This is no laughing matter.

After attending the Wine Bloggers’ Conference of North America in June, I decided to visit Laughing Stock Winery. Although I’d heard about them for years, I had never actually tried any of their wines. Lo and behold, I’d pretty much fallen in love with their big red Bordeaux varietal blend, Portfolio at the conference. So, I wanted to check their winery out for myself.

We had a super tasting and visit with gracious tasting room manager, Addie Gowe that morning – she was full of information and didn’t mind getting geeky about the wines at all. She’s living my life – having escaped from Vancouver with kids and husband in tow. And I love the co-owners’ story – former finance industry ‘suits’, David and Cynthia Enns literally bought into the winery lifestyle and left their former Bay/Wall Street lives in the dust – well, as much dust as you can when you’re taking your fortune and making it into a smaller fortune by running a winery. Isn’t that what they say usually happens?

But what they’ve created is a work of art borne out of sincere love and obvious talent as well. The wines are beautifully crafted, marketed (each bottle actually has the ticker tape entwined and printed on it showcasing the stock market details of the actual day each was bottled) and they taste outstanding.

I bought several, but took home this Pinot Gris intent upon enjoying its food friendliness with some like-minded individuals.

And so we did – clear and bright, pale lemon green with legs, on the nose it’s got intense and youthful aromas of silky Bartlett pear, quince, lime and rock melon. The palate is essentially dry (only 1.8 g/L RS) with high acidity and medium plus alcohol. The body is medium and there are medium plus intense flavours of more pear, citrus and green melon with a medium finish. WSET ‘Good’ wine verging on very good with none of that bitter aftertaste one gets from many Okanagan products.

Enjoy now and often – went great with Ali’s roasted summer pepper soup and pulled pork with salad. Refreshing, juicy and balanced – it met our bill.