Introduction
What are five things that will surprise you about the wine regions and wines of British Columbia? What are some top tips to help you get the most from your visit to BC? Which challenges does this West Coast wine industry face going forward?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with the author and host of The Sipsters Wine Podcast, Luke Whittall.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
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Giveaway
Three of you are going to win a personally signed copy of Luke’s new book, The Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must-Try Ontario Wines.
How to Win
To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.
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Good luck!
Highlights
- What was Luke’s inspiration for writing Valleys of Wine: A Taste of British Columbia’s Wine History?
- Why did John Schreiner choose Luke to help him write the sixth edition of his Okanagan Wine Tour Guide?
- Why are authentic stories important for a winery and how can impact their success?
- How does the wine industry in British Columbia compare to Ontario?
- What are some of the geographical limitations of wine production BC?
- Why is the growth of the BC wine industry slowing?
- How is climate change changing the profile of the wine industry?
- How has the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires impacted British Columbia?
- What’s the difference between a smoky flavour in wine versus smoke taint?
- How do the production levels of BC and Ontario compare?
- What makes up the unique climate of the BC wine regions?
- What might surprise you about the Okanagan region?
- Which grape varieties are grown in different regions of the Okanagan?
- What are Luke’s top travel tips for visiting the Okanagan?
Key Takeaways
- There were so many fascinating nuggets about BC that Luke shared, from the profound influence of the lake to how embers from wildfires were able to traverse across it.
- The range of wine styles and grapes is both a blessing in its diversity and experimentation and a curse in the optimization that still needs to happen as BC matures as a wine region.
- Luke’s tips for visiting the region were helpful, particularly breaking up your journey into a few days and several wineries that have restaurants.
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About Luke Whittall
Luke Whittall has worked in cellars, vineyards, and wine shops since 2005. He has authored or co-authored 4 books on wine and is currently a wine instructor at Okanagan College. His most recent book, The Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must-Try BC Wines, Volume 2 (Touchwood Editions 2023) follows up on the success of volume 1 of The Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must-Try BC Wines, and continues to mark a new direction in wine writing. It features more of the most amazing wines ever produced in British Columbia. His first book, Valleys of Wine: A Taste of British Columbia’s Wine History was published in 2019 and he co-authored the 6th edition of The Okanagan Wine Tour Guide with John Schreiner in 2020.
Resources
- Connect with Luke Whittall
- Unreserved Wine Talk
- Diary of a Book Launch: An Insider Peek from Idea to Publication
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- My Books:
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 71: British Columbia’s Best Wineries with Wine Writer John Schreiner
- My new class The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
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- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
Luke Whittall (00:00):
It takes 60 years for every single drop of water in Lake Okanagan to cycle through. Eventually, it’ll all end up in Portland. The bedrock for the lake is actually below sea level, which is crazy as well because we’re nowhere near the sea. The lake being the most important thing for viticulture because the grapes that are closest to the lake have a much more moderated temperature, and so they don’t get those heat spikes. They get frost protection.
Natalie MacLean (00:27):
That water bottle effect of the Niagara region, the lake protects it from frost in the winter and then gives it some cooling breezes in the summer.
Luke Whittall (00:34):
Exactly. Exactly. And it’s the same idea here, except that it’s much more compressed. It’s a lot smaller. And being closer to the lake is really beneficial. It’s also impossible not to look at when you’re driving through. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful natural feature.
Natalie MacLean (00:57):
Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle please and let’s get started.
Welcome to episode 260. What are five things that would surprise you about the wine regions and wines of British Columbia? What are some top tips to help you get the most from your visit to BC? And which challenges does the West Coast wine industry face going forward? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Luke Whittall, author of The Sipster’s Pocket Guides of the 50 Must Try Wines in BC and Ontario. Three of you listening to this podcast are going to win a personally signed copy of his terrific new book. All you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know you want to win a copy. I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me over the next two weeks. I should add that it’s worth your while to try for these regular book prizes that I announced on the podcast because there are actually still a few books from previous episodes that have not yet been given away. Don’t assume that you have to be the first to email me to have a chance to win. That said don’t wait too long either.
(02:53):
Before we dive into our conversation with Luke, I’d like to share a reader review of my new book Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much from Jocelyn in Edmonton, Alberta.
