Painted Rock releases final wines of 2008 vintage Tue, 10 May 2011 Painted Rock Estate Winery is pleased to announce the release of the last wines of our 2008 vintage. When we created Painted Rock our express intent was to craft superlative wines from 100% estate- grown fruit, unlocking the unique potential of our terroir and leading the development of the Okanagan as a source of recognizably excellent wines. Our signature wine and primary focus is our Red Icon, blended by our Bordeaux consultant Alain Sutre, who has understood our mission from the beginning. Our Red Icon is the best of what our vineyard brings us in any given vintage and the blend will vary from year to year. Our 2007 Red Icon went on to win the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Excellence in BC Wine. In our efforts to create the best possible wine, tough decisions have to be made in the vineyard. In 2008, a late spring caused considerable concern that we would not achieve adequate ripeness, so we dropped an inordinate amount of fruit to ensure that we did. As a plus we ended up with hugely complex and interesting varietals from which to form the blend; sadly though, not much of it. In fact, we produced only half as much of the 2008 Red Icon as we did of the 2007. Like our recently released Red Icon and our sold out 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, our 2008 Syrah and Merlot have layers of interest and complexity that garnered ratings even better than those of our inaugural 2007 vintage.