Blasted Church's tempting wine club offerings

Photo: View of Blasted Church winery and vineyards

Like almost all British Columbia wineries, Blasted Church Vineyards has wine clubs to facilitate the on-line ordering of its wines. Currently, the Okanagan Falls winery has about 1,000 members across its two clubs, nicknamed The Choir and The Flock. The Choir is a subscription club offering a minimum of two wines in each shipment. Members decide on the frequency of shipments: once a month, once every two months, and so on. The Flock offers customable wine shipments three times a year, with the next shipment scheduled for the spring of 2026.

The Flock is actually a family of five clubs, depending on how members want to structure their orders. In keeping with the winery’s clerical branding, the sub-clubs are the Born Again Club; the Salvation Club; the Fellowship White club; the Fellowship Red club; and The Apostles Club. Wine clubs typically give members priority access to releases. That is an appealing feature for low-volume premium wines such as those the winery releases under the Small Blessings designation. These wines are usually reserved for the Salvation Club.

The winery recently sent me two examples of Small Blessings wines. If I were still building up my wine cellar, these would be great candidates for cellaring. Both are partially sold out, which is why they are allocated exclusively to the wine club. The 2023 vintage produced many top quality reds but the volumes often were low. A sharp cold snap early in the 2022 vintage killed many fruiting buds and some vines in the Okanagan. “Thankfully, our estate vineyard came through reasonably well to provide an average crop for 2023,” the winery reports. “Our proximity to Skaha Lake saved us. … Overall, the quality that we have seen is high across the board. The reds have a beautiful fruit profile, ripe tannins and a balanced acidity.”

Here are my notes on the two reds.

Blasted Church Small Blessings Cross to Bear 2023 ($40 for 100 cases). This is made with Cabernet Franc grapes left on the skins for 21 days. The wine was aged 22 months in French oak (47% new). It begins with aromas of red fruit, spice and cocoa leading to flavours of dark cherry and chocolate. The long, ripe tannins carry the wine to a long finish. 92.

Blasted Church Small Blessings Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 ($50 for 100 cases). The grapes came from 28-year-old vines in the estate vineyard which, sadly, did not survive the deep cold of the 2024 winter. This is a rare wine not to be repeated. The grapes were destemmed into French oak barrels for a five-day cold soak. In total, the wine was 28 days on the skins and then was aged 22 months in barrel before being bottled. The wine has aromas of black currant, dark cherry and fig which is echoed on the palate, mingled with hints of chocolate and tobacco. Firm tannins signal that this is a Cabernet for cellaring. 92.