Head: Pentâge Winery a thrilling new destination
Pentâge Winery is open. After a short trial run last season, Julie Rennie and Paul Gardner have reopened their wine shop and extraordinary winery experience to the public. Not new to the wine world, this couple has been creating award-winning wines for a many years, and during those years they have been working on creating the rest of the experience and boy, is it worth the wait.
This highly anticipated opening is set to thrill visitors. Not only do they offer a spectacular viewing property, set high upon the cliffs over Skaha Lake and award-winning wines, they also offer a new wine country experience like no other—a 5,000 square foot natural wine cave. Carved into the granite on the mountainside by evolution and the glaciers, along with a bit of man-made ingenuity it was a natural fit.
The enclosed space is naturally climate controlled and home to the barrel cellar and custom designed stainless steel tanks. By working with the rock contours the tanks provide maximum use of the space while reducing the floor footprint they occupy.
The vineyard and winery buildings were carefully planted and built in concert with the natural environment surrounding them. Paul and Julie have thoughtfully transformed this challenging and unique 23-acre mountainside property with both creativity and a lot of hard work since its purchase in 1996 (vineyard planted in 1997).
As for their beautiful wines, Paul and Julie explain, “We limit our annual production to approximately 5,000 cases a year—this enables us the ability to create exceptional small lot releases and maintain our hands-on approach for quality control.” This philosophy and winemaking style have been awarded with multiple platinum awards, gold medals and two Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence in British Columbia Wines to name just a few.
Pentâge Winery is open 1-5 p.m. daily from May to October 15.
