DEEP FREEZE FALLOUT HIGHLIGHTS WINE REGULATION HODGEPODGE
You may have heard there's trouble in B.C. wine country. The source was a deep freeze in early January, which caused significant damage across most of the Okanagan and Similkameen Valley vineyards and orchards. Even though we can't know the depth of the damage just yet, early investigations have some people using words like catastrophic. We will know more as we head into spring and whether any of the vines return to life, but it doesn't look promising.
This is the second deep freeze weather event in consecutive years, and the combination of the two has challenged local growers and the many ancillary businesses that depend on a reliable supply of wine to sell every year. It has also set off some difficult conversations about where we go from here and what, if anything, can be done to rescue the current situation and plan for a secure future.
As has become the norm, wineries, investors, owners, workers, and just about everybody connected to the wine business is asking the government to step in and save the industry with cash injections, but that is unlikely to happen at the level wineries would like.
B.C. will have very few grapes to harvest in 2024, following a tiny 2023 harvest, which means output in 2025 and 2026 will be limited. Wineries are in full scramble mode, looking into buying foreign grapes from Washington and beyond to fill their needs. In truth, all grapes growing outside of B.C., including in the rest of Canada, are deemed foreign for tax purposes, and for this writer, that's where the rubber meets the road.
It's insane that B.C. land-based wineries cannot deal in grapes from anywhere else in Canada and vice versa, as the large commercial wineries do. They can become a commercial winery, but that means losing vital financial advantages accorded land-based wineries.
Ontario and B.C. have muddled along for over three decades with slightly different Vintner's Quality Alliance (VQA) rules that were never conceived to regulate all Canadian wines. The differences are petty and pretty much nonsense, but it is all part of the silo-building that Canadian wine regions seem to thrive on. As extreme weather events become normalized, the lack of national regulations has come back to bite everyone in the rear that is growing grapes in Canada.
I was never comfortable with the quality assurance aspect of the VQA regulations, which should only be about where the wine originates, assuring consumers that it's 100 per cent Canadian, or 100 per cent British Columbia or 100 per cent from Ontario, Nova Scotia, Quebec, or anywhere else in Canada. Consumers can judge the quality independently as long as they are assured of the wine's provenance.
A mantra among winegrowers says that growing grapes on the edge is where the best wine is made. True enough until it implodes from a deep freeze, a sustained drought, a wildfire or one of many insidious moulds or insects that can damage the fruit. It is especially damaging when no mechanism allows one part of the country to help another and perhaps save the day.
Alberta has barred the sale of B.C. wine while refusing to create a simple method to collect the lost tax they're whinging about — a tax B.C. producers have long offered to pay. Ontario and Quebec have refused to allow B.C. wineries to sell directly to Canadian consumers residing in those provinces for reasons they will not disclose. Undaunted by its protectionist government, Ontario wine growers say they have plenty of surplus grapes to sell to B.C. wineries to get them through tough times. But the taxing of foreign grapes makes it uneconomical for land-based wineries, and that's before you deal with the rules prohibiting them from importing grapes from outside the region. If you are still following me, it's insane.
There are a few signs that change could be coming, but for now, we advise you to get on a wine club list or buy any B.C. wines you can find to support local producers, although it must be said, B.C. consumers have done more than their fair share of supporting the locals since the pandemic. It is time for all Canadian wineries to get in a room and sort out this mess before we all go completely insane.