As summer turns to autumn in the Okanagan Valley, vintners from scores of wineries are carefully tending to this year’s harvest of sun drenched grapes. And as wineries gear up to produce this year’s vintage, the valley is preparing for its annual wine harvest celebration.

The Okanagan Fall Wine Festival is the only festival in North America that celebrates the harvest. Now in its 30th year, the festival showcases wine and food from around the valley while paying homage to the agricultural traditions that produce some of the best wines in the world.

Okanagan Valley real estate comes with easy access to more than 120 wineries, hundreds of brands and varieties of wine and four festivals that match the Okanagan seasons.

Fall is harvest time and this year’s festival features 165 events from Vernon to Osoyoos. For 11 days starting September 30, wineries, restaurants and caterers will team up to produce countless pairings of Okanagan wine and fine food.

Individual wineries have their own quaint events, while grand celebrations are held in key locations, featuring selections from many wineries, throughout the festival. From the All You Need is Cheese event on September 30 in Kelowna, to the Grand Finale Consumer Tastings on October 8 and 9 in Penticton, there are major events being held in every city along the valley’s length.

Have you ever wanted to kick off your shoes and socks and squish some grapes between your toes? Check out the grape stomp at the House of Rose Winery. Want to try wine with captivating art? The Evans Gallery and others are holding wine tastings with artist meet and greets.

There’s a nearly endless variety of things to do during the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival. There’s wine and chamber music, or jazz if that’s your thing. You can try wine with chocolate, wine with cheese or wine with just about anything else you can think of. From multi-course dining with Okanagan wines to vineyard tours and sampling after, there is a wide array of things to do during the wine festival.

The Peachland new home community of Ponderosa, is centrally located in wine country, just minutes south of West Kelowna. It’s the perfect place to live, with easy access to scores of wineries and all of the events held during the four annual wine festivals.

Unlike most Okanagan real estate being built today, the Ponderosa community will have its own vineyard and winery – a reminder of the agrarian roots that run deep through Peachland and the Okanagan Valley.

To learn more about the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival and its events, check out www.thewinefestivals.com

Owning a piece of Okanagan real estate comes with a connection to Lake Okanagan and there is no place where that is truer than in Peachland. There is a natural connection to the water in this peaceful town.

Residents don’t have to live beside the lake to have lakefront property. The views from decks are spectacular. You can smell the clear, refreshing waters everywhere. Drive down the mountain and you see the lake, drawn to its captivating beauty.

Take a stroll down Beach Avenue and it becomes clear why townsfolk call the community ‘Peachland on the Lake’. All summer long, the lake is home to sailboats and power boats, water skiers, wakeboarders and tubers.

Peachland’s jewel is its waterfront. A two-kilometre waterfront walkway is now under construction that will become a walker’s paradise along the town’s lakeshore – 11 kilometres of pebble beaches, most publicly accessible. Numerous docks are available for boat parking or the as the launching point for a dip in the lake. The Peachland Marina has one of the few marine gas facilities on the west side of the lake and residents and visitors can rent boats and personal watercraft.

The municipal day wharf downtown is the perfect place to moor a boat for a short stay in Peachland. From there it’s just a short walk to the many small shops and fine restaurants along Beach Avenue. The town maintains three boat launches along the lakeshore and there are miles of beach available for sunning and swimming.

Built on a mountainside, Peachland gently hugs the lakeshore, giving a real sense of lakefront property everywhere one goes. This is where a connection to the lake is natural and Okanagan real estate is at its finest.

In 2009 Peachland celebrated its Centennial. Heritage buildings and a historical charm continue to draw visitors and homebuyers to this vibrant waterfront town, just five minutes from West Kelowna. Here’s how it all got started.

The story of Peachland really began in the early 1800s with the push north from the Pacific Northwest in search of furs. Within a few decades, trails blazed through the wilderness were used heavily by prospectors driven by the allure of British Columbia gold. Over time, homesteaders began to arrive in the Peachland area and it was they who discovered the true gold of the Okanagan Valley, orchard fruits, notably peaches.

Alexander Ross led an expedition in 1812 up the Columbia and Okanagan Rivers to establish a fur trading post in the B.C. Interior. The group established Fort Kamloops and named Trepanier and Jacque Creeks in the Peachland area.

Twelve years later, Tom McKay blazed a similar trail from Fort Okanogan in Washington State to Fort Kamloops. The trail became known as the Fur Brigade Trail and it cut through the Okanagan Valley by way of Garnet Lake to Deep Creek and then along an upper bench in present day Peachland northward.

Furs were gathered from natives and sent down to the trail to Astoria, Oregon, where they were sent by ship to England.

At the time, Peachland did not exist, but the area did have a stopping point on the Fur Brigade Trail. May Springs (located near the Loan property on Princess Street) provided a rest stop with fresh water for fur traders and, later on, for gold seekers heading north to the Caribou gold fields.

In 1884, Charles Lambly established the Lambly Ranch beside Trepanier Creek. The ranch stretched from the lake back into the gorge (where the elementary school now sits) and was home to hundreds of cattle and an orchard where peaches thrived.

Three years later, Gus Hewitt formed the Camp Hewitt Mining and Development Company, which began mining on the south side of Pincushion Mountain. Hewitt also built a wharf on the lakeshore where steam boats could offload supplies for his mine. The wharf was located at the present day location of Renfrew Road and Hwy. 97 and, together with a camp near the mine, became known as Camp Hewitt.

In those early days, steamboats would make two stops in the soon-to-be Peachland area: Lambly’s Landing and Camp Hewitt — two place names that preceded the name Peachland. W.A. Lang, who became Peachland’s first mayor, opened the first general store in the area next to Hewitt’s wharf and a saw mill quickly took shape next to the store.

In 1888, J.M. Robinson, his wife and a party of his friends arrived in southern B.C. for a holiday, packing in with horses. With all the gold mining activity in the Boundary Country, a bit of prospecting added to the pleasures of their trip to the Okanagan. Robinson and some associates were interested enough that they formed the Canadian and American Gold Mining Company, and purchased Gus Hewitt’s mining interests (the Gladstone Mine).

The Gladstone Mine soon petered out, but Robinson happened upon the Lambly Ranch and had a taste of Okanagan peaches. The snack gave him an idea and soon Robinson purchased as much land as possible. He formed the Peachland Townsite Company and promoted his new town in Manitoba. By 1898, a one-room schoolhouse opened and a post office was set up with the post mark Peachland.

Today the Okanagan Valley region is the fastest growing area of British Columbia. Visitors and new residents are drawn here by the sunshine – over 300 days per year, the longest golf season in BC, the second largest wine region in North America, several major ski resorts and amazing watersports on the numerous fresh water lakes. Okanagan Valley real estate is some of the most precious in the world, and Peachland, situated right next door to West Kelowna, boasts over 11 km of public beach front, the longest in the valley.