Beautiful and functional.
While I was away gallivanting and attending a family wedding this weekend, a group of us did manage to duck away briefly to explore the grounds at the Mission Hill Winery in Kelowna, BC.
My sister demonstrates her appreciation for the winery's beauty by rolling down the hill.
Mission Hill is a significant monument to the Okanagan region of British Columbia, as it is one of the most successful and famous wineries in Canada. It was the winery that truly put Okanagan wines on the international map, and proved that Canadian wines could genuinely stand tall against the best contributions from the rest of the world.
More importantly, however, it proved that a fully-functioning and state-of-the-art winery didn’t have to be a bland and utilitarian space — it could also be beautiful. At an estimated cost of $35,000,000 the entire estate was renovated and redesigned. A central bell-tower was installed and a stunning restaurant was installed overlooking Okanagan Lake. It is a gorgeous place, and the photos that CardboardTube took will surely put mine to shame; but until he has a chance to extract his photos, carefully and artistically from his fantastic Rolls-Royce of a camera, my photos can serve as a sampler of what’s to come.
Interesting architecture,how was the product?
I think the product is fantastic… though I like wine quite a bit more than Deartháir. I bought a couple of bottles of reserve riesling and one of their icewine.
FYI, his sister was NOT the only one to go rolling down that hill, haha.
Pretty cool place. Why is my mind wondering how to assault and defend it?
Nice lookout/sniper tower. Another building seems to have lots of small narrow windows, just need to secure that huge door on the end.
On the attack portion after looking at a satellite view I see the North would be the fastest approach. The West has some steep rocks. The South is to exposed on your approach. The East would be quick, but as you push up the hill, over the fence there isn't enough cover.
Have your fire teams move through the Northern wooded area. Diversion attack from the West. A rocket attack or mortars on the tower and main building. Then as your fire teams approach from the North have fast rope from helo sweep up and drop teams on the roof. Your snipers from the hills a few hundred meters out. Use that mexican narco tank to bust the front gate.
Defending. Have the roofed mined (light, anti personal) and AA setup. Snipers in the tower as you suggested. The woods t to the North could be mined to try and divert them to the open ground to the south or the main gate. The road approach have two MG nests and a Anti Tank weapon setup. Have your defends split into patrols randomly roaming the grounds and have a reserve force ready to break out from the main building.
I really want to play paintball at this place.
/sick and twisted mind
I'm getting too old, big, and slow for paintball.
I prefer real guns and fake targets instead of fake guns and real targets. http://www.uspsa.org
I'm at that stage were I think I am young to do it but old enough to know better. Both the real and fake are a good adrenaline rush.
I took the winery tour at Biltmore Estate. They produced pretty much a full line of all different types of wine. Learned that they only grew one or two types of grapes there. For the rest they brought in the raw materials from California or elsewhere. So just because the winery is local, it doesn't mean the main ingredients are local.
Mission Hill owns over 900 acres of vineyards around the Okanagan. All of their grapes come from an area within 100 kms of the winery. Pretty cool stuff.
Unfortunately I'm not a Wine person but I would love to go there to sample the architecture. That building is truly beautiful and I'm sure that pictures whether your or Cardboard Tubes don't actually do it justice.
One more reason you need to head South and visit. Combine our love of Hooning and Wines and you get this near me.
http://www.bothamvineyards.com/events.html
It's actually mostly sandstone/stucco. That's kind of the local Kelowna style; a little "Southwest" flavour with a bit of Swiss ski grotto mixed in. It's an odd combination, but it really works for the town.