Checkmate Artisanal Winery

Unexpected achievements in winemaking, as in chess, involve new moves drawn from almost infinite possibilities. At CheckMate Artisanal Winery, the ever-changing variables make winemaking like playing chess in multiple dimensions. We’re not only cultivating blocks that include 50-year-old vines, we’re doing it in a radically true north setting, the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Winemaking here is never confined to neat square spaces or expected moves. It’s never black and white. We constantly adapt in a place considered by many to be out of bounds, growing at elevations up to 365 meters (1,200 feet) and alongside lakes that plummet almost 244 meters (800 feet) deep. Only in a defiant place so bold and beautiful can you produce what’s never been done before.