Blasted Church Vineyards

While everyone enjoys the wine and the view when they come to visit, the most asked question would have to be about our name…On a cool spring morning in 1929, a small crew from Okanagan Falls set off to a deserted mining camp some 16 miles away from home. Their mission: to dismantle an old wooden church and bring it back to Okanagan Falls.The plan called for a controlled blast of four dynamite sticks inside the church in order to “loosen the nails”. Odd as it may seem, the explosion spared the wood from damage during dismantling.Save for losing the steeple, the plan succeeded. Now the 103 year old wooden church stands proudly in its second home of Okanagan Falls and is still an operating United Church. In keeping with its rather remarkable history, the church has since withstood the threat of two major floods, including the disastrous burst of the Okanagan Falls Dam in the early 1950’s.In naming our VQA wines “Blasted Church” we celebrate the ingenuity of the initiative to move the church and honor those pioneers for their vision.