IT’S TIME FOR NATIONAL VIEW OF WINE ISSUES

Industry is too divided to present a single voice on interprovincial trade, appellations

It’s been a tumultuous year for Canadian wine, leaving the industry with more questions than answers about its future and no single voice speaking out about what can be done.

Earlier last month we let you know that five small B.C. wineries were petitioning the Supreme Court of Canada to intervene in an appeal of the Comeau case regarding a New Brunswick man fined $292.50 for violating the New Brunswick Liquor Control Act that limits personal liquor importation to 12 pints of beer or one bottle of alcohol or wine. The court has granted the five small wineries permission to air their concerns in early December.

It’s an important case that could have a monumental effect on the Canadian liquor industry if interprovincial borders are struck down. Yet, interestingly, the effort is not one to involve the entire Canadian wine industry but rather a handful of small producers — so small, they have started a GoFundMe page and asked consumers and industry folks to kick in what they can to pay the bill. Industry response to date has been less than encouraging.

It’s such an important issue, yet the unexplained division between province, regions, and advocacy groups points to an industry that, while enjoying unfettered consumer love these days, doesn’t seem to be able to gather itself at home or abroad to present with one powerful face.

Last month, in a compelling online interview on Good Food Revolution, noted Prince Edward County producer Norm Hardie once again questioned the need for Ontario’s VQA tasting panel that determines which wine styles get to consumers. It is something we have questioned in B.C. for a decade and it has led to endless division among wineries based on whether they opt in or out of the tasting program.

Hardy argues that in Ontario, VQA standards have homogenized

the wines of his region, rewarding the safe, conservative labels with certification while eliminating the different, cutting-edge, wild fermented or natural wines that do not present themselves in the glass as mainstream samples do.

Hardie is right, of course, and he knows it first-hand because some of his very best wines have been rejected over the years, along with other submissions from other wineries, because they do not conform to the tired VQA vision of what Chardonnay or Pinot Noir should taste like.

You could argue tasting panels were required 30 years ago, but times have changed. In any event, VQA Ontario standards and VQA B.C. rules don’t align 100 per cent, while the rest of the country late to the wine party is finding some of the grapes they are growing do not even qualify under VQA rules.

It’s just another problem in need of solving with a much bigger vision than the current provincial outlook, and I mean provincial in every sense of the word. It’s time for some national solutions that start with Canada, migrate to the provinces, and work their way down to the various sub-regions and winery groups. More important, these are not big winery-versus-small winery issues, but rather Canadian wine issues that require a national solution.

Forest fires were a wine industry ■ factor in British Columbia in 2017 where, if they weren’t spreading smoke into vineyards, they were affecting the number of tourists visiting the Okanagan Valley. The effects of climate change are more obvious than ever, and it’s likely hot, dry summers will be here for years to come. We need an industry-wide strategy to mitigate climate change at all levels and we need it now.

I live for the day when Canadian wineries will talk as one about combating climate change, and how they intend to reduce the size of their carbon footprint with the same zeal they talk about their wines.

Until then, it is all just a bunch of hot air, something the world has enough of at the moment.