My Intro to Wake Up workshop ended a couple of Tuesdays ago. However, I’m not sure I can now consider myself “woke” in that it is an ongoing project to become a better, more aware person around the subject of racism and bias in our world. But at least it’s a start. The last three sessions were on the topics of reparations, intersectionality, and ally-ship. I found the topic of reparations particularly powerful and, from the readings, became convinced that finding ways to provide economic opportunity is especially meaningful since there are so many examples of how much systemic racism has resulted in a huge deficit in assets by people of color in the US. And without any wealth, everything else becomes very difficult.
The articles we read also talk about how it’s not all about money but also about acknowledgement and I started thinking that the US needs a truth and reconciliation commission like what happened in South Africa after apartheid but then John’s friend Robin, who also lived in Africa, reminded me how bad things still are in S. Africa around race so that cooled my jets on the commission idea. I really enjoyed the process of working on the topic with other people and plan to continue my education on my own. The next book on my list to read on the topic is Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.
On Thursday, John and I went on a mountain bike ride in Kal Lake park which is known for its wonderful single track (i.e. narrow) trails. The views are amazing and it all went well at first but, unfortunately, it ended badly on a downhill section, I flipped my bike, flew over the handlebars, and landed in such a way that I broke my left elbow (specifically, a radial head fracture). Having barely recovered from breaking my right shoulder in another mountain biking fall in late May in California, I’ve concluded I’m simply not skilled enough to do this kind of mountain bike riding. Or, at a minimum, I’ll need to stop riding with John! It’s frustrating because I was so looking forward to riding around Vancouver, where we are headed on Friday. We’ll see if my arm heals quickly enough that I can do some sedate riding around Stanley park in a few weeks. Here’s hoping…
I got the x-ray on Friday morning but a fractured arm was not enough to keep me from proceeding with our planned getaway to the Southern Okanagan for a weekend of wine tasting. We left at noon on Friday and made our way South to Osoyoos, a funky little tourist town very near the US border. On the way, we stopped at three wineries to taste their wares; Laughing Stock, Painted Rock, and Stoneboat.
Painted Rock winery is in an amazingly stunning location, surrounded by big, beautiful rocks up on the Skaha Bench, a wine area just South of the Naramata Bench near the town of Penticton. These “benches” are like giant shelves between the rock cliffs and the lake and provide enough soil for vineyards. Many of these Southern Okanagan wineries are making wonderful Bordeaux blends that are hitting the wine map, not that John or I are sophisticated enough to actually be able to assess them.
This trip reminded me of just how dry and desert-like the Southern Okanagan is. The hills are rocky with many desert plants in evidence. It is a harsh and dramatic landscape.
On Saturday, we drove West to the Similkameen valley which is less developed and more rural (Similkameen Valley is to Okanagan as Anderson Valley is to Napa). We’d visited the Similkameen about 5 years ago and loved it. The valley is filled with fruit trees, especially apples at this time of year, as well as vineyards and cideries.
We started at the Orofino winery where I enjoyed all the wines, followed by Hugging Tree where we heard from our wine hostess about a new restaurant nearby called Row 14 that opened a year ago and has been winning awards for its food. We immediately called and got a reservation for lunch and headed right over. It’s a gorgeous farm to table eatery; all their produce comes from their 40-acre organic farm. We ordered three dishes that we shared; Tomato: labneh, basil, tomato and onion ash; Eggplant: smoked tomato and miso, gomae dare, crispy garlic; Squash: miso sabayon, Ikura, furikake. It was all incredibly good, our best meal of 2020, and the fact that it’s there probably means that the Similkameen is on its way to being discovered. Hidden gems don’t stay hidden for too long.
We rounded out the day by tasting at the Courcelette Estate Winery where John particularly enjoyed the Cabernet-Syrah.
Then we had a beautiful drive back to Osoyoos where it was warm enough to go for a dip in the lake from the beach right outside our hotel.
On Sunday, we took a walk on the Osoyoos Oxbows trail. We learned about the terrible environmental consequence of the flood control implemented in the 1950’s that involved building a canal connecting Skaha to Osoyoos lake, bypassing the oxbow lakes and resulting in the loss of 85% of the habitat that surrounded the looping oxbow lakes. Though there is some effort at reclamation, the development of the Okanagan valley including all those wineries we were visiting makes the possibility of habitat restoration unlikely. There’s not much left for the birds!
We proceeded to our final two tastings at Black Hills Estate winery,
and Le Vieux Pin, whose winemaker, Severine Pinte, is also a viticulturist and business woman. She was recruited from France by the winery owner and is also the winemaker at another winery, La Stella. I read an article about her and she was trained in France but says she will never go back as she really enjoys the greater opportunities for women in the Canadian wine industry and the more casual environment here.
It was harvest time at many wineries, including Le Vieux Pin, and big loads of purple grapes were pulling up to the winery as we were tasting.
They also had samples of the soil from each of their vineyards and this photo is of the soil from the vineyard that produced one of the wines that we purchased.
By the end of our weekend, we’d purchased a total of two cases of wine from some of the 10 wineries we visited. Though our habit has generally been to drink as quickly as we purchase, John is excited about turning over a new leaf and “putting down” some of the wines we bought for a year or two. We’ll see if we can actually leave them alone for that long.
I’ll end with three photos I took today, sunflowers in front of a Vernon home, and Moose enjoying sitting on the deck with us this evening, watching the sunset.
