Savor the Okanagan: British Columbia's scenic valley with its deep lakes wineries and hot restaurants is at its summer best - tourism; restaurant, hotel information - includes recipes

Sunset, August, 2003 by Kate Washington, Steven R. Lorton

On a warm Saturday afternoon in early August the arbor shaded produce stand filled with baskets of ripe fruit is busy. The sunlight glittering on the surface of nearby Skaha Lake, where hillsides green with vineyards and or shards slope to the water's edge, is intense, but within, the thick walls of the stand, it feels cool Neighbors and tourists stock up on the last cherries and the first apples of the season. Owners Dave and Arlene Sloan chat with the regulars as Dave blends creamy raspberry smoothies.

August is the peak of the peach harvest season in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley--a long, narrow, glacier-carved basin filled with a string of gorgeous lakes that stretches more then 100 miles north from the U.S. border in central Washington. For more than a century, this valley has been Canada's fruit bowl, known throughout the western provinces for its fragrant, perfectly ripe peaches and sunny beaches. But it's beginning to change. In the late 1980s, vintners started taking advantage of the Okanagan's warm climate, turning it into a fast-growing premium wine region. And now the combination of fresh local produce and award-winning wine is drawing top chefs to the area's increasingly sophisticated restaurants.

Today the Okanagan is the West's next big discovery. It's time to head north.

Fresh from the tree

"Our stand has become a meeting spot," Arlene says when the crush of customers dies down. The reason for its popularity, even more than the setting of stony gray hills, green orchards, and sapphire lakes, is the enthusiasm of the Sloans, who opened the stand at their Matheson Creek Farm three years ago. "We wanted others to enjoy our farm," Arlene says. "We love it." So do the couple's three children. "We're hoping one of our kids will be the fourth generation farming here," she says.

To make that happen, the Sloans and growers like them have been forced to think creatively. Orchards haven't vanished in the face of vineyards here as they have in some U.S. wine regions--Arlene says it's still a 6-to-i ratio of orchards to vineyards--hut the business is changing. The Sloans use innovative techniques to grow the trees closer together and produce higher yields. New fruit varieties, such as Sunrise apples, were developed at the local agricultural research station. Still, large-scale commercial production doesn't pay like it used to.

Andrea McFadden's family has been growing apples near Kelowna since 1908, but she found that she could no longer make a living growing them commercially. Nowadays she grows more than 60 varieties of lavender for culinary and other purposes at her Okanagan Lavender Herb Farm.

Drive the length of the Okanagan--from the forests of pine and fir in the north, through the more developed suburbs around Kelowna, and into the drier, rolling hills that fade to desert near Osoyoos--and you're never far from orchards and vineyards. Along the way, you II meet other families balancing their fruit-growing heritage with the need to diversify. At the No. 1 Fruit Stand in Kaleden, Barb Schwabe sells homemade pies and pickled asparagus along with family-grown fruit; even her 7-year-old daughter, Tayler, pitches in. At Robert's Fruit Market & Orchard in Summerland, Barbara Robert and her family make preserves and baked goods to supplement their fruit sales.

While orchards are still the backbone of the Okanagan, the growers' willingness to diversify is one of the driving forces behind change here. That and, of course, the new vineyards.

The fruit of the vine

"Chefs in Vancouver talk about us like we're a cult winery, but the reality is, we're small and we plan to stay that way," says Ian Sutherland, winemaker and owner of tiny Poplar Grove Winery. Sitting on his deck, looking out over vineyards and orchards to Okanagan Lake, Sutherland seems to enjoy the notoriety. Poplar Grove recently started making cheeses in addition to its acclaimed wines, and so far the demand for both has far outstripped supply, much to Sutherland's delight. "We love being sold out," he says.

A former apple orchard, Poplar Grove is perched on the Naramata Bench, a 20-mile ridge running along the east side of Okanagan Lake. Sutherland and his wife, Gitta, bought the property 12 years ago, gradually building up their wine production to the still small level of 2,000 to 2,500 cases per year. Getting to this stage required dedication and tolerance for debt. "Luckily, I had very little vision about what it would be like," says Sutherland.

Indeed, 20 years ago, few people envisioned how winemaking in the Okanagan would grow. Today more than 5,500 acres of premium wine grapes have been planted in the region, replacing older vineyards planted with inferior grapes. Though that number is small compared to Napa Valley or Sonoma County, and most of the area's 60-plus wineries are small, don't be fooled: the Okanagan is not all homegrown and quaint. The region's potential is being tapped by some major players like Mission Hill Family Estate and Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Estate, which have built state-of-the-art wineries, brought in consultants, and raised the bar for quality. The hot southern growing region near Oliver has such potential that it has been dubbed the Golden Mile.