EP 396 | John Skinner, co-founder & Lauren Skinner Managing Director of Painted Rock
hello
We welcome John Skinner (Co-founder) and Lauren Skinner, managing director of Painted Rock (Skaha).
Painted Rock is a family winery.
From Day One, it was John and Trish Skinner following their dreams of making world-class wines. Up on Skaha Bench in the Okanagan Falls area. Then came Valeria Tait, with her wine-making smarts, suggesting where to plant the vineyards and how to lay the rows out. (John speaks of this )
Since its first vintage in 2009, Painted Rock has been making the world-class wines they dreamed about, led by a sensational Bordeaux blend called Red Icon. In 2020, it was named one of Decanter Magazine’s Wines of the Year.
John Skinner
“When we set out to build a generational family winery from the ground up, we had one simple goal in mind: to craft the highest quality wines from our estate vineyard and help raise the profile of Canadian wine on the world stage. It has been over 20 years since this journey began, and we couldn’t be prouder of how far we’ve come.”
The Skinner Family
Following 15 years of sales and marketing at the winery, Lauren Skinner Buksevics is now the managing director of Painted Rock Estate and has been asked to guide the family legacy.
She is also on the Board of Directors for Wine Growers of BC. Here’s a recent post:
“Our wineries create jobs, drive tourism, support agriculture, and contribute to rural economies across British Columbia. With the right policies and partnership, we can do even more.”
Lauren also states, “We seek a true national wine market where every region can buy the others.”
“Canada’s wine industry already contributes 10 billion dollars to our economy. Imagine if we could unlock our full potential”
John and Lauren Skinner take us through the following new releases from Painted Rock
Estate Winery
Trish, John and Lauren Skinner
2025 Rose Notes of citrus and strawberry, herbs, cranberry
71% Syrah, 15% Malbec, 9% Petit Verdot, 5% Cab Franc
Created through direct press.
2025 Chardonnay 80% French 20% Malo
Wonderful tropical notes and acidity/minerality ( 3 cases left)
2023 Syrah
Much smaller harvest .18 months in new French and American oak.
2022 Red Icon
Dark berries, spice, glorious finish. 49% Merlot, 11% Syrah 16% Cab %12 Malbec 9% Petit Verdot 3% Cab Franc.
World Class Winemaking.
(Currently pouring in the tasting room: 2022 Merlot, Malbec, Cab Frank 2021 Red Icon)
Let me leave you with another Lauren Skinner Buksevics comment
“Wine-loving Canadians across the country will see these wines featured and recommended… then discover they cannot find many of them on shelves or legally order them to their homes. Meanwhile, when international wines receive the same attention, they are already sitting on shelves across Canada because imported wines move through our domestic market more easily than Canadian wines do.”
“Think about how backwards that is.”
A year ago, Dan Mangan asked the players in his road band to join him at a cottage to demo the songs for Natural Light.
