{"id":618,"date":"2013-04-18T23:01:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ingridjarisz.com\/blog\/?p=618"},"modified":"2013-04-19T10:08:51","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T17:08:51","slug":"wine-touring-on-the-saanich-peninsula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingridjarisz.com\/blog\/wine-touring-on-the-saanich-peninsula\/","title":{"rendered":"WINE TOURING ON THE SAANICH PENINSULA"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you have had enough of the quaint charm of\u00a0Victoria, it is time to take a break in wine country.\"Peninsula<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Yes, wine country. The\u00a0Saanich\u00a0Peninsula\u00a0currently has eight producers \u2013 include a very good maker of gin and an excellent cider house \u2013 that operate tasting rooms. Some are open weekends only and others are open all week from May to October.<\/span><\/h2>\n
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These producers are within half an hour of downtown\u00a0Victoria. Those who prefer not to drive can easily book tours with one of several tour companies.<\/p>\n

During the recent Taste festival in\u00a0Victoria, a food and wine festival dedicated to\u00a0British Columbia\u00a0wines, Tourism\u00a0Victoria\u00a0hosted a small Saanich\u00a0Peninsula\u00a0tour to illustrate the variety of tour options that are available. Only three producers were included on this leisurely tour. It would have been no trick, moving at a faster pace, to visit six, but Victoria and fast pace don\u2019t seem to go together. That\u2019s part of Victoria\u2019s charm.
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The first stop was Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse. Now in its fifth year, Sea Cider sells its ciders in private wine stores all over\u00a0British Columbia\u00a0and has recently broken into markets in\u00a0Washington\u00a0and Oregon.<\/p>\n

The idea of making European-style ciders came to owner Kristen Jordan, who was born in\u00a0Medicine Hat, when she was studying at a college in\u00a0Wales\u00a0in 1985. The pubs all had local ciders on tap and she developed a palate for them. She already had a strong interest in apples from a family-owned orchard in the Shuswap.<\/p>\n

After immersing herself in a career as an international consultant on food security issues, she bought a former sheep farm on the\u00a0SaanichPeninsula\u00a0with a view eastward to the\u00a0Haro\u00a0Strait. Here, she planted about 50\u00a0varieties of apples on four\u00a0hectares (10 acres). All 1,200 trees are on dwarf rootstock. It gives the orchard a rather stunted appearance but it also means that the pickers don\u2019t need ladders to gather the fruit.<\/p>\n

The cidery, which was built in 2006, has a spacious rustic tasting room \u2013 a design probably inspired by those Welsh pubs. And in the spirit of a good publican\u2019s ploughman\u2019s lunch, Sea Cider also offers simple but delicious food to go with the ciders.<\/p>\n

We have grown up in\u00a0British Columbia\u00a0with apple ciders that are refreshment beverages. Ciders in the European style, while tasty on their own, have flavours and textures that, much the same as wine, pair well with food. At Sea Cider, most are dry or only slightly off-dry sparkling ciders, with moderate alcohols of 6 to 8 percent.\n\t\t