“Love this story, the writing. Wow, very moving, evoked lots of emotion. As I read the book, I thought that these are all lessons that all of us need to learn no matter what our situations are. I liked reading about how the conversations and the time spent with her friends helped her and how they all became closer and more honest with each other. It also helped me understand a little more about how wine is marketed. Natalie is a courageous woman who has gone through a lot and come out of it with grace. I hope her story will inspire people”.
Thank you, Jocelyn. If you’ve read the book or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. If you haven’t got your copy yet and would like to support it and this podcast that I do on a volunteer basis, please order it now from any online retailer no matter where you live. Every little bit helps spread the message. In this book, I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/260. Okay, on with the show,
Natalie MacLean (04:19):
Luke Whittle has worked in cellars vineyards and in wine shops since 2005. He has authored or co-authored five books on wine. His first book, Valleys of Wine: A Taste of British Columbia’s Wine History was published in 2019. Then in 2020, he co-authored the sixth edition of the Okanagan Wine Tour Guide with John Schreiner, arguably one of Canada’s best wine writers. Luke’s latest series of books, the Sipster’s Pocket Guide features some of the best must try wines produced in BC and Ontario. Luke is also the host and producer of the Sipster’s Wine podcast, and he joins us now from his home in the beautiful Okanagan Falls. Welcome, Luke. It’s so great to have you here with us.
Luke Whittall (05:07):
Hi, Natalie. Thank you for having me. This is fantastic.
Natalie MacLean (05:10):
Oh, my pleasure. We’re just going to pick up the conversation because of course last time we were talking on your podcast, you were interviewing me, so I am relishing the chance to turn the tables because you’ve done so many great articles and podcast episodes and writing on both BC and Ontario. Okay, so let’s talk about first the inspiration for your first book, Valleys of Wine. Where did you get the idea to write that book?
Luke Whittall (05:37):
I got the idea from a slightly drunk guy at a winery that I worked at the time.
Natalie MacLean
Oh, really?
Luke Whittall
Yeah. You get inspiration where you can, I guess is how that’s supposed to go. But basically, I talked about a wine that I thought had some history to it, and so to introduce it, I would sort of say when they write the book about the wine industry in BC or the history, they’ll talk about the Osoyoos Larose and they’ll talk about these other wines, and then they’ll mention this wine, and then I kept going through the tasting and to his credit, he let me finish what I was saying. But at the end of the conversation, once I’d finished, he kind of rears back in his chair a little bit and he says, well, why don’t you just write the book? I went home from that experience just full of ideas, and I went home and I wrote out a whole chapter sequence and the idea just never left me. And then I ended up talking about it to a friend of mine and then to an editor for a newspaper that I worked for at the time, who then referred to me to a book distributor who then referred to me to the people at White Cap Books.
Natalie MacLean (06:43):
Oh, wow. Great publisher on the West Coast.
Luke Whittall (06:46):
And that was honestly on my list of, I mean, I have tons of books from White Cap Books on my shelf, and so I was like, this is fantastic. I couldn’t even believe that was happening, but it did, and it happened within five years, which in the publishing world is really fast for a book.
Natalie MacLean (07:00):
Yeah, that’s warp speed there.
Luke Whittall (07:02):
Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, that’s basically how it started.
Natalie MacLean (07:05):
Okay, cool. Let’s talk about your next book, just a little bit of history gathering here before we dive into the conversation. John Schreiner, fabulous writer based in BC, picked you to help him write the sixth edition of the Okanagan Wine Tour Guide. How did that happen or why did he pick you?
Luke Whittall (07:21):
I still have no idea. I really don’t.
Natalie MacLean
[laughter] Being modest.
Luke Whittall
Well, I’ve known John for about 15 years or so, just on and off, and I interviewed him for my first podcast that I used to do years ago, and we really hit it off. And then part of the thing I realized was when we were having lunch one day at a restaurant in Penticton and we were just talking and I looked down and the waitress was standing over us tapping her shoe going are you guys going to order or anything or what, because we’ve been here for an hour and what I realized is that John and I, we just talk and we just enjoy talking about wine and we’re just the most gossipy little people kind of when it comes to the wine industry. And I think he really appreciated that part of it and we just had a really good rapport together. And it was unbelievable experience to work with him, just to know how he does his research, and how he goes through the writing process. I got to see that from behind the scenes. It was really cool. And he’s so fantastic and it scares the crap out of me that I would possibly be able to take over for him to do another Wine Tour Guide after that. I just can’t imagine that amount of work. It’s just amazing what he does.
