Garagiste Wine Party
Four years and seven festivals later, Garagiste North returns to Kelowna to wow wine lovers with a unique taste of the future of wine country. The first of its kind in Canada, Garagiste North "The Small Producers" Wine Festival, celebrates the artisan winemaker creating commercially produced small case lot wines (under 2000 cases).
The Garagistes are an eclectic blend of passion and experience, new and old, the cult and the boutique, some with tasting rooms and many without - all gathered in one spot. This is an evolutionary and revolutionary festival, it was the first of its kind in Canada and no two festivals will be exactly alike as new wineries continue to pop up and join the industry and those who grow past the 2000 case qualifying limit becoming ‘Garagiste Graduates’ with many manifesting their dream of a vineyard or winery. The ‘custom crush’ is how many winemakers and fledgling wineries join the industry- by contracting an existing licensed winery to produce wine under their license. For many reasons, including land costs, this is the most cost-effective entry point for the small producer with big dreams.
The inaugural festival in 2014 held in Okanagan Falls captured the hearts of the wine-loving crowd, who were delighted to taste these exclusive wines and have the opportunity to talk directly to the winemaker/proprietor, who is there to pour the wine- there are no wine reps here! The Garagiste Guild Members together make for one heck of a wine party.
The Garagiste pop-up wine store will be on site so tasters can fill their baskets with their favourites before they leave. This year the organizers have included more artisan vendors including Sweet Dee's Flower Truck and Kiln9 Ceramics.
WHEN: Sunday, August 19 2-4:30 pm
WHERE: Sperling Vineyards, 1405 Pioneer Road, Kelowna
WHAT: The coolest wine festival ever
HOW MUCH: $49 (includes tasting, Riedel Crystal tasting glass, live music pop up wine store and so much more!)
WHO: 20+ wineries! Anarchist Mountain Vineyard | Anthony Buchanan Wines | BC Wine Studio | Black Cloud Winery | Black Market Wine Co. | Bottega Wine Studio | Coolshanagh Winery | Dames Wine | Forgotten Hill Wine Co. | Giant Head Estate Winery | Lariana Cellars | Marionette Winery | MOCOJO Winery | Nagging Doubt Wines | Schell Wines | SKAHA Vineyard | Tall Tale Wines | |vin Amité Cellars | Winemakers Cut...AND Kelowna's hottest new beer & cider makers: Vice & Virtue Brewing and Truck '59 Cidery!
RauDZ Regional Table chefs will be on site selling gourmet pizza by the slice as a fundraiser to send Team Canada to the Culinary Olympics in Europe!
GARAGISTE – (gar-ah-jeest) noun, Fr. : The Garagiste originally refers to a group of winemakers in the Bordeaux region of France, producing "vins de garage" or "garage wine". They were renegade small-lot winemakers, sometimes working in their garage, who refused to follow industry laws and protocol. synonyms: Rebels, pioneers, renegades, individualists, mavericks, driven by passion.