British Columbia: in search of a niche

Wines & Vines, Jan, 2003 by Tina Caputo

"The (British Columbia) wines today have nothing in common with the wines we were making 10 years ago--and that's a good thing."--Ingo Grady, Mission Hill Winery

Most people don't think of Canada when pondering North America's wine regions--but maybe they should start. Just north of Washington State, where many great wines originate, lies a land of sophisticated cuisine, rugged natural beauty and now, 73 up-and-coming wineries. Welcome to British Columbia.

Talking 'Bout an Evolution

Though British Columbia (B.C.) wines only started to gain respect in the last decade, the region's wine tradition dates back 140 years. Father Charles Pandosy is credited with planting B.C.'s first vineyards at the Obelate Mission in the 1860s, for the purpose of making sacramental wines.

In 1926 growers planted the first commercial vineyards and a local winery began selling its wares to a not-very-discerning public. These first wines were hardly what you'd call impressive--or even drinkable--but it was a start.

Protected by the Canadian government, the B.C. wine industry relied on the domestic market for 99% of its sales until 1988, when the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was announced. Faced with an influx of better-quality imports, B.C. wineries were forced to make dramatic improvements in order to compete.

According to B.C. wine pioneer Harry McWatters, who is the president of Sumac Ridge winery (among others) and founding chair of the British Columbia Wine Institute, the Free Trade Agreement was the industry's most important turning point.

"In 1988 we saw all preferential treatment for B.C. wineries disappear," he recalls. "Two-thirds of the vines were pulled out, which were mostly inferior hybrid varieties. We went from having 3,400 acres to about 1,000. We spent 12 years before the Free Trade Agreement developing a set of standards for the B.C. wine industry, but the real momentum started on that day when the agreement was announced. It threw the industry into crisis. By then, a lot of us were too old and too stubborn to move into another business." And so they evolved.

Quality Patrol

After the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement went info effect, McWatters set about putting standards in place for the B.C. wine industry. In 1990, the B.C. Wine Institute adopted the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA), an official system of evaluating wines and certifying those that meet certain quality criteria. Soon after the VQA was established, the region's wines began to improve.

"All the time I've been in business there have been good, respectable wines in B.C., but a lot of wine buyers gave up trying to find them because they were few and far between," McWatters says. "The wines of the early '90s were fault-free and technically sound--but the marketplace demanded that everybody get better

During the decade that followed, the B.C. wine industry made astounding leaps forward, and today's B.C. wines are winning awards in competitions like the L.A. County Fair and the San Francisco International Wine Competition. Though the B.C. industry is not yet a force to be reckoned with, it continues to grow at an impressive rate. Regions, Climate And Varietals With more than 5,500 vineyard acres, B.C. has four official appellations, located in two distinct growing regions: the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys near the Washington State border, and the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island regions on the coast.

Though many people think of Canada as the frozen tundra, B.C. enjoys more sunlight hours per year than California--about 1.5 hours more per day than Napa Valley. In the summer, 15 hours of sunlight per day is not uncommon. Winter is another story, however, when frost control is a prime focus.

The Okanagan Valley is B.C.'s oldest, largest and most important grape growing region, with more than 60 wineries within its borders. With only 6 inches of rainfall per year, its southern end is Canada's only classified desert area. The northern end of the valley receives less than 16 inches of rainfall per year.

The valley is hot and dry in the summer, with lots of sunshine and minimal humidity. Lake Okanagan, which covers most of the valley floor, helps keep the desert-like afternoon heat in check and provides water for most of the valley's vineyards. The northern part of the valley is considerably cooler than the southern end, with soils composed of glacial stone, sand silt and clay. The southern soils are mainly gravel and sand. The differences between the soils and microclimates in the north and south result in a wide range of grape varietals and wine styles.

Home to only a few wineries, the Similkameen Valley lies west of the Okanagan, near the Similkameen River and surrounded by steep hillsides. Its climate is similar to that of the Okanagan Valley.

The smaller coastal regions are warm and rainy during the winter, with warm and dry weather in the summer. Due to the possibility of late summer rains, early-ripening varietals predominate.

Vancouver Island, located off of B.C.'s southwest coast, is the area's newest appellation. Fraser Valley is east of Vancouver, near the Washington border. Together the coastal appellations are home to only about a dozen wineries.