WBC13: Okanagan-bound

Over the next five days, I'm going to be trying a lot of wine. A LOT of wine. Then I'm going to talk about wine, write about wine, do everything short of bathe in the stuff (although who knows where some of those surprise excursions will lead to?) It's all wine, all the time, at the 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference in Penticton, British Columbia.

Photo courtesy of Tourism Kelowna

Tomorrow's early (read: stupid o'clock) flights—interrupted by a brief stop in Calgary—will get me into Kelowna around mid-morning, Pacific time. That’s when I’ll have my first glimpse of the BC interior wine country. A view that’s been a long time coming.

A few years ago, I worked on a project about the Okanagan wine region, a place I'd never been to and knew so little about. I had to write from the perspective of someone who had just returned from a stellar vacation there, so I hit the books to brush up on the details. (Gee. Darn. The boss didn't have to ask me twice—I was all over it like botrytis on a grape cluster in Sauternes.)

I spent several days immersed in research until I felt as though I truly had been there myself. Places with names like Blasted Church, Wild Goose, Burrowing Owl, Quail’s Gate. Wines aged in a 1:8 replica of the Egyptian pyramids; vineyards run in partnership with a First Nations band; tastings held in award-winning architectural jewels on verdant mountainsides. When the project was done, I knew I had to see the Okanagan for myself. It was merely a question of when.

Now I've come full circle, and I can't wait for it all to begin.