It has been 3-4 years since we’ve been here, and we are excited to be visiting again. Not that we didn’t enjoy our last visit, it was…..fine. We enjoyed a couple of the wines (IIRC, the Rosé and Cabernet Franc), the rest were OK, and the service and atmosphere was perfectly pleasant. What it lacked, I guess, was “IT”. Whatever that is, there was nothing that excited us enough to get us to rush back.
So what changed? Well, from all accounts, the wine has improved. That’s a pretty important point. Also, we get to see our good friend Shelann, who is taking us through our tasting today.
We have known Shelann for many years, she was the Wine Club concierge at Tinhorn Creek for years, and she always took fantastic care of us when we visited there. She moved to Hillside a couple of years ago and has been trying to get us up there ever since. We finally made it!
We are greeted with a huge sign saying “welcome Dean and Tracey!” and our table is set up and ready to go outside. Shelann knows that even though we are friends, I am going to be brutally honest when reviewing the wines….which really makes me hope that they are good! Let’s find out!
Lovely! No doubt the wine has improved since our last visit and we enjoyed just about everything. We’ll give that Gamay another try on our next visit and see if it was just a vintage problem.
SAFETY SCORE: 10
We were outdoors 100% of the time, nobody near us. Shelann was masked until we told her that she could take it off, as we weren’t afraid of picking a virus up from her as she was 10 feet away at all times and we were outside.
Next up: This is all we had time for in Naramata this trip, and we are off to check into our hotel and then have what we expect to be a very special evening. First up, a tour and tasting at Martin’s Lane!
Confessions of a Huge Wine-R 