LEVEL U P CENTRAL OKANAGAN BUSINESS REPORT Mar 2021 The Modest Butcher Chef Dan Carkner chefs 3 profiled Farm to Why does that winery Table look like a Why Kelowna is a ruined culinary destination castle? Wind farm sells The okanagan’s Wine bottling and for $100 million priciest real beer canning on estate sale the go Wind farm Sells for a whopping $100 million LEVEL U P 19 CENTRAL OKANAGAN BUSINESS REPORT Now a monthly magazine ARTICLES Also on KelownaNow.com Crown & Thieves Leading the way 02 The theme for an eclectic winery 15 Kelowna has the lowest unemployment rate in the country 04 Kirschner Mountain After all, who doesn’t like brighter, Macklin-Shaw, who also shares the The biggest real estate sale in 16 On the road Welcome lengthier days and milder recipe for his famous triple-cheese Kelowna’s history For mobile wine bottling Letter temperatures? fondue on page (6). 05 Icewine 18 Silver Spring marks rebirth all around, We also put a spring spin on a Those frozen grapes are picked and pressed Should you buy some of the precious buoys people’s spirits and fosters bunch of other stories including metal? optimism. mobile wine bottling, page (16), 06 Boddie Macklin-Shaw Can you feel that? Big White’s new executive chef The Modest Butcher eclectic new winery Crown & 20 As this issue of Level Up Thieves, page (2), mobile beer Chef Dan Carkner explains who he is Every day now, the earth is tilting Pathways demonstrates, spring amps up canning, page (12), and the new a little closer to the sun as spring 08 Can help you hire someone with the Okanagan’s Farm to Table president of the Kelowna Hotel Buy local arrives, the days grow lighter and diverse abilities 23 Why isn’t the provincial government credentials as chefs and home Motel Association looking forward to longer and the weather warms. doing it? cooks alike tap the Valley’s bounty better times, page (14). Pay cut 10 for magical meals. Are MLAs willing to take one in these Astronomically speaking, spring Faster Of course, as the pandemic drags COVID times? 24 Is what the vaccine rollout has to be arrives in the Northern Hemisphere Cover boy and chef at The Modest on and hits the one-year mark, we this year on Saturday, March 20 at Sudsy Butcher restaurant at Mt. Boucherie can also use spring to be optimistic 12 Mobile beer canning line fills a niche Farm to Table 5:37 am. 27 It’s a tasty trend Winery in West Kelowna, Dan about a quick vaccine rollout, page Carkner, shows us how he does it (24), so we all get back to normal as Optimistic That’s when the sun crosses the on page (20). the weather brightens and warms. 14 New president of the hotel association The economy equator heading north, creating 28 Is headed in the right direction what’s called the spring equinox or Likewise, chef and sommelier Mark Happy spring. the vernal equinox. Filatow from Waterfront Wines Restaurant & Bar in Kelowna To really geek out about this, spotlights some of his favourite fresh equinox is Latin for ‘equal night’ and dishes and explains the Okanagan marks the first day of spring when origins of Farm to Table on page (27). day and night are of equal length as you measure the amount of light Cover photo sales and advertising Finally, there’s still spring skiing at and no light. LEVEL UP Chef Dan Carkner [email protected] Big White, thus we check in with the Steve MacNaull (250) 862 8010 resort’s new executive chef, Boddie Editor and journalist, managing editor Whether or not you understand this, or NowMedia Group ISSUE NO. 8 Steve MacNaull Contributors care to understand this, what it means Steve MacNaull Sydney Baerg is spring is here. That’s something we PUBLISHER Taylor siemens Jorden Puzzella can all get on board with. 16 flights publishing house Jim Csek Josh Duncan - a division of NowMedia Group Ellen Schwenkedel 1 CROWN & THIEVES Written by: Steve MacNaull IS AN ECLECTIC The four-storey facade of Crown MISH-MASH & Thieves Winery in West Kelowna is new, but made to look OF ERAS, like the crumbling remains of a Jason Parkes has outdone Of course, it’s also oh-so Wench white blend ARCHITECTURE 400-year-old castle. himself. Instagrammable and Crown & named after Parkes’ wife, AND DECOR. Thieves has become a social Hickenbothom Chardonnay, The punk rocker and rebel media darling as a result. Scoundrel’s Punch and Dimber winemaker of Jason Parkes Damber red blends, Crybaby Customs just opened Crown “People are always after what’s Malbec, Roussanne, Chenin & Thieves in West Kelowna, a exciting and new and being blanc and Gewurztraminer. winery that defies explanation. exciting and