Photo: Painted Rock’s John Skinner
The Syrah from Painted Rock is a consistent gold medal winner. The two vineyard blocks (along with the rest of the vineyard) survived the 2024 freeze, which means more gold medal Syrahs in the future.
I can claim some personal authorship in those blocks. Some years ago when I was working on one of my books, I interviewed John Skinner, Painted Rock’s founder, when the Skaha Bench vineyard planting was still incomplete. John recounts – and I don’t remember the conversation – asking me what varietal he should put in the remaining unplanted area. Apparently, I replied: “Have you ever thought of Syrah?” He took my suggestion.
I think we were both lucky. I was not trained in viticulture and had little qualification (not counting the four hybrid reds in my front yard) to be handing out vineyard planting advice. But Syrah was, and remains, my favourite red wine. I am glad my spur of the moment advice was actually good. Painted Rock’s Syrah is one of my favourite Okanagan wines, even though it has become a bit pricey.
But then, Painted Rock does not cheap wines. Its wines can compete with the best wines from California (if we could get them) or France. Painted Rock is among the few B.C. wineries distributing wines in Europe.
On reading the specifications for these wines, I picked up detail about Painted Rock’s winemaking I had not noticed before. Most of the red wines are processed in small batches kept separate from the vineyard through barrel aging before final blending takes place. This enables to winemaking team to identify the very best lots to assemble into Red Icon, the flagship wine. It also allows them to craft the other wines to be top quality.
I don’t know what happens to batches, if any, that do not make the cut. They would be hot items on the bulk market.
Here are notes on the latest releases.
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