Down On The Farm, Up In The Vineyards

After breakfast we spent an hour or so wandering around Kelowna's large Saturday farmer's market where we met "Diva", an 18-20 pound hen turkey whose ability to pump out eggs guarantees her a life expectancy much longer than her feathered friends who will be "entertaining" British Columbia residents when they celebrate their "Thanksgiving" holiday later this month.  The market's vendors offered the usual assortment of fresh produce, jams, honey, flowers, and various arts and crafts for sale as we find in the similar markets at home.  We lunched on some Aussie Meat Pies that Ryan, whose accent clearly gave him away as an immigrant from "Down Under", said are the "real deal" pastry served up in his home country.

At a park across the street we caught the tail end of the Kokanee salmon spawning in a creek that runs into Okanagan Lake.  Pam, one of the park's interpreters, told us that the fall run is down from historic highs of about 300,000 to only about 40,000.  Unlike their Sockeye cousins, these fish never make it to to ocean; they live out their lives in the lake before returning to the stream in which they were born to create a new generation of Kokanee (which are also found in lake Tahoe) before heading off to Fish Heaven.

In the afternoon we drove across the lake and up into the vineyards on the west side to do some wine tasting.  Our first stop was at Quail's Gate where we tasted some fine wines, then took a very informative tour of the vineyard and the winery which ended with yet another tasting session with our guide, Cara who had done everything in the Okanagan wine industry from driving forklift trucks, to pruning vines, picking grapes, giving tours, and working in this winery's restaurant.

At Mount Boucherie we were poured something like a dozen wines.  The guy working the tasting room (usually called a "Wine Shop" in this area) was a real character who said things like "This wine is good with spicy Asian food, so Thai one on tonight!"

We drove back to our hotel at the end of the afternoon and then had a long break before returning to Quail's Gate for a four-course dinner served with four different wines.  The food and service were top-notch and we could see lights twinkling on the opposite shore of the lake through the open windows of the winery's restaurant.