Day 3 - Oliver, British Columbia

The Atteburys - Adventure 3             

Day three of the grand adventure begins. We visited two wineries and a fruit and vegetable stand by bus. Sounds kinda’ dull doesn’t it? But we had a wonderful time together.

The first winery we visited was the Gehringer Brothers. One of the brothers, Walter, gave us a very in-depth tour. He gave us some history of grape growing and how the Okanagan Valley has changed, for the good, as far as climate goes. He took us into the fermenting room to see the stainless steel tanks that they use to age some of their wines. But the best part was the tasting room. They have some pretty nice wine up here. Our favorites were the Auxerrois and the Merlot. All in all we tried five wines and a real ice wine. We all piled back on the bus and headed for Silver Sage Winery.

Now this place didn’t teach us much, but the wine maker is a hoot. Her name is Anna and it is amazing how she can have such a wonderful outlook on life after she’s lost her husband and her son was in such a terrible accident in only a few months. And her wine is interesting. A lot of what she makes is mixed fruit wines. Some are even made with grapes. I guess the weather up here is unpredictable and you take what you can get. She is one of those people when life gives her lemons she makes lemonade. And she is very generous. We must have tried ten or eleven different wines. Anna has over 400 rose plants on her estate.Her gardens are lovely. Now it’s on to the fruit stand.

   

We were lucky that the early cherries were ready to sell. A bunch of us got a basket of them and other things because we didn’t have any fresh veggies with us anymore. It seems that the border patrol doesn’t like fresh veggies and we had to put them in their freezer.

We all had a LEO (let’s eat out) tonight. We went to a cute Greek/Italian restaurant for dinner. We had a good time together even though several had to wait a long time for their meal. At least the food was delicious.