Small Okanagan grape harvest may be due to more than the heat dome
The record-breaking heat dome that hammered the Okanagan last June was a major factor in having a small grape harvest this fall.
But there seems to more going on in the industry than just that one event.
“It’s the third year in a row of the crop being short – short being under what we had anticipated it to be,” Miles Prodan, president and CEO of Wines of B.C., told iNFOnews.ca. “So, we’re taking a look at it right now.”
Many of the vineyards in the region were planted 30 to 40 years ago as the Valley transitioned into high quality wine.
That means the plants are reaching maturity. While they continue to produce quality fruit, the quantity goes down.
Growers are also looking into whether disease may be a factor and they’re learning more about what specific lands are best for vineyards.
“We don’t have an endless amount of land to replant,” Prodan said. “Just because there’s fruit trees that doesn’t mean grapes will grow there. Part of what we’re discovering as we go along is that people switching over, for example, from apples to grapes, those two aren’t interchangeable.”
But, without a doubt, the extreme heat was a factor in the quantity of fruit grown in 2021.
READ MORE: One more day of the heat wave pushes Okanagan and Canadian records even higher
“Grapes adapt,” Prodan said. “Like any plant, they shut down. Because they shut down, they didn’t grow as vigorously as they could, so that’s why the volumes are down.”
What’s more important to the quality of the wine is harvest season in the early fall, which was ideal last year.
“The grape growers tell me, you can grow grapes anywhere in the world,” Prodan said. “They’re a vine. The vine is very vigorous. The challenge is getting the fruit and having the warm temperatures in the fall to ripen. We were fortunate enough to have the right condition at the right time to ripen.”
The Okanagan is unique in that it has warm fall days and cool nights that make it ideal for quality grapes.
The other potential factor affecting quality is the smoke from forest fires that inundated the region.
“When you’re living in the smoke and heat, as we do in the Okanagan, you look around and think: ‘How is that impacting everything?’” Prodan said. “What about wine? It’s not as dire as you would think, living through it.”
As grapes mature, their skin thickens so smoke does not penetrate as easily as when they are younger, say in June.
Proximity to the fire can also be a factor.
At least one winery, Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars in Okanagan Falls, chose not to bottle its wine this year because of smoke damage.
READ MORE: South Okanagan winery not bottling 2021 vintage due to wildfire smoke contamination
The winery was near the Thomas Creek wildfire that broke out in early July, when the grapes would have been more susceptible to smoke damage.
In 2003, the Okanagan Mountain Park wildfire actually burned the St. Hubertus winery building and destroyed the crop.
Prodan recalled that other vineyards affected by smoke from that fire, marketed their wine as having a smoky taste.
He doesn’t know if any other Okanagan wineries have decided not to bottle. There are filtering and lab techniques that can lessen the impact of smoke damage or the juice can be sold for a lower quality wine.
But, given the nature of the smoke and the time of year when it was most prevalent, it doesn’t appear to have impacted the flavour for most growers.
Overall, the bad news for consumers is the 2021 production is smaller than expected so some wines may be in short supply.
The good news is that, while 2021 may be a superior quality vintage, the prices will not go up accordingly.
“There’s a lot of cheap import wine out there,” Prodan said. “If people trade down to that, we worry about getting them to come back so we really respect and appreciate the B.C. consumers and want to make sure we continue to provide value.”
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