Summerland winery produces ‘wine of the year’
The results are in for wine of the year.
It’s taken a few weeks but now we have a new wine guide from the top wine judges in the province who tasted over 370 wines at the 45th annual Spring Okanagan Wine Festival just weeks ago.
“It’s just a nice way to give the consumer that vote of confidence but also that winery something that they can hang their hat on,” said Kimberly Hundertmark, the general manager of Okanagan Wine Festivals.
“Whether it’s for their sales channels or for the people that are visiting them, it’s a very, very special honour for them to have.”
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The wine experts at the festival put together a consumer list of the Top 50 wines in B.C. with Summerland’s Dirty Laundry Vineyard taking the top spot with their 2022 Gamay.
“It had the highest average score,” said Hundertmark.
“It is a blind-tasted wine so it could be anything and the fact that it was a Gamay Noir, [which is] relatively sort of like the underdog, but something we do very, very well here in B.C.”
Before the wine earned the title of Wine of the Year, winemaker Mason Spink says the wine was already on track to sell out. However, the win is still a big accomplishment for the winery.
“It’s an awesome win for Dirty Laundry [Vineyard] it’s great for the Okanagan Valley, we have had some really tough vintages the last few years so a great win like this for Dirty Laundry Vineyard is awesome,” said Spink.
The 49 other wines that make up the top wines of the year are produced by familiar names like Tantalus Vineyards, Summerhill Pyramid Winery, Upper Bench Estate Winery and Creamery and Moon Curser Vineyards.
To see the full list, visit www.thewinefestivals.com