May 3, 2008

May 3, 2008

Forbidden Fruit Winery Picnic

 

A month ago, just after we left Baja Mexico and arrived in Yuma, Arizona, we received an e-mail newsletter from Forbidden Fruit Winery, our favourite local winery here in the Okanagan Similkameen region. They were announcing a picnic to be held on their grounds today, to release their 2007 production of wines. Their entire 2006 production of wines was sold out. We ordered a couple of tickets. A few days ago Joanne thought it would be a nice gesture of appreciation to invite our next door neighbour, Stu, who had collected and forwarded our mail all winter, to join us. So we bought another ticket for Stu.

Today was mild, but cloudy with occasional light rain. This morning we headed off for Forbidden Fruit Winery, a bit east of Cawston, the next village over from Keremeos. Forbidden Fruit is in a lovely setting on the banks of the Similkameen River, surrounded by the Cascade Mountains. Very similar to our property here at Riverside RV Park Resort. The picnic started with a sampling of each of Forbidden Fruit's eleven fruit wines, each paired with an appropriate cheese. We sampled all eleven wines, munching on a variety of cheeses, and rating the wines and the cheeses each wine was paired with. Very nice ! We were already familiar with some of Forbidden Fruit's wines, and had a "favourite". But now we've had an opportunity to sample and compare all of them. And we were particularly eager to try their new Plumiscuous, a plum wine that they produced for the first time. Last summer we visited Forbidden Fruit with some RV friends who were visiting us, and we had the opportunity to see them pitting the plums by hand for their first attempt at producing a plum wine. Now we got to try the finished product. And it was very good ! It will surely win awards at wine competitions this summer. All of their other products have won numerous wine awards. They produce only fruit wines, produced from fruits grown on their organic fruit orchards. They're certainly not cheap, but ... as is often the case ... you get what you pay for !

We sampled ;

Adam's Apple, an apple table wine

Pomme Desireé, an apple ice wine, my previous favourite

Ice Lady Mistelle, another apple ice wine, and now my new favourite

Impearfection, a pear ice wine

Pearsuasion, a pear table wine

Cherysh, a cherry rosé table wine

Crushed Innocence, a white peach ice wine

Caught, an apricot mistelle

Plumiscuous, the new red plum wine

Cerise d'Eve, a red cherry port wine

Bliss, a white cherry port wine

After the wine and cheese sampling, we each selected one wine to be served a wine glass full with our lunch. I selected Ice Lady Mistelle. Joanne selected Adam's Apple. Stu selected Cherysh. We sat down at one of the picnic tables set up under a large tent. Each of us was served a glass of our selected wine, a small French Baguette loaf of bread, a chunk of the cheese that was matched with our selected wine, and a small jar of wine jelly made from Pomme Desireé. We munched on that awaiting the main course. Glazed seasoned chicken breast, basted with apricot wine jelly, served sliced as medallions on top of spring greens, mixed with roasted apricots glazed with apricot wine jelly, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, a chunk of herbed vegetable paté, all drizzled with a vinaigrette salad dressing made with Pomme Desireé.

Gee, I'm salivating as I type this. I hope supper is ready soon ! Dessert was a chocolate cup filled with Ice Lady Mistelle, and a chocolate truffle made with Bliss, the white cherry port. The live entertainment was a blues duo called Cawston from, ( DUH ! ) of course, the village of Cawston. Before we left Joanne bought a bottle of Crushed Innocence.

DSK