Natalie MacLean (08:35):
It is. He’s such a credit to the industry. But yes it looks like you are the heir apparent for when that time comes. So you worked as a tour guide in the Okanagan for a year. Tell us about how groups connected with the winery through their stories. If you have a specific example, that would be great.
Luke Whittall (08:53):
Yeah, I did work as a tour guide.I worked in retail for a long time, but decided to take a year off from that. I just didn’t want to explain to someone why Chardonnay wasn’t going to kill them if they drank it.
Natalie MacLean (09:04):
Well that’s news [laughter].
Luke Whittall (09:07):
I mean at the time the ABC club was running strong, right.
Natalie MacLean (09:10):
Anything but chardonnay.
Luke Whittall (09:12):
Yeah, and so I didn’t quite understand that because there’s some beautiful chardonnays here. Anyway, so I was taking a group around to a winery. And the winery, which I won’t name, had kind of a nebulous story and I could tell it wasn’t really connecting and I’d made sure I knew the person who was managing the winery. I made sure that they got the really good experience, all that kind of stuff, and I could tell it just wasn’t grabbing. And then when I got back on the bus afterwards with this group, I asked them what did you think? And they said, what does the name mean? I was never going to tell the winery’s story. That wasn’t my job. My job was to kind of tell them about the region and things like that, but I kind of explained what their name meant and they kind of leaned back and they said well does that mean it’s just a bunch of rich people trying to have a winery that has a cute name and some things around? And I said, well, that’s an interesting observation. I wasn’t going to lead them into anything. And it occurred to me then that the story of the winery and the connection to that story is really, really important for a winery, not just for their marketing. I mean, you can say one thing, but if you don’t mean it and the story isn’t authentic or isn’t true, some of those as well that you just won’t hit with people and people will see through that. And this winery did and two years later they were sold off and they’re still in business, but
Natalie MacLean (10:36):
Get your story straight or you’ll be out of business. But I get your point, Luke, because wine is a story. It’s a story of place and people and time and everything that goes into making wine. And it’s not just another consumer product like Cornflakes or whatever. There is something there beyond just the mass production of a certain consumable. So I wholeheartedly support your point on that.
Luke Whittall (11:00):
And I think it’s really important for that. You can’t learn about a wine without sort of understanding, or at least it gives you the opportunity if you want to explore it. And not everybody does, and I get that, but it gives you the opportunity to learn about a region. It gives you the opportunity to learn about a place. You can’t taste wines from Virginia without learning about the earliest people who tried to grow grapes there and that kind of thing. You can’t go through California without learning about the Spanish missionaries and it’s just kind of part of, I think, part of the fun.
Natalie MacLean (11:34):
Absolutely. The way wine connects with so much history, culture, commerce, everything. Alright, let’s dive into these wine regions. So although your latest book is the Sipster’s Pocket Guide to 50 Must Try Ontario Wines, which is fabulous. Oh, there’s the picture there. For those of you who are listening to the podcast, what a great cover. I love it. Thank you. Oh, there’s the set.
Luke Whittall (11:54):
Very different from the BC one.
Natalie MacLean (11:55):
Yeah. I’m going to ask you about the differences, but I really like that they’re good covers. Catchy. And as I say, fits perfectly in a Christmas stocking. So yes. There you go.
Luke Whittall (12:07):
I don’t have a stocking.
Natalie MacLean (12:08):
You’d do a demo i’m sure if you did. So your previous books focus on British Columbia’s wine regions. So for those of us who are not as familiar with these areas as you are. You’re living it. You’re right there. Give us an overview of BC as pertains to wine. How many wineries are in the province?
Luke Whittall (12:26):
That depends on the day. It seems like every time I hear a stat it tends to change, but right now throughout the province there’s probably about 330 to 350 or so licenses.
Natalie MacLean
Wow.
