Burrowing Owl Winery releases a wine-soaked cookbook

This is so much more than a cookbook.

Besides the mouthwatering recipes, it's also a wine-and-food pairing source and there are suggestions of what music to play for every menu.

There's also a guide to what ingredients are in season, some winery and family history and information about the winery's namesake -- the burrowing owl.

We're talking about the Burrowing Owl Estate Winery Cookbook: Recipes for a Good Life ($39).

Yes, the winery, and thus the cookbook, are named after the cute, tiny and enigmatic burrowing owl, which lives and nests in little holes in the ground and loves the desert habitat that surrounds the winery on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver.

The cookbook is also the first in Canada by a family-owned winery.

Ever since the Wyse family launched Burrowing Owl in 1993, they have been living the 'good life' featured in the book's subtitle.

The Wyses are founders Jim and Midge Wyse and their kids Chris Wyse and Kerri Wyse McNolty, who are the second-generation operators of the business as president and vice-president of marketing and hospitality, respectively.

The family shares the secret to the 'good life' in the form of 15, three-course menus, paired, of course, with Burrowing Owl wines.

The menus are influenced by Wyse family favourites, their travels and dishes that are served at the winery's restaurant, The Sonora Room.

All are also seasonally inspired and showcase local, Okanagan produce.

For instance, one of the summer menus features zucchini fritters paired with Burrowing Owl Rose.

And, the salmon and asparagus salad is a spring delight alongside a bottle of Burrowing Owl Sauvignon Blanc.

The book was written by Jennifer Schell Lirag, the Kelowna-based author of three other bestselling cookbooks -- The BC Wine Lovers Cookbook and The Butcher, The Baker, The Wine & Cheese Maker (both Okanagan and By the Sea editions).

She also took all the photographs for the book, tested the recipes and chose the wine pairings.

McNolty also contributed.

The book's foreword is by Kelowna-based Master of Wine Rhys Pender.

Partial proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the Wyse's preferred conservations organizations, including one that help protect the burrowing owl.

Burrowing Owl Estate Winery Cookbook: Recipes for a Good Life is now for sale at the winery, at local bookstores and online at Indigo Books and www.burrowingowlwine.ca.