BC Wine Regions

Wow. It’s 10:35 am. The first bottles of wine have been cracked. This really is the first time that I’ve set an alarm and gotten up at 8 am to drink wine.

Kathy Malone, a winemaker, who works at Artisan Wine Co, is talking about the BC wine growing regions, calling geography is a flavour. (image source: Mission Hill Winery)

Terroir. That “somewhereness” – that special combination of topography, soil, climate and people captures in wines of singular character and personality. It’s thought that it takes 40-50 years for the vines to express the minerality in the soil. The BC Wine industry is very young still – we haven’t yet seen how the soil will affect the wine, and that makes it hard to categorize our wines on the world stage.

There are four wine growing regions in BC. Vancouver Island, the gulf islands, the Fraser Valley, Similkameen Valley and Okanagan valley.

The island has a long growing season, and have a low frost risk. Pinot Gris, Ortega, Pinot Noir, Madeleine Sylvaner, Auxerrois. 1.2% of BC wines comes from Vancouver Island.  More delicate flavours, floral and more pretty wines. they’re not particularly “gutsy” wines.

The gulf islands are similar to Vancouver Island, they’re dry, and require irrigation throughout the summer. 0.2% of the BC wine harvest come from the Gulf Islands.(image source: Wines NW)

The Fraser Valley – west of the coastal mountains – can have a lo of rain in the spring yet need irrigation in the summer. early ripening varieties do better here. The Fraser Valley represents 1.0% of the BC wine harvest, mostly germanics.

The Similkameen Valley has a greater risk of frost damage and can be hotter in the summer, which can put greater stress on the vines. People are planting all kinds of different grapes in the valley to see what happens. They don’t know what will come out of the Valley yet and don’t know what the quality will be.

Vines can take up to -27 degrees C, but it’s not a sustainable temperature.  They can’t take the cold cold winter over and over again without the vines suffering damage. The Simikameen valley represents 6.6% of BC’s wine region.

The Okanagan Valley, which is where the remainder of the BC Wine harvest comes from, lines up almost perfectly with Napa. It’s very well protected in the valley, but only has 7500 acres vs California with more than 52,000 acres. (image source: Adam McDiarmid)

Kathy is explaining Degree Days and how they affect the vines. I knew that wine was complicated, but this is more complicated than I had ever known!

Wine researchers are still trying to determine if there is a terroir differences between the wine regions of BC. There are six sub regions in the Okanagan Valley alone.

Overall, it’s looking like the Similkameen Valley is going to be BC’s up and coming wine region.

Kathy’s final point: Okanagan wines are the best in the world. Buy them.