Luke Whittall
It’s quite a large number now. Not a lot of them are very large. Some of them are quite small and they’re not all in the Okanagan. There’s a growing industry on Vancouver Island and in the Fraser Valley and in the Kootneys, in Kamloops. There’s more regions than just the Okanagan now.
Natalie MacLean (12:54):
Sure. And we’re going to talk about that. Absolutely.
Luke Whittall (12:57):
Most people think about the Okanagan.
Natalie MacLean (12:59):
And how does that compare to Ontario number of wineries now? I know the production is vastly different and there are going to be a lot of small wineries in BC. There are also a lot of small wineries in Ontario but. So we’ve got 300, 350 in BC. Ontario, how many roughly?
Luke Whittall (13:12):
I think it’s around 180, 190. It’s less wineries, but they’re all much bigger.
Natalie MacLean (13:17):
Oh, they’re much bigger, okay.
Luke Whittall (13:18):
Yeah, they tend to be more acreage. The minimum acreages are bigger. There’s just more land.
Natalie MacLean (13:25):
In Ontario or in BC?
Luke Whittall (13:28):
In Ontario. In BC, we run out of land. It just ends up, you get too high up the mountain and there’s nothing left or it’s completely inhospitable to growing grapes of any kind. So we really only have the valley bottoms to be able to do that. That’s why my first book was called Valleys of Wine because everything is in a valley somewhere.
Natalie MacLean (13:46):
And is that because it’s a protected area, climatically, they have to plant the grapes there? Is it just too cold to go onto the mountainsides?
Luke Whittall (13:54):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I used to be able to see Baldy from my house in Oliver when I lived there, and there was snow there until the end of June, and there was snow there again at the beginning of July because it was at 5,000, 5,000 feet or so. There’s a lot of that around. The difference really is that there isn’t also a lot of soil. I used to work at a winery that backed up against Mount Kabau on the Golden Mile, and I had a German tour group with me and they were asking why we didn’t plant a farther up the mountain. And I said, well, it’s too steep not thinking that of course in Germany steep has no relevance. I mean, they’re harvesting on vineyards that are 45 degrees. Yes. So they said that’s not steep. And I’m like, but there’s also no soil.
Natalie MacLean (14:40):
So what is it just pure rock? Is it just no topsoil?
Luke Whittall (14:43):
Yeah, there’s very little topsoil. There’s very little to anything in terms of that. There are pockets and stuff, but certainly not enough to make it commercially viable for growing grapes of any kind. Some people are trying. Row 13 has a vineyard that was up high, and of course Culmina has a vineyard that’s quite high elevation as well. They’ve kind of table topped a beautiful high level. I mean, it’s really up there. Beautiful.
Natalie MacLean
how high is it?
Luke Whittall
I don’t know the elevation figures, but it’s way above their main property. And it’s a terrifying drive to get up to it. It really is.
Natalie MacLean (15:15):
Really.
Luke Whittall (15:16):
It’s a spectacular place. And they grow Gruner Veltliner and Riesling, I think.
Natalie MacLean (15:20):
Oh, right. All those cool climate grapes. Yeah, they would have to at that elevation. How many wineries would you estimate have opened in BC in the last say five years?
Luke Whittall (15:30):
There’s a bit of a debate going on about that. The pace has sort of slowed down a little bit. I’ve noticed.
Natalie MacLean
Why is that?
Luke Whittall
Economic factors I think are a big thing. And then recently, the last three years have been really tough for climate reasons and fires and landslides. And it’s just been a very, very slower. The growth has slowed a little bit. There’s also, like I said, we’re running out of land. We can’t expand very much in terms of land. So it could be that the pace has slowed. It still seems to be that there’s 20 new wineries a year, but that’s just anecdotal. I don’t know exactly the figures for that. But every time I drive down Naramata Bench Road there’s like that’s a new sign I haven’t seen before. Who is that? So there’s a few things like that happening every now and then.
Natalie MacLean (16:15):
So BC can’t go more north. You hear about climate change, everything’s warming up, so they can’t even go more northerly from where the existing valleys are now and plant and in, I don’t know, other valleys. I’m not as familiar with the geography of BC. But that’s not possible yet?
