Bubbly On Board

A bus tour leaves one lesbian escapee crushed out on Canadian wine country.

by Carellin Brooks Barnes

See, I like to think of myself as an independent traveler. The pared-down backpack, the snacks scarfed from questionable street vendors. Unpackaged, that's my style. So what was I doing on an honest-to-goodness motorcoach, complete with tour guide and microphone, wending its way through British Columbia's very own badlands?

I confess: it was the drink. And driving myself on the region's windy roads seemed like a certain-disaster recipe. Hence, the lumbering motorcoach, which would make boozing it up, even from 9 a.m. onward, a relatively safe prospect.

And there was plenty of boozing to be done. The Okanagan, also known as the Interior because of its position in the middle of Canada's westernmost province, is now home to dozens of wineries. And while Canadian wine may still be a joke in faraway lands, locals know that our whites and, increasingly, reds, are as sophisticated as the best in the world. In fact, British Columbia wines regularly bring home medals from international competitions. The whites range from bone-dry to Alsatian-style florals, and the reds from the dainty Pinot to more aggressive Aussie clones. The range is possible through a combination of Canada's dryest and warmest weather—in fact, the country's single Pocket Desert is located here—and new technologies that make fermentation more a science than an art. Nowadays the region hosts a wine festival each season to lure tourists like us. It works.

We were booked for events ranging from a wine and hors d'oeuvres event in our own hotel to small-town Oliver's Festival of the Grape, with samples poured by regional wineries. In between we'd visit vineyards, learn how wine was made, and (I hoped) drink gallons of the good stuff.

It made sense on paper, but I entered the coach with some trepidation. Besides being (I assumed) the only homosexual on the venture, I was also, so I'd been informed when I gaily booked my ticket, the only single person. My long-suffering lesbian husband was staying home to mind the children. She doesn't like wine.

Our first day we picked our way around the gravel paths of Minter Gardens outside Vancouver. Over lunch I downed a large glass of plonk as the first gulp of my drinking regime. Three sisters sharing my table, all from a faraway suburb, asked me owlishly what I was doing on the tour. "Getting away from the children," I replied. And who was looking after the children? "My husband," I said. The nosiest sister blinked. "How nice of him."

I hadn't been in the closet since high school, when I didn't know I was a lesbian myself. I opened my mouth, shut it again, and took the path of least resistance. "Yes, isn't it?" I murmured finally. And buried myself hastily in my glass.

Things got better that night at Crush, our first foray into local product. Around the hotel conference room, wineries poured samples from their best bottles. I tried to keep track but after the first fifteen slurps it was hopeless. In the end I abandoned my plan of pairing German-style whites with the appropriate snacks and simply drank whatever they gave me.

By 9 a.m. the next morning we were drinking again. And despite our best efforts we were learning something too: about modern stainless-steel vats and their glycol jackets, French oak barrels, the purpose of caves, and how to slow down or speed up the process of fermentation. "It's all about control," intoned the tour guide at Burrowing Owl, reminding me of some lesbians I've known. We tasted fruit wines at Silver Sage and listened to the faraway cannons try, futilely, to frighten off grape-stealing birds at Hester Creek. By twelve-thirty, when the bus dropped us off in a large field dotted by crafts booths and anchored by wineries pouring, you guessed it, more samples, I was done. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick of wine," I muttered to Don the bus driver before staggering off toward the main street, there to try and find a libation that didn't involve alcohol.

The last day of our trip found us old hands and pretty much old friends too. Over lunch at Sumac Ridge I drank sparkling wine I'd seen being riddled (the process of dislodging the yeast in bottles of sparkling wine) in the cellars downstairs. On the way back to Vancouver the two standoffish thirtysomething women drank openly from a gallon jug of plonk and, swaying, handed around a thank-you card, complete with fat tip, for the driver and our guide. We pulled into Vancouver late: my spouse was waiting with the children in tow. I embraced her lavishly as the other passengers trailed off the coach. I'd survived my first bus tour. And I had a feeling it wouldn't be my last.

Okay, Okanagan

Best-Bet Stops in British Columbia's Vineyards

Get tickets-also in advance, because they sell out-for at least one festival special event, like a winemaker's dinner or one of the group pours.

If you're driving yourself, call a local tour company to arrange a chauffered day trip to local wineries. Then drink yourself stupid.

Stock up on bottles you can only buy locally, like Blue Mountain's excellent sparkler or the small-lots program from Sandhill.

Approach the hype, like Summerhill's pyramid or Dirty Laundry's relaunched, sexier nomenclature, with skepticism, but don't let marketing gimmicks turn you off surprisingly good wines.

Want a weighty souvenir? Bring home a barrel: old oak ones are sawed in half and sold at local Home Depots as planters.

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