The Hillside Blog

2023 harvest at Hillside Winery

Harvest Recap – December 2023

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…

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Fermentation Vessels - Hillside Winery blog

Fermentation Vessels

As we prepare for our favourite time of year—grape harvest, affectionately referred to as “crush” not for what it does to the crew and winemaker, but what we do to the grapes—we plan and strategize our use of fermentation vessels for each block of grapes. Because red and white wines are made very differently, we…

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All About Mosaic

Winemaker, Winemaker Blend me a Wine… “Start with Merlot, make it taste fine, we want it to win awards when tasted blind, tell me what will Mosaic be?” What goes into blending a wine like Mosaic? “…for Mama add Cab Franc and Malbec, for Papa–Cabernet Sauvignon” Vineyard skill, careful barrel selection and cellar craftsmanship come…

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Sustainability and Resilience

As we celebrate budbreak, that magical period when the grapevine buds come out of dormancy, reconnect with the vine’s vascular system to draw up the nutrients stored in the root system through the winter, and unfurl two tiny leaves and a teeny pre-grape cluster, we wonder what the season will bring us. Each growing season…

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Why Does Vintage Matter?

To be truthful, it doesn’t always.  Some wines are made specifically to be the same year on year as variation is not considered desirable.  What I call “factory wines” are vinted and then blended with a view to give the consumer the same experience year on year.  Hence, warmer vintages may be blended with cooler,…

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Hillside Winery Giving Back

Giving Back ♥

I recently travelled to Napa to attend the BC Wine Leader’s Forum. This is an event conceived ten years ago by UBC Okanagan, first through their School of Business and now through the Wine Research Center, as a means of connecting with the wine industry to assess how these groups can best work together. This…

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Summer in the Vineyard 2022

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…

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