CHANGES NOT UP TO PROMISES
Task force report has good news for some wineries, but not for consumers
After much promise and many meetings, the BC Wine Appellation Task Force, initially struck to effect change, will submit a less than electric proposal regarding the future of British Columbia wine. There is some good news for wineries, but not much for consumers who will continue to be asked to pay handsome sums for wines of, shall we say, less precise provenance than they deserve.
A handful of far-flung regions benefiting from climate change hope to capitalize on the thirst for local wine with the establishment of four new emerging wine grape-growing regions, or to be more specific, geographic indications (GIs). The Thompson Valley, Shuswap, Lillooet-Lytton and Kootenays will likely be added to the mix, with final boundaries subject to a review in consultation with regional stakeholders.
It would appear the four emerging regions will be the only new appellations handed out sooner than later. Some committee members I spoke with suggested it could be five to 10 years before any smaller sub- GIs come to fruition in the Okanagan or on Vancouver Island, due mainly to opposition from the large and medium sized wineries who are decidedly content with broad appellations that suit their winemaking. They didn’t object to adding the broad GIs that will give the four, barely-out-of-the-gate upstart regions the same status as any Okanagan Valley winery, but then they do not make wine there, yet.
No one should be opposed to the four new emerging regions, but why the Okanagan Valley producers or, or Vancouver Island growers would be content with the status quo after some 35 years of grape growing is another question.
The task force has put together a mechanism that could be the basis for establishing sub-geographic indications, but don’t get your hopes up. I’m told the large and mid-size wineries and a small group of small estates will reject any movement toward dividing up the valley into more meaningful sub- GIs. If they all vote “No,” they have enough veto power to defeat any of the recommendations and the word is they prefer things as they are.
There was a lot of discussion about abolishing the VQA tasting panel. It was argued in backrooms (mostly by the small, cutting-edge wineries) that the tasting guidelines were too conservative when it came to judging and rejecting the myriad modern style of wines quickly becoming fashionable around the globe, not to mention the expense of the process. Yet the big three — Mission Hill, Peller Estates and Constellation Wines — are fully behind the VQA tasting panel and the notion of VQA wines, at least when they are not busy importing cheap foreign juice and pumping it out via pseudo-Canadian looking labels, some that even mimic their very own sacred VQA labels.
There are many perks that come with the VQA designation: direct sales to restaurants, grocery store access and a healthy rebate if you sell your wines in government stores. So you can see why the big guys, who make a lot of conservative wine from valley-wide blends, are happy with the system as it is. And ultimately, it’s why the small estates have little choice but to capitulate to survive.
For their trouble, the little guys may get a new category name for wines that do not pass through the BC VQA system: British Columbia Wine. I guess it’s better than nothing. Certainly it’s a sexier and much simpler place name for your labels than BC VQA — initials that mean little to the average consumer, especially outside of the province.
There is a lot of hope that the watered-down plebiscite will appeal to all wineries and be passed, laying the groundwork for a better future for the industry, but for consumers, it looks like a lot more of the same. Oh well, what’s another decade of turmoil, the photos look great and profits have never been higher.