CheckMate Artisanal Winery

Reserve Tasting Experience

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.

“These are some of the best young wines coming out of Canada today.” — Bruce Sanderson, Wine Spectator