Stumbling upon the Elephant: Elephant Island Winery of Naramata Bench

How we selected this winery

If you drive on the Naramata road, say, because you are on a winery hopping tour, you are bound to see an elephant everywhere! At some point, you will see it literally at every turn. An elephant is cut out of cardboard and serves as an advertisement for the Elephant Island Winery. It is this cardboard elephant and the fact that our planned destination winery was closed on that day that we found ourselves at the Elephant Island Winery.

Whenever we think of Elephant Island winery, we can’t get away from the thought of the proverbial elephant in the room. The cardboard elephants that dot the Naramata road are not the only reason behind this persistent imagery.

Elephant Island Winery was one of the first five wineries to start on the Naramata bench in the early 2000s. You may think that after being in business for some 20-odd years and being good at what they do, this place will be well known in Okanagan and widely recommended. Alas, and alack, this is not the case. We challenge you to ask around and see if anyone will recommend them. Chances are you will get a recommendation for a newer Little Engine Wines or even a mediocre Township 7 Vineyards before anyone would think of Elephant Island Winery. You may wonder: “How could that be”? We may just have an answer to that question!

Elephant Island Winery, what are they about?

Whenever anyone says “wine”, we all think of white or red wine. Maybe, for the right occasion, we think of rosé or sparkling wines. On rare occasions, the word “wine” may awaken the thought of fortified wine, such as port or Madeira.

All these wines have one common characteristic. They are all made of grapes!

Elephant Island Winery started as a fruit winemaker. There’s a never-ending debate on whether fruit wine is wine. But don’t take our word for it. Check Google or any other search engine, and you will see that one of the frequently asked questions related to fruit wines is if fruit wine is wine. It is this uncertainty about the fruit wine’s status in the wine kingdom and its relatively low popularity that makes this well-established winery an elephant of the Okanagan winemaking scene.

Without a doubt, the current owners of Elephant Island Winery were well aware of this travesty when they decided to diversify their business and introduce alcoholic beverages made of grapes to their business repertoire. Today, they continue offering fortified and non-fortified fruit wines. They also added “regular” red, white, rosé and sparkling wines to their repertoire. But, we fear, the image of the Elephant Island Winery as a fruit wine business has been well and long cemented…Or has it?

Elephant Island Winery visit. What to expect

The first thought that comes to mind when we think of our experience visiting Elephant Island is reflected exceptionally well in the phrase “Salt of the Earth”. It applies both to the people who work at this winery, as well as to the place itself.

Elephant Island Winery is completely devoid of wine snobbery, an unfortunate must-have trait that has become routine among many wineries.

Not sure what we are talking about? Drop by some of the better-known wineries in the hood, and you will get a good dose of the “attitude” from the wineries’ personas. It is not the case with Elephant Island Winery!

Visitors are treated as good acquaintances and seated on the patio outside the wine-tasting room.

Their patio features a collection of very eclectic-looking furniture. Mature orchid trees are so close by that all you need to do is make a couple of steps to reach out and touch their branches. Not that we recommend you do that!

The winery is also dog friendly, which is great for those who are reluctant to leave their four-legged family members behind.

The tasting room stewards are lovely people. What they lack in viticulture knowledge, they compensate plentifully with friendliness and honest admiration for the wines made by their employers. While not the expert on anything winemaking, the wine tasting room steward that we met, who also dubs a wine educator, had a deep knowledge of the winery and the family behind them.

We are being honest when we say that visiting the Elephant Island Winery feels more like a visit to a friend than a visit to a wine tasting room. The location is so tranquil that you start dreaming of putting up a hammock, pouring a glass of wine and watching life go by in no time.

Elephant Island Winery. What’s behind the name?

Thanks to Elephant Island’s wine educator, we learned about the founders’ Eastern European roots. Turns out, there is quite a fascinating story behind this winery. The current owner’s grandmother bought the property as a vacation home and an investment. The grandfather thought it was a dud and called it a “white elephant”.

Long story short, the investment didn’t turn out to be a white elephant after all. Instead, the grandparents ended up retiring on the property. As they had a large orchard, the grandfather started making fruit wines following old Eastern European recipes. These wines were initially meant for the family’s own consumption. Time passed, and grandmother wanted to sell the property. That is when the granddaughter stepped in and offered to buy them out with a plan to turn the property into a commercial winery. And this is how the Elephant Island Winery came to be.

The granddaughter and her husband started their commercial enterprise by making exclusively fruit wines and ciders. With time they diversified into making wines from grapes or, as some may say, “regular” wines.

Wine tasting at Elephant Island Winery. To taste or not to taste?

You can choose between Current release tasting or Premium tasting. With the Current release, you get to taste 4 wines. It comes at $10 per person, waived with the purchase of two wines. Premium tasting requires a reservation. You get to taste 4 Reserve wines and 2 wines from the current releases. Premium tasting comes at $20 per person. Both of these tasting options are seated experiences.

The Elephant Island Winery also offers farm tour and tasting, available with at least two days advance notice. Wine Club members get to taste for free.

Current release tasting is available for either regular wines or fruit wines. As we did not care for fruit wines, we opted for regular wine tasting.

The owners should be recognized for the creative names given to their wines. They have Merlot named “Think Again”, Cabernet Franc named “Naysayer”, Chardonnay with a teaser name “The other way” and Viognier/Sauvignon blend that proudly declares, “Told you so”. These labels are a tongue-in-cheek answer to all those who didn’t believe that the “fruit wine people” could make real wine. The question is, did the Naysayers get it wrong about the Elephant Island Winery?

Having tasted their grape wines, we think the Naysayers got it right.

The four wines we tried, without exception, were quite awkward. A strange aftertaste in their Chardonnay made us question if the wine we tasted was indeed a grape wine. All of the wines we tried were light-bodied with not much depth to them. The finish… “What finish?” is the best way to describe our impression of their wines. By the time we ended our tasting session, we were confident that we would have to chuck this experience into the bucket of “I will never get this half an hour back.”

Fortunately, the wine educator saved the day by offering us their Cassis and Blackcurrant wines. To say that we liked these wines is an understatement. We were thoroughly impressed with the two fruit wines that we tried.

Without a doubt, the Elephant Island Winery folks know what they are doing when it comes to fruit wines.

Their “regular” wines? Well, not that much…

Elephant Island Winery. The wine we took home with us

Our rule is not to buy more than one bottle of wine from any winery we visit. That is unless we are travelling overseas, and the chance that we may visit the winery again is next to zero. As it remains debatable if fruit wine is wine, we figured the one-bottle rule didn’t apply. We ended up buying three!

The three bottles of wine we took home are Blackcurrant fruit wine, Framboise, a.k.a. Raspberry fortified wine and Cassis, a.k.a. Blackcurrant fortified wine. You can find out our wine tasting notes for these wines as well as food pairing recommendations here: Elephant Island Fruit Wines. Tasting Notes & Food Pairing

Bottom line

The usual question that people ask when they plan the winery visit is if it will be worth their time.

It can be quite difficult to find an honest opinion about the BC wineries from either the wine writers or industry insiders. For reasons unknown to us, people do not exactly dish out pointed critical opinions, even if it is their job to do so. It seems that if the winery is no good, they will rather say nothing about it. To fill the void, here’s our candid opinion and an honest answer to your question.

If you like fruit wines or want to find out what they are about, we recommend a visit to Elephant Island Winery.

If you are one of those who could care less about fruit wines, you are better off spending your time winetasting elsewhere.