Luke Whittall (16:33):
Well, it is, and I think that’s sort of what’s happening. There’s a winery called La Frenz and they’re based in West Kelowna, but they bought a huge plot of land in Vernon, which is sort of at the top of the lake. If you imagine the Lake Okanagan going or the Okanagan Valley in BC going from Osoyoos to Vernon with the lake actually stopping in Penticton, Vernon is at the very top. And traditionally there hasn’t really been any large amount of grapes grown there at all. So he’s planted huge acreage of Cabernet Sauvignon in there, which is astonishing.
Natalie MacLean (17:06):
Because that needs lots of warmth to ripen, Cabernet.
Luke Whittall (17:09):
Oh my God. Yeah. So it’s definitely going to be really curious to see what’s going to happen with it, but he’s very confident with the possibility of it working. And it is a beautiful south facing slope. I mean, if there’s any land up there that has the potential, that’s the land to do it. So I’m very interested to see what’s going to happen. Of course, we’re not going to know anything about it for a few years now, but it’s really, really interesting to see that they can do that. There’s land farther up from that Armstrong, Enderby, and even into Salmon Arm, which there’s also vineyards already there on the Shuswap but they can’t grow the same kind of grapes. And so we either have to start getting used to different kinds of grapes and different styles of wine and having that really become the style for BC wine or we wait for climate change to kind of kick in a little bit more basically and see what happens.
And climate change, it should be noted, isn’t just that it’s getting hotter. It’s just that the seasons are changing. Winters are getting weird. Stuff is happening. Water retention capability of the hills is lower. Forest fires wipe out for huge swaths of trees. So the land doesn’t hold the water it used to. So then we get flooding events in this. There’s all kinds of other things.
Natalie MacLean (18:25):
It’s all tied together. And you said the landslides are probably part of that as well, because there’s fewer trees holding…
Luke Whittall (18:32):
Exactly, yeah. The roots that you normally hold na lot of the land together aren’t there anymore or they’re dead. So there’s a lot of change happening and it’s going on really noticeably, which is scary and interesting at the same time.
Natalie MacLean (18:46):
I was going to ask you about the wildfires a little later on, but let’s dive into it. You brought it up. So how were the wildfires this year compared to previous years? It seems like BC has had an issue with wildfires every year for the past, I don’t know, five years maybe more. What’s happening now?
Luke Whittall (19:02):
Yeah, it’s been bad. This past year was pretty bad. The fire in West Kelowna was just devastating and hot and vicious. I mean it spread across the lake, which you have to imagine burning embers being blown more than two kilometres.
Natalie MacLean (19:20):
Across a lake? Wow.
Luke Whittall (19:22):
Across a lake. And I’ve never seen that happen before.
Natalie MacLean
Wow.
Luke Whittall
I mean, I’ve been here since 2007, and normally a lake or even a highway is usually pretty good stopping point most of the time. But for this one to cross a lake like that, it was just astonishing. Osoyoos had a fire earlier in the summer which impacted a friend of mine who actually lived quite close to there. He was evacuated. There was another fire just about five kilometres to the west of me here that never really was threatening. I’ve certainly had fires personally closer to me than that, but that was close as well. So we were getting a lot of smoke and depending on which way the wind blows, then we’d have more smoke or less smoke. And the smoke was the biggest impact for most of the daily lives of people that are here at that time when there’s a lot of fire.
Natalie MacLean (20:08):
And are they anticipating smoke taint is going to affect the taste of the wine this vintage? It does sort of settle on the grapes and they are osmotic. So are they worried about that?
Luke Whittall (20:21):
Yeah, I think there’s always a bit of concern about it. I think it’s not always easy to judge based on location. There’s so many variables on it that it’s so hard to predict it so early on. The only way to know really for sure is when the wine is in the bottle and you’re tasting it. And even then, apparently there’s variations. So for some people they’ll get it more than others. Some bottles are different. From bottle to bottle, I mean. Smoke taint is scary for wineries for a reason because of the potential for it being, I mean, glass to glass it’s a volatile chemical that will either break down or it won’t. And if it doesn’t break down literally in your mouth, you won’t get it. But then the person next to you that you just poured their glass, it might break down in their mouth and when they get it and it’s just crazy. So it’s very, very, very weird. And I’m trying to think of the word for kind of slithers or meanders through
Natalie MacLean (21:21):
Idiopathic. It’s not predictable, unpredictable. But is it whether the compounds break down or not in your mouth, do you know if they’re unhealthy? Or it’s not anything to do with health, it’s just taste? It just impacts taste?
