Tinhorn Creek Crush Club at Nu Restaurant


Tinhorn Creek's Sandra Oldfield & Stacey

It was a lovely sunny evening during an otherwise cool Spring to attend this year's Tinhorn Creek Crush Club. This is Tinhorn's customer appreciation / new releases event held in a Vancouver eatery, in this case Nu Restaurant. The room was packed with devoted Tinhorn Creek customers going back to 1990s.
Proprietor Sandra Oldfield stood on a wine case to get her head over the crowd, and gave a gracious speech. Yes, she told us, the restaurant is coming – next year.

Stacey and I got a few words in with Sandra after her talk. We told her our impression of Tinhorn Creek, that it was one of the true fine attractions for wine travelers in the Okanagan. Listening to her we understood how much Sandra really understands wine tourism.

Despite coming from affluence, Sandra was a self-described non-conforming Californian. She would walk up to Napa Valley wineries in ripped jeans, only to be received coolly by counter staff. It was not an experience she would let her staff repeat at Tinhorn Creek.

As a parent of a young child, Sandra explained that she understands parents like wine too. She fully expects kids will be in tow when they arrive at her winery, and it is important to her that they enjoy the experience as much as Mom and Dad. We can vouch for our daughter enjoying the surroundings there.

As for Tinhorn's new releases, we got to taste them all. Their 2007 Gewürztraminer was fantastic – a must buy for fans of this varietal. We also felt that the 2005 Cabernet-Merlot blend another stand out. We look forward to trying them all again with some bottle age.