See Ya Later Ranch

See Ya Later Ranch_views
See Ya Later Ranch truck
See Ya Later Ranch Nelly

History

This winery has as rich and colourful a history as any in the Okanagan. In the early 1900s, brothers Sam and George Hawthorne carved a homestead and a ranch on this slope above Okanagan Falls, giving their name to the mountain here. In 1919 the ranch was purchased by Major Hugh Fraser, a former Montréal accountant. While serving in France during World War I, he was captured and spent two years as a war prisoner prior to the armistice. Shortly after the war, he came to the Okanagan to visit a playwright friend and liked the wide-open spaces so much that he stayed. Here, near the town of Okanagan Falls, he planted vines and seeded a legend. The ranch was his home for more than 45 years. The Major oversaw the planting of the first vines in 1961. The varieties were primarily Maréchal Foch, Chelois, Buffalo and Bath, the hybrid and labrusca varieties in general use in Canadian vineyards at the time. The grapes were sold to Andres Wines Ltd. by the Major. When he retired to Penticton in 1966, dying four years later, Bill Worth took over for several years before selling to a foreign buyer. Albert LeComte, a Saskatchewan-born sign company owner from Vancouver, bought the ranch in 1983. He converted the old dairy barn on the property for wine production and opened LeComte Estate Winery in 1986. One of his initial labels was a red blend called Count Bergerac. It was common then for Canadian wineries to devise labels that gave a French patina to a Canadian wine. LeComte’s most successful wines were made from newly planted Gewürztraminer. These caught the attention of Sumac Ridge founder Harry McWatters who needed more Gewürztraminer to supply one of his top brands. He recognized that the ranch was one of the Okanagan’s best sites for the variety. In 1995, he bought the winery and renamed it Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards. Both this winery and Sumac Ridge were acquired in 2000 by Vincor. In 2003, Hawthorne Mountain created the See Ya Later label for its reserve wines. The wines were so well received that Major Fraser’s favourite phrase became the winery’s third and current name.

Wild Goose Winery

History

It all began in early 1983 when founder Adolf Kruger purchased a promising piece of land east of Okanagan Falls. Upon his return to his newly-purchased property he discovered a large flock of Canada geese feeding amongst the local flora on the rocky terrain. As he approached, the flock of geese took flight. This vision inspired Adolf to call the property Wild Goose Vineyards. Adolf first planted Riesling and Gewürztraminer with the intention of selling the grapes grown. Over the next few years, outstanding wines were produced by purchasers of these aromatic grapes. In the late eighties Adolf and two other parties formed a plan that would allow smaller wineries to make wine using grapes grown on site that could be sold through the “farm gate”. After much lobbying and persistence, the farm gate winery was born in British Columbia. Wild Goose Winery became the seventeenth winery in BC and was established in June 1990. The winery started producing Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Maréchal Foch. Over time Wild Goose would establish itself as a premium small producer of VQA wines. In July of 2021, the Wyse family of Burrowing Owl Vineyards proudly announced their acquisition of the tremendously popular Wild Goose Vineyards & Winery. Burrowing Owl Estate Winery’s knowledge and experience in producing ultra-premium wines provide a solid platform for Wild Goose products to continue delivering excellence for years to come.

Blasted Church

History

Situated on a bench overlooking Skaha Lake, Black Market Wine Co. crafts distinctive small lot wines. In addition to our organically-farmed Conviction Ridge vineyard in picturesque Kaleden, other vineyards from which we source our grapes are responsibly and sustainably farmed by growers who care as much about quality as we do. Our journey began as Garagistes, producing just 100 cases of the 2012 vintage of our signature red blend The Syndicate. Working out of another winery has provided us the opportunity to grow and develop our craft. 2020 marks the start of a new chapter as we open our own winery and tasting room in Kaleden.The vines at Blasted Church grow on sloping plateau above the eastern shore of Skaha Lake. From the windswept hilltop where the wineshop is situated, there are picture postcard views across the lake to the village of Kaleden on the western shore. The vines grow on sandy loam; the good mix of sand and clay give the soils good water-holding capacity. The winery makes its own compost, adding it to give the vineyard more organic matter. Vines were first planted here in the 1970s by Croatian-born Dragan (Dan) Prpich who came to the Okanagan in 1973 after working as a millwright in a Hamilton steel mill. Having grown up in a winemaking culture, Prpich decided in 1995 to add a winery to the vineyard. He opened the winery in 2000 but, as a consequence of family tragedies, sold it in 2002. Evelyn Campbell, the new and current owner, was a certified general accountant who had an independent practice in Vancouver. Wanting to run a business of her own, Evelyn investigated seven wineries during two and a half years before buying Prpich Vineyards. Putting her own stamp on the winery, the name was ultimately changed in consultation with Brandever Strategy Inc., a Vancouver company specializing in branding wineries. The name, Blasted Church, was inspired by a colourful chapter in the history of Okanagan Falls. In 1929 an Okanagan Falls congregation sent a crew under foreman Harley Hatfield to dismantle and move a Presbyterian church from Fairview, the mining ghost town near modern-day Oliver. Hatfield used a small dynamite charge inside the building to loosen the nails. The steeple fell down but the rest of the church was dismantled successfully and rebuilt in Okanagan Falls. It came to be referred to as “the blasted church,” and served Presbyterian, Anglican and United congregations well into the current century. The stained glass windows in the church were a gift of Major Hugh Fraser, who owned the property that became See Ya Later Ranch Vineyards. The story of the church, along with other vignettes of Okanagan Falls history, has been memorialized through the colourful caricature figures that populate the Blasted Church labels. Original art was commissioned for the initial family of labels and again in 2010 when the labels were refreshed. The labels have won numerous international design awards. More to the point, the labels powered a more than 10-fold growth in the sales of Blasted Church wines over the first decade after the Campbells acquired the winery. In 2018, the winery introduced new labels where figures from classical paintings are plucked from their holy surroundings and placed into modern-day scenarios. Inspired by Renaissance era masterworks, these creative labels depict an artistic rebirth at a time of increased innovation in the Blasted Church wine program spearheaded by winemaker, Evan Saunders. In the last year Evan has expanded the wine offering with a new selection of revered wines called the Small Blessings series, named for their small lot production and made with minimal intervention in the cellar using techniques that are often labour intensive, but which allow the fruit to shine. The winery also introduced wines made in a clay amphora and a clay egg, and even bottled the 2016 Sacrosanct Cabernet Franc in handmade terracotta – all produced by the same craftsman using the same clay in the town of Impruneta, Italy. Blasted Church is the first winery in Canada and among the first in the world to source terracotta bottles.

Black Market Wine Co.

Black Market Winery views

History

Situated on a bench overlooking Skaha Lake, Black Market Wine Co. crafts distinctive small lot wines. In addition to our organically-farmed Conviction Ridge vineyard in picturesque Kaleden, other vineyards from which we source our grapes are responsibly and sustainably farmed by growers who care as much about quality as we do.

Our journey began as Garagistes, producing just 100 cases of the 2012 vintage of our signature red blend The Syndicate. Working out of another winery has provided us the opportunity to grow and develop our craft. 2020 marks the start of a new chapter as we open our own winery and tasting room in Kaleden.