Luke Whittall (21:36):
Yeah. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know if…
Natalie MacLean (21:39):
Just curious.
Luke Whittall (21:39):
… what the health benefits are. I think it just comes down to sort of an unpleasantness.
Natalie MacLean (21:46):
Taste probably like other wine faults. Yeah.
Luke Whittall (21:48):
Yeah, exactly. But what is scary is that cork taint is bottle to bottle, but the whole bottle is ruined. And for the most part it’s obviously ruined unless it’s in just sort of a small amount. Bret the same thing.
Natalie MacLean (22:00):
Brettanomyces.
Luke Whittall (22:00):
People have a bit of a tolerance to it
Natalie MacLean (22:03):
That barnyard smell.
Luke Whittall (22:05):
And in Burgundy, of course, that’s perfectly normal to have a little bit of it. So it’s not really that big a deal. But for smoke taint, it’s just so wildly unpredictable. And when it’s bad, it’s undrinkable. I’ve tasted smoke tainted wine that was never released and it was drinking out of an ashtray. It was awful.
Natalie MacLean (22:26):
And that’s unfortunate for the wineries because it affects their brand. For those who don’t know that this might be smoked taint like any other fault, but even more wildly unpredictable in this case. Somebody could just say geez I don’t like their style of wine where it’s actually the smoke taint and then they never go back to the wine, which is kind of unfortunate.
Luke Whittall (22:45):
It is. And there’s always some people who actually kind of like it, which is really interesting. They’d like that. And I should point out that having a wine taste smoky is not the same thing as smoked taint. There’s lots of we get a nice Syrah that has a nice sort of camp fiery edge to it or a bit of a smoky flavour to it, that’s from the barrels. That’s not from smoked taint. When you actually taste smoked taint, it’s not going to tastes smokey. It’s going to taste ashy. I find it.
Natalie MacLean (23:13):
Ashtray doesn’t sound.
Luke Whittall
Yeah.
Natalie MacLean
More accurate as well, I would imagine. Okay. So in the province, BC, roughly how many bottles does it produce a year? Again let’s just keep the comparison going with Ontario since you’ve got books on both. But bottles to bottles, dollar to dollar, I know it varies. But on average, how much does BC produce versus Ontario?
Luke Whittall (23:37):
For production levels that can vary so much. I don’t really know the actual case figures or bottle figures for the region. I know that we have about 10 to 11,000 acres of grapevines in the Okanagan right now.
Natalie MacLean (23:49):
And how does that compare to Ontario?
Luke Whittall (23:51):
Ontario, they had 17 to 18,000 acres. So Ontario industry is a lot bigger, but again that can translate to wildly different bottling, like bottle amounts and case amounts just based on production level. Some vineyards will be able to produce beautiful wines. It’s five to six tonnes an acre, Syrah and Gewürztraminer and varieties that will grow quite a bit quite happily and make beautiful wine from it. But sometimes Pinot Noir you really only want two tonnes an acre, three tonnes maybe. And so it’s kind of like, it’s so variable and I think it really depends on the year as well.
So by vineyard acreage, yeah, it’s about 10,000, 11,000 to about 18,000. The Ontario industry is much bigger, which is part of my desire to kind of explore it. I really wanted to know what was happening there, and it felt weird to be on this side of the same country and not be able to kind get Ontario wines out here.
Natalie MacLean (24:44):
Oh yeah, same. Yeah. The cross border shipping, I’m talking provincial borders, interprovincial borders. It’s easier for us to get California wines than BC wines. In terms of our selection, California is vastly wider. I mean, we could go down a rabbit hole with that and we won’t.
Luke Whittall
Yes.
Natalie MacLean
But wine is the most highest value add agricultural product that we produce in this country. Tens of thousands of jobs, all mostly rural, and still the provinces prevent easy cross border shipping. So anyway, that’s a whole other podcast.
Luke Whittall (25:17):
But we could do a whole podcast on that.
Natalie MacLean (25:19):
Absolutely. And we should
Luke Whittall (25:22):
I think so, too.
