Vineyards, Lakeboat Winery will pair up with the famous Doug’s Homestead for meats and cheeses, Uppercase Winery will pair sips with soups, and side-by-side wineries Mayhem and Meyer will have a firepit for roasting marshmallows.

Near Penticton, indulge in the inaugural Naramata Bench Winterfest Nov. 24 to 25, with winery, cidery, and distillery tastings. Highlights will include mulled wine and s’mores at Daydreamer, baked goods and spiked tea at Maple Leaf Spirits and complimentary Provenance series tastings at Township 7.

Tip: While in Penticton, book your holiday dinner at BRODO for pick up on Dec. 22 and check out the happenings at the Naramata Inn.

Summerland hosts its famous Festival of Lights on Nov. 24 with Light Up the Vines on Bottleneck Drive the next day. Don’t miss mini cocktails at Controlled Entropy Distilling, fire pits and apple cider at Lightning Rock or grilled cheeses at Summerland Heritage Cider. As a bonus there will be multiple weekends for the Winter Wine Experience at Haywire.

In West Kelowna, Quail’s Gate will host its Winter "Wanderland” and a holiday gala this weekend and will raise funds for wildfire relief. Grizzli Winery will have events through mid-December and Mission Hill will hosts its annual Festival of Trees.

And finally, in Kelowna prepare for the holidays by taking a class at the Okanagan Table.

This should take us all well into the season and when you need to get in some exercise, strap on some skates and head to the District Wine Village.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

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About the Author

A creative thinker with more than two decades of experience in communications, Allison is an early adopter of social and digital media, bringing years of work in traditional media to the new frontier of digital engagement marketing through her company, All She Wrote.

She is the winner of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association's 2011 and 2012 awards for Social Media Initiative, an International LERN award for marketing, and the 2014 Penticton Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award for Hospitality/Tourism.

Allison has amassed a following on multiple social networks of more than 30,000, frequently writes and about social media, food and libations as well as travel and events, and through her networks, she led a successful bid to bring the Wine Bloggers Conference to Penticton in June 2013, one of the largest social media wine events in the world, generating 31 million social media impressions, $1 million in earned media, and an estimated ongoing economic impact of $2 million.

In 2014, she held the first Canadian Wine Tourism Summit to spark conversation about the potential for wine tourism in Canada as a year-round economic driver.

Allison contributes epicurean content to several publications, has been a judge for several wine and food competitions, and has earned her advanced certificate from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust.

In her spare time, she has deep, meaningful conversations with her cats.

She can be reached at [email protected]

The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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