Raise a glass! Okanagan wine industry toasts resilience after devastating 2024 freeze

Inspecting the surviving vines in her Naramata B.C., winery, Dallas Thor is still recovering from the January 2024 deep cold snap that froze delicate budding grapes throughout the Okanagan Valley.

"We have less than a one per cent crop of grapes this vintage, so we had to do something drastic," she said.

"We had to be creative. We had to branch out and look at how to turn this thing upside down and do something positive."

Hundreds of Okanagan wineries, like Thor's Terravista Vineyards, faced the possibility that this would be a year without wine.  

Instead, the industry has banded together to lean on wine-making skill and knowledge, not valley soil, to produce a 2024 vintage and financially survive. 

"A winemaker needs to think in long terms, of decades," Thor said. 

Industry lobbied for fruit, not funds 

"It became evident that this year, the 2024 growing season, was not about the crop," said Mark Sheridan, a member of the board of the industry association Wine Growers of B.C.

"It was about ensuring the long-term health of your vineyard where your vineyard was still alive. And then coming up with the solutions for how we address a year where we have no crop."

Instead of lobbying the government for direct financial aid, like loans or a bailout, the B.C. wine industry asked the province to relax long-standing rules on the importation and taxation of wine grapes and juice.  

"The regulations that were brought in enabled and gave flexibility to wineries to really come up with a solution that suited them best," Sheridan says.

Able to source fruit from across the border, B.C. vintners flocked south to work with American growers.

Sheridan, who is also the president of Hester Creek Winery, travelled to Oregon and Washington state to find varietals and terroir as close as possible to his own Oliver, BC. Golden Mile vineyard.

His goal:  produce 2024 vintages to match the taste profiles of the winery's existing brands and create consistency for loyal customers and sommeliers.   

"We don't want surprises," Sheridan said.

Sparkling to succeed

Other wineries, like Terravista, are taking a different path.

Walking through the winter-bare fields, Thor points out the winery's claim to fame among wine aficionados:  "These vines were planted in 2008, the first Albariño vines ever planted in Canada." 

Terravista is one of only two Canadian wineries that grow the Spanish varietal, a white grape similar to Pinot Grigio.

"For us, the small producers, we really had to dig in and lean into something that we're known for, which is this super niche and unique grape," Thor said. 

Terravista Vineyard's winemaker Nadine Kinvig says American producers rallied to help their northern neighbours.

"Washington, California. They're like: 'We have a ton of beautiful fruit. We wanna help you out,"  she said.

"We were talking specifically with smaller vineyards, too, who are very excited. They're part of the wine community. They don't want us to fail.  … They came, and they offered their help to us."

For Kinvig, the ability to source American fruit fermented new ideas. 

"It was so exciting to be able to know we can go and source lots of Albariño from different vineyards with different soils, different microclimates," she said.  "We all got super excited about this idea of showcasing Albariño."

Kinvig worked with a northern California Albariño producer and is now creating a series of wines featuring different qualities of the grape.  

Her goal: produce 2024 Albariño vintages that may surprise wine lovers and promote the rare varietal as it recovers in its own vineyard.

At the beginning of December, Terravista released the very first 2024 wine vintage in Canada, a sparkling Albariño,  just as millions of holiday revellers pop open bottles of bubbly this New Year's Eve.

"I think the first 2024 wine is sort of launching us into a new era of this optimistic 2024 replacement vintage," Thor said. 

"And where we go from here is trying to get people to enjoy it."

Industry push to buy local

Hester Creek's Mark Sheridan and the B.C. Wine Industry are now getting ready to promote their 2024 vintages, and inform consumers of the source of the fruit. 

Wine made from non-Canadian-grown grapes cannot carry the familiar Canadian VQA, Vintners Quality Alliance, labelling.

So the Wine Growers of B.C. worked with Valley wineries to ensure quality standards and proper labelling for 2024 vintages: "Crafted in Canada, but not grown."

"We've spent too much time and energy to build the integrity of our brands, to not put great quality in that bottle,"  Sheridan said.

Okanagan white wine vintages for 2024 should be appearing on store shelves in the spring, with reds following after cellaring.  

"I've learned that we were a resilient industry. I truly believe that we will be a stronger industry when we come through this,"  said Sheridan.

Still, the future is not assured.

Foreign grape import restrictions and taxes will be reimposed in 2025.  

More than 20 per cent of all vines in the valley didn't survive the cold snap. A massive replanting effort is underway, but new vines won't produce for at least three years.   

Some wineries are turning to varieties more resistant to cold and climate change, like that rare Spanish vine now recovering nicely in Terravista Vineyards. 

"I'm getting calls from different winemakers around the valley who are wondering how Albariño fared through the winter?" said winemaker Nadine Kinvig. 

"And so I know that there's more Albariño that's going to be planted."

The hope now is that consumers will support and buy locally this year and the next, so the Okanagan wine industry will really have something to celebrate.