Don’t count Okanagan wine industry out just because this year’s crop is gone
Lovers of Okanagan VQA wines may already be noticing declines in their favourite flavours in local liquor stores.
But the total destruction of the 2024 grape crop and the loss of half of the 2023 crop doesn’t mean the industry is going to die, just that the supply chains are likely to change dramatically.
“There’s still a wine industry in this province and it’s resilient," Miles Prodan, CEO of Wines of BC, told iNFOnews.ca. "We’ve taken a hard knock between two extreme winter kill events and Alberta and the excise tax. We’ll start seeing the effects immediately as they (wineries) start adjusting their allocations of where they made that wine available and we’ve already seen strong signs of them pulling it out of the retail channels to bring it home.”
A January cold snap this year has destroyed the entire 2024 crop. A less severe cold snap in December 2022 wiped out 58% of the 2023 crop.
READ MORE: Okanagan grape harvest wiped out for 2024
At the same time, the Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis board barred wines from 106 out-of-province wineries because they sold wine directly to consumers. Most were Okanagan wineries but the exact breakdown has not been released.
The federal excise tax will add almost 5% to the price of wine, beer and spirits in April.
READ MORE: Liquor agency tight-lipped on why Okanagan wines will soon disappear in Alberta
While, at this point, Prodan is just speculating, the profit margins are larger for wine sold at wineries than retail outlets so it makes sense to concentrate on keeping more product closer to home.
“What that will do is really put an emphasis and reliance on tourism and, because of that, we’ve got to be careful that people don’t say: ‘Gee. It’s terrible in the Okanagan. I’ll just take a pass on it,’” Prodan said. “That’s not what we want. There’s still wine. Probably the only place you can be sure to get it is directly from the winery.”
Early estimates of the December 2022 damage to the grape crop ranged from 34% to 56%. In the end, 58% of the crop was lost.
That means supplies of 2023 white wines, normally released this spring, will be greatly reduced. Reds are not usually released until the fall.
Just this week, the industry estimated crop loss from January’s cold snap to be as high as 99%.
“Unfortunately, we're pretty confident that we can say it looks like it will be a total loss for the crop,” Prodan said. That means there will be no 2024 vintage to be released in 2025.
What the devastation means in terms of job loss has not been calculated.
Following last year’s damage, it was estimated that 20% of jobs, or 381 positions, would be lost.
Where those job losses will be varies.
While it doesn’t look like spring pruning of the vines will do any good, there is no clear indication yet on how many plants have actually been killed, even from last year.
“Even if there is some growth and the entire vine has not been killed, you can’t just walk away from it,” Prodan said. “Even if it was not totally killed, it takes that much more effort into tending the vines to nurse them back. It all depends on the type of grape it is and where it is.”
Growers are still waiting for word from the provincial government on a grape vine replant program following last year’s damage and they need to be making decisions soon on ordering new plants for next spring.
The larger job impact will be on the wine production end where, with no grapes, there is no wine to be made.
READ MORE: Drastic changes needed as Okanagan wine industry faces 'existential crisis'
While there will still be a tourism element, some wineries have to decide soon whether to continue paying winemakers through a year of no wine or risk losing them altogether.
All wineries are grape growers as well so it’s not possible to separate them in terms of job impacts, Prodan said.
The industry’s 2022 wine acreage report counted 1,234 vineyards in BC with 86.1% of those being in the Okanagan and another 6.1% in the Similkameen. Almost 70% of the acreage is operated by wineries, averaging 14.1 acres per vineyard. The other 30.6% are smaller, independent growers, averaging 6.4 acres.
In theory, large scale operations such as the Peller Estates group, could import grapes in order to keep their wineries operating and make non-BC VQA wines. On the other hand, Peller has the largest amount of grape acreages in the Okanagan valley so it is hit hardest by the damage, Prodan said.
Even if the crops rebound in 2025 and beyond, it’s going to be a challenge to get Okanagan VQA wines back into liquor stores and restaurants.
“When you start pulling it off the shelves and out of the retail channel, they don’t hold that spot open for you,” Prodan said.
“They’ve got to fill that shelf space, which means an import wine, which is going to mean we’re going to have to go and fight for that space back. It’s tough to be out of the market and try to come back into the market.”
To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.
