As far as renowned wine destinations go, the Okanagan is pretty young. A couple who saw the future of the valley 50 years earlier has decided to tell their story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trudy and George Heiss started Gray Monk Estate Winery more than 50 years ago, and they just released their memoir, Decanting Memories<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Decanting Memories<\/em> is a testament to the days of digging trenches by hand, tractor repair through welding and long, uncertain winters,” Diploma in Wines writer and educator Barb Wild said in in a media release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n George was a world champion hairdresser from Vienna who ended up in Edmonton in 1960 with wooden skis and a suitcase of smuggled salami. There he met Trudy, another hairdresser, who escaped across the Austrian-German border as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of cutting hair they turned to a plot of land in Lake Country and created a winery which they ran until it was sold to Andrew Peller Limited in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gray Monk was the first winery to plant Pinot Gris in B.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The memoir details the challenges the couple faced in the early days of the wine industry in B.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All proceeds from the sale of Decanting Memories<\/em> will go to the BC Hospitality Foundation to support the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s a story about the true value of the bottle in your hand, and the pioneers who refused to take no for an answer,” Wild said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are limited copies available at Gray Monk Estate Winery<\/a>, BC Wine Information Centre<\/a> and Intrigue Wines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “‘Decanting Memories’ is a testament to the days of digging trenches by hand, tractor repair through welding and long, uncertain winters.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":8563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"guid":"","source":"","byline":"","published":"","updated":"","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1810,706,704],"tags":[],"region":[547,548,549,550],"class_list":["post-8562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"post_modified":"2026-07-19T18:00:20","post_modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T01:00:20","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/inwine-Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-3.19.38-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8562"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=8562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}