Checkmate Artisanal Winery is SW of Oliver "Canada's Wine Capital", and is known for its vineyards and wineries.
The desert-like conditions and ample sunshine, are ideal for grape ripening.
The area previously was planted primarily with apple and cherry orchards.
Okanagan Valley winegrowing region stretches about 165 kilometres (100 miles) from north to south.
The Okanagan Valley is home to over 200 licensed grape wineries. It's the second largest wine region in Canada and boasts a wide variety of grapes and wine styles.
The Vision
CheckMate Artisanal Winery founder Anthony von Mandl started with little more than a vision and not a dime to his name. But bootstrapping his own wine merchant business led him around the world, to some of the most established wine producers. With his insatiable curiosity, sharp attention to detail, and no time or money to waste, he quickly learned to recognize the common traits shared by the world’s best growing regions, looking for signs like succulent stone fruit or crisp apples or flourishing cherries that wherever they grew, often hinted at the potential for growing temperamental grapes like chardonnay.
From the CheckMate Winery
CheckMate Artisanal Winery
Behind closed doors, a daring initiative took place over the past few years to make New World Chardonnay and Merlot with Old World elegance in North America. The ecologically pristine region of Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada, sits north of the 49th parallel. Glacial-fed lakes stretch along a narrow valley floor at an altitude of more than 1200 feet. As the world warms, cool regions such as the Okanagan Valley provide a new frontier for world-class Chardonnay and Merlot. Cooler regions consistently provide sufficient warmth during their growing seasons to fall within the climatic envelopes for these classic Burgundian and Bordeaux varietals.
Great wine starts in the vineyards and our five different sites, each at a different location, uniquely express soil and mesoclimates. At CheckMate, everything is tended to by hand: canopy management, leaf-pulling and cluster-thinning are done manually to ensure precision and gentleness.
From Destination Osoyoos