new during Located in a vineyard just off COVID, when people have Architect Kimberly Fuller of Brown Road, the winery rises little else to do, really helped Lake Monster Studio in Vernon four storeys and resembles the launched us,” said Forgues. designed the winery and ruins of a 400-year-old castle. Bronag Contracting built it. Yet inside, the vibe and decor Crown & Thieves was a wine Both firms also worked on is Prohibition-era speakeasy brand for years out of The Black Swift Winery. Crown & Thieves is the brainchild of avant garde and haunted mansion parlour. Hatch. winemaker Jason Parkes of Jason Parkes’ next project is under- Parkes Customs. Parkes’ other properties But Parkes deemed it was time construction, The Hatching are also unconventional, Crown & Thieves had its own Post microbrewery in West including The Hatch and Black bizarro digs to perpetuate the Kelowna, which will be Swift wineries, also in West ‘made by scoundrels, sipped similarly quirky with a Wild Kelowna, and Truck 59 Cider, by kings’ motto. West facade and theme. next door to Crown & Thieves. The scoundrels are the Jason Parkes Customs also But Crown & Thieves has ‘thieves’ who steal from tanks makes wine for Indigenous upped the ante. and barrels to make wine and World Winery in West the kings are the ‘crown’ or Kelowna, Burnt Timber Winery “It was a dream of Jason’s to the customers that drink the in Kelowna and consults with The view of the tasting bar from do this concept,” said tasting vintages. Lakeside Winery in Osoyoos. the mezzanine. room manager Shannon Forgues. Crown can also refer to Crown & Thieves has limited the ruined castle theme openings right now because of “We just opened and let it get and thieves a nod to all the COVID. For tours and tastings, crazy.” mugshots of 1800s criminals they are 11 am to 6 pm, on the walls. Thursdays through Mondays. The building is so eye- It’s all well and good to have a Why does this catching, cool, off-beat, gimmick, but the wine has to Post-pandemic, the winery eccentric and unconventional be tasty, and it is. will make full use of its West Kelowna that it caused a sensation as basement speakeasy bar, main winery look like soon as it opened last month The winery has a line up floor tasting room and wine The main floor tasting bar is set with people clamouring to get that includes a Winemaker’s shop and terrace, third floor in a Prohibition-era parlour. a ruined castle? in for a look and a taste. mezzanine and rooftop deck. 2 3 THE HOUSING $22-million Kirschner DEVELOPMENT Ice wine Mountain sale a SITE HAD BEEN Written by: SOLD TO A grape Steve MacNaull record-breaker MANITOBA BUYER. harvest Written by: Josh Duncan BRRRRR...THE -18°C was late OVERNIGHT DURING THE WEEK OF FEB. 8 WAS WELL this BELOW THE -8°C REQUIRED FOR PICKING FROZEN season GRAPES FOR ICE WINE Numerous wineries throughout the Okanagan started harvesting frozen grapes for ice wine Feb. 9 as the temperature plunged to -17°C. There was no doubt Feb. 9 that it That means the vast majority of The resulting ice wine has residual was cold enough to harvest frozen the 300 tonnes of frozen grapes sugar levels of around 220 grams grapes for ice wine. expected to be harvested in the per litre, 100 times more than the 2.2 Okanagan this season came in over grams per litre in a dry white wine. In the darkness of a polar vortex, the five days Feb. 9-14. the temperature plunged as low The key with well-made ice wine The $22-million sales of the Kirschner as -18°C throughout most of the Pickers are put on standby when is that it maintains lively acidity to Mountain housing development site set the forecast calls for a deep freeze offset the sugar, so while the nectar a record as the biggest sale in the history Okanagan, much more frigid than of the Association of Interior Realtors the -8°C minimum required. and then bundle up and get to work, is undoubtedly sweet, the drink is (the merged entity of the Okanagan clippers in gloved hand, usually in delicious, luscious and balanced. Mainline Real Estate Board and the South “Wow, this is a cold snap,” said the dark of night, to bring in the Okanagan Real Estate Board). Wine Growers British Columbia precious commodity. It can be drunk on its own as an (formerly the BC Wine Institute) aperitif or dessert or paired with communications director Laura While ice wine production was strong cheese, spicy, salty or rich Kittmer. pioneered in Germany, Canada has foods or fruit-or-chocolate-based Even though it was being members work, is growing at In 2003, the family established become the world leader.