Pentage Winery

Harvest sets the calendar in the South Okanagan. From late summer into the cool bright mornings of October the benches above the valley floor fill with pickers and bins, and everything a small wine producer does for the rest of the year bends around those few weeks. Outside of harvest the work moves indoors to the cellar, and the public side of the operation shifts to hosting people who want to taste what came out of previous vintages and understand how this stretch of the valley shapes them.

Two things are worth sorting out before you drive up. Visiting hours at valley wineries swing hard with the season, busy through summer and much quieter once the tourists thin out, so a phone call first saves a wasted trip. The second is the driver. Penticton sits between two lakes with vineyards on the benches both sides, tasting rooms are spread out along narrow roads, and anyone planning to visit more than one should decide in advance who is staying dry. Larger groups are usually better off giving notice as well.