Natalie MacLean (25:23):
I’ve heard varying figures, but what’s your notion. Does BC produce roughly 10% of Canadian wine, Ontario 85%, and then you’ve got a little bit Quebec, a little bit in Nova Scotia, then you’ve got other fruit based wineries in the rest of the provinces, meaning not grapes, but berries and that sort of thing. What’s your understanding?
Luke Whittall (25:41):
10% seems a bit low if we’re talking about sort of grape like wine production and everything. Certainly the wineries in Ontario, especially the commercial wineries like Andrew Peller, they have the production capacity that’s much larger there but that’s not necessarily including the grapes and the wine that is actually grown here. So if we talk about wines that are grown here not imported juice and the sort of IDB type wines, the international domestic blend type wines, which Ontario does much more of than British Columbia does, so the production is higher there. But if we just go with the grapes that are grown and produced here, then yes I think BC would probably have a little bit more on par with the difference in acreage. So 10,000 acres to 17,000 acres. So I could see it being more 35%, 40% of total production.
Natalie MacLean (26:31):
Oh, really? Okay. That’s surprising.
Luke Whittall (26:32):
Yeah. And the other industries like Nova Scotia, they don’t have a huge industry there, although it is growing and it’s quite exciting, which is fantastically interesting. But the volumes are very low.
Natalie MacLean
They’re very small.
Luke Whittall
The volumes are very, very small. So yeah, so that’s kind of thing. But again, I haven’t been to the Stats Canada website lately. I did that. I did used to do that for the research from my first book. I did go through all of the annual reports for the liquor distribution branch in BC. I went through all those stats. I went through it for every single report from 1923.
Natalie MacLean
Good Lord.
Luke Whittall
I was that kind of research guy for that. Oh, I know. I was not fun at parties at that point.
Natalie MacLean (27:11):
[laughter] About 1944? Gotcha!
Luke Whittall (27:15):
Then I would see these statistics and there’s some really weird things that showed up in those stats, which I thought was really interesting. Well, on the onset of World War II, they used to have a category in the BCLBB or what was now the BCLBB, the BC…
Natalie MacLean (27:30):
The BC liquor stores. Yeah.
Luke Whittall (27:31):
Yeah. They had a stat on what they called Oriental liquors, which was sake in all kinds of things. But as soon as World War II started, which went up to 12% of their total revenue so it wasn’t nothing, it was a very significant amount, but as soon as World War II happened that plummeted to 0.2% of total revenue. So you could see, because I mean obviously Japan was in the war and stuff like that, and so shipping got messed up during that time and things like that. So it was a real change that you could see in the stats very quickly, and it never recovered. It never really came up. Stuff like that which had nothing to do with anything that I was writing about, but I just found a tangent
Natalie MacLean
[laughter]
Luke Whittall
and I thought wow that’s kind of fun.
Natalie MacLean (28:16):
All right. You and your crackers in the corner there.
Luke Whittall
[laughter]
Natalie MacLean
Okay. So there are nine wine producing regions in BC, the largest and most famous of which is the Okanagan Valley, which itself has another 11 sub regions. So what percentage roughly of BC wine does the Okanagan Valley produce? Is it 90% or?
Luke Whittall (28:36):
Yeah, it’s pretty high. This is where most of the wine is made. If you were to have British Columbia wine or find it in a store, which you can find in the LCBO wine’s from British Columbia there, they’re going to be from the Okanagan for the most part. The wineries in other regions are very small. The production’s very low. That doesn’t mean it’s not good. Some of it’s fantastic.
But even within the Okanagan, the wineries will blend across various sub regions. So they’ll take fruit from the Golden Mile Bench, they’ll take fruit from Black Sage Bench, they’ll take fruit from wherever, and that goes into what would be VQA Okanagan. And I think most people kind of stick with that because Okanagan right now has that sort of name recognition…
Natalie MacLean
It does.
Luke Whittall
… that like Skaha Bench doesn’t have yet or Okanagan Falls doesn’t have yet. Naramata would be the exception, I think. Naramata has done a pretty good job with their brand recognition. I think a lot of people have at least heard that name over the years, but most of them will use Okanagan still.
