Kismet Estate Winery — Restaurant in Area C (Inkaneep/Willowbrook)

My girlfriend and I were on vacation through Okanagan wine country. Over six days, we visited sixty wineries. You can follow our various locations with this disclaimer. That’s sixty wineries, not an exaggeration. We ended the trip with 120 bottles acquired.

It was fate, destiny even, that Kismet Estate Winery would be our penultimate visit on our second day of our wine tour. See what I did there? Yeah, I know, it wasn’t clever at all. Kismet was in truth our first winery this day, but it had yet to open, so we ended up passing by on our way back to the hotel. I enjoyed Kismet immensely, for a reason which does not appear immediately obvious. In a sea of repetitiveness where the majority of wineries all share the same shade of mustard seed paint, I applaud Kismet for embracing a rusty red coat. It also boasts a very nifty logo dominating one wall, a cross between a skeksis from The Dark Crystal and the door-knocker from Labyrinth (double Jim Henson reference for the win). And finally, and I know it’s not entirely appropriate to bring this up, the owners and staff are members of an ethnicity rarely seen in the region. The name of the restaurant, Kismet Masala Bistro, should be a giveaway. I think this is fantastic, a refreshing shift in both presentation, manners, and cuisine against the customary French/Italian fusions. Alas, the restaurant, presently open and welcoming, had yet to open last summer when we arrived.

The interior is not as impressive as the exterior, just a simple bar with shelves of wine. However, it was here we discovered bead trails. Some of you laugh, and others need an explanation; basically, nearly every winery from Osoyoos to Kelowna sells their own uniquely shaped bead, which can only be acquired (so goes the claim) at the winery. Most are designed to relate to the winery in question—some even have two. My girlfriend, who was discovering quickly that she cannot handle wine in large quantities without passing out for eight hours and waking up with a chip larger than Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, discovered her purpose. While I drank, she would collect these trinkets, probably the motivation behind visiting sixty wineries. From this point on, we wouldn’t visit a location unless it had a bead, and would go out of our way, detouring for thirty minutes in some cases, to acquire a single one. Dedication. It started at Kismet. The problem was, it was the end of day two. It was 5:00, with most places closing at 5:30. And with that, we loaded into our car and raced around every winery we had been two in the last two days to pick up beads, a habit we would not break.

As for the wines, Kismet is a strong player in the region, though I admit breaking from traditional in claiming their strongest bottles are their dessert wines. I mean, seriously, their cabernet franc icewine is to die for.

So yeah, Kismet, great place with great people. Hit it up. You wouldn’t normally think Indian food pairs well with wine, and you’d be...

If you are from anywhere other than US or Canada DO NOT go to this winery unless you want to be completely shamed for how you taste the wines. My partner who is an industry professional trained in France and I, who have been to a lot of professional wine tasting events in France and NZ were absolutely shocked to find our request for a spittoon was first totally judged by the wine pourer and then when we proceeded to spit into said spittoon after tasting (completely normal and encouraged practice in France and Europe) we were totally shamed by the pourer. This goes to show how amateur their staff is, as in the professional industry globally (everywhere other than North America) it is either provided with the tasting or completely normal and, in fact, encouraged part of the wine tasting experience. In professional wine tasting it is acknowledged that if you are going to be tasting a lot of wines you have to spit or you will fatigue your palate and you will not be able to taste reliably. Not to mention if you are driving - and we had already consumed two glasses at their bistro prior - this would be totally unsafe. Perhaps Kismet wines want to actively encourage drunk driving? Thoroughly disappointing experience after what was a pleasant lunch in their bistro. Perhaps before schooling customers on wine tasting they should school their staff on industry...

This was our first stop on our very first wine tour. Curtis reprimanded us immediately for questioning how everything worked. His attitude was rude for the rest of the visit. He also quoted us tasting fees, which we thought was strange, but we the tour was gifted to us, so we had no information on pricing. We just shrugged it off, but we did feel obligated to buy wine to waive the fees. After we left, we found out that all tasting fees were supposed to be included. Our group had been brought in by our guide at the beginning, and Curtis even asked us partway through which tour company we were with, so it's not like it was an honest mistake. Definitely feels like they take advantage of their patrons. Will not be returning, and will discourage others to avoid this...