La Petite Abeille focuses on french style inspired ciders using Okanagan produce

“With our style, we’re sort of creating a kind of niche in between what you might be expecting as a cider and what you might be expecting as a sparkling wine,” Kimberly Wish, one of the owners of the family-run La Petite Abeille.

The new Naramata cidery opened up in July and has been seeing a steady stream of tasters coming in.

Owning and harvesting mostly from pear orchards, their ciders are focused on being fruit forward and showcasing what they grow. 

“What we do is we use a sparkling method to make our ciders and we also are concentrating on making everything fruit forward without complicating things too much.” 

The main difference for their ciders is presentation, the product is sold in full 750 millilitre wine bottles and suggested to be poured in champagne glasses. 

“Because our ciders are sparkling, we feel that it makes a lot of sense to serve it in a champagne flute. It helps bring the bubble out that we are creating,” Wish said. 

While the cidery does supply most of its fruit for production, they hope to be completely sustainable off of their own produce soon. 

La Petite Abeille is open for tastings from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week by appointment or walk in.