Natalie MacLean (29:36):
Okay. So I’ve heard that BC is a cool climate like the rest of Canada’s regions, yet it also has the last – I don’t know if its – the 30 miles of the Sonoran Desert. How do those things go together? Is BC warm, cool, mix? Overall though isn’t it still classified as a cool climate despite the fact it’s got desert in it?
Luke Whittall (29:56):
Yeah, and it’s hot desert, too. I mean, we got up during the heat dome we got up to 48 degrees here. So we can certainly get very, very warm. Yeah, that was a crazy time. It was bizarre.
Natalie MacLean (30:08):
Were there vineyards in there, that heat dome?
Luke Whittall (30:12):
Yeah. Oh yeah. The whole province was in that heat dome at that point. It was very weird. So technically we are still cool climate, but it’s not because of the average sort of temperature. If you average out the temperatures, yes it is still technically a cool climate because what happens is the shoulder seasons are very compressed. So our growing time when the grapes when it’s very warm it is actually relatively short. So we can be very cool winters and then it will warm up. It used to be anyways, now this is all pre last five year climate change kind of thing. But typically it will be a bit of a late start, too. Our last frost is actually quite late and our earliest frost can be potentially quite early. So our growing season just in total is very short compared to places like California where they don’t get as cold in the winter. The growing season starts far earlier and it’s a slower start. So the temperature comes up a little bit slower. It does get as hot. But then the denouement of the growing season, it doesn’t have a hard stop to it. So there’s much more time to kind of do everything. And so I think that’s really, the reason is the short compression of our season.
Natalie MacLean (31:25):
Okay. Now I understand it. I thought, how do those things go together? Okay. Yeah. Tell us a few things…
Luke Whittall
It’s true, it’s confusing.
Natalie MacLean
… that would surprise us about the Okanagan region. Things that we might not know. Fun facts. Things we could drop at our next dinner party.
Luke Whittall (31:39):
Things that will win you a bet if you bring it up in conversation [laughter].
Natalie MacLean (31:41):
Like those. Yes [laughter].
Luke Whittall (31:43):
Yeah, those are fun too. Things about the Okanagan, well, if you want a little factoid about just the lake itself, maybe not just about wine, but it takes approximately 60 years for every single drop of water in Lake Okanagan to change out, to basically cycle through. So they call it a refresh rate.
Natalie MacLean (32:01):
And where’s it cycling through to?
Luke Whittall (32:03):
Well, it’s just draining down. It eventually all ends up in Portland. But you know what I mean? Just as it flows out. It takes 57 to 60 years apparently for it to completely change every molecule of water in the entire lake.
Natalie MacLean
I like that.
Luke Whittall
The lake is fascinating to people who come here and for a reason. I mean, it’s a beautiful, huge lake. It also has the bedrock for the lake is actually below sea level, which is crazy as well because we’re nowhere near the sea. There’s all kinds of really fascinating things with the lake, but the lake being the most important thing for viticulture because the grapes that are closest to the lake have a much more moderated temperature. And so they don’t get those heat spikes. They get frost protection. They get all those things that come from being right close to the lake.
Natalie MacLean (32:50):
It’s like that water bottle effect of the Niagara region, right. Same thing.
Luke Whittall
Exactly.
Natalie MacLean
The lake warms up the regions and protects it from frost in the winter and then gives it some cooling breezes in the summer.
Luke Whittall (33:01):
Exactly. Exactly. And I remember seeing that chart with the airflow patterns and things like that in Niagara. It’s the same idea here except that it’s much more compressed. It’s a lot smaller and being closer to the lake is really beneficial. So it’s also impossible not to look at when you’re driving through here. It’s the thing that people notice the most. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful natural feature. So I think that’s maybe not an obvious response to your question.
Natalie MacLean (33:29):
No, I like it though. Some fun factoids there.
Luke Whittall
It is fantastic.
Natalie MacLean
Absolutely. They’ll fit in the next dinner party. Anything else that you note about it, about the Okanagan?
Luke Whittall (33:38):
Just that the regions are very different from one place to the next. We tend to see the name Okanagan on everything, and we just assume that that’s the same grapes and Kelowna will be the same as the Osoyoos and they’re not. They can be very, very different, and they need to grow very, very different things. This is something that I think is interesting.
Natalie MacLean (33:58):
Yeah, absolutely. Very, