Our fourth stop of the day was to finally try Elephant Island Orchard Wines.
My sister loves this fruit winery so I’ve been able to try a few of their flavours already. They also house and sell Naramata Cider.
Seems like every place has a truck outside.
We dropped in on a Friday afternoon (around 3:30pm) and it was packed. They had back to back groups (20-25 people) but still provided attentive service.
They’ve got a beautiful, spacious garden where you can sit and enjoy the sunshine. You can choose to sample inside or out; we did the latter. Service is fantastic, knowledgeable and friendly.
Closeup of some of their cherry trees. *Drool*
Flights are $5.00 each and let you sample four flavours (pre-selected). Fee is waived if you buy a bottle.
Closeup of their fruit wine bottles.
Closeup of their wines.
Closeup of their wines in the fridge along with some cured meats.
Wish they offered samples of the Naramata Ciders. We’ve tasted the dry apple and dry pear previously but would have loved to try their cider makers select series ($18.10).
There was 8 fruit and 6 regular wine options available.
Fruit wines are in the $18.40 to $23.90 range for a bottle.
While the wines are priced between 22.90 to $44.95.
Flight #1
These wines are from their orchard. 2018 pear wine, 2018 cherry wine, 2018 black currant wine and 2018 crab apple wine. Pear was a crisp, clean white.
Cherry was good but I wanted more flavour.
Black currant was well balanced and not overly tart.
Crab apple was light for a dessert wine but enjoyable.
Flight #2
These wines were from the vineyard. 2018 viognier, 2017 chardonnay, 2015 cab franc/merlot and 2018 framboise. Our two favourites, which we bought bottles of, were the viognier ($23.00) and framboise ($24.00).
The viognier was delightful; the honeysuckle gave it a nice fruity, floral note.
The chardonnay was surprisingly good; great buttery mouth feel.
Cab franc/merlot was decent but we don’t really remember it.
The framboise was amazing; literally like drinking raspberries in a glass. Blew us away!
Apricot dessert wine – our server offered to let us try anything else we wanted. We opted for the apricot; sweeter but also good. No picture of this one.
Love the fruit wines at Elephant Winery. Their garden area is heavenly so plan to spend some quality time here.
Elephant Island Orchard Wines
https://www.elephantislandwine.com/
2730 Aikins Loop
Naramata, BC
(250) 496-5522
CHERRY BOB-OMBS 