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Now what is happening in the vineyard?(are we there yet???!!!) The vines right now are in a lag phase when they soak up sunlight and slowly create the precursor substances that will contribute to ripening.  Not much change is evident until veraison occurs.  This is when the berry starts to change colour, soften and sweeten,…

Oh my goodness, where do I start? Well, let’s start at the end. How do we know when it is time to stop aging a wine?  It’s a simple answer: when it is no longer improving or evolving in a positive way—ie it is “over the hill”.  The problem is our severe lack of time…

What is happening in the vineyard? Well…so much has happened since we last talked!  The vines have gone from bare trunks with 2 or 3 shoots to a lush jungle of green.  Bud Break occurred in the first week of May (about a week later than “normal”) pushing tiny leaves up out of the shoot…

Our July 2020 blog post gave an overview of what happens in the vineyard through the summer and how critical good vineyard management is.  “The quality of the fruit and the health of the vines are ensured through good canopy management. The canopy is made up of all the green growth which arises from the…

snpinktn a place to stay forever… Hillside winery is located on the Naramata Bench, in Penticton.  Our fruit is all grown on the Naramata Bench, vines planted on the traditional lands of the Syilx people, who named this area snpinktn which means “a place to stay forever” or “the place where people live year-round”.  This…

The term intervention in winemaking spans a spectrum of practices. In theory, zero intervention would indicate that fruit is left on the vine and no wine is made. Maximum intervention would be…well let’s come back to that. The grapevine’s primary job, in fact its only desire, is to propagate. It wants to create the condition…

Through the summer of 2010, Hillside hosted a number of “terroir tastings” from barrels, illustrating the similarities and differences between four blocks of 2009 Merlot from the Naramata bench and one Oliver block.  The difference was obvious—almost a Sesame Street segment of “one of these things is not like the other” –the wine from Oliver…

Smoke and heat. Everyone wants to know how/if/how badly/how long they may affect the grapes and wine. The answer? So do we! Heat domes and wildfires in grape growing areas are new enough phenomena that we are learning so much year by year. The good news for us on the Naramata Bench is that we…

Part 3 of 3: Why do we use oak in winemaking? The red edition… The use of oak in winemaking is so much more about structure than flavour: Red wines are aged (not “fermented”) in oak. The barrels are filled after fermentation and extended skin contact are completed—this is 20-30 days post-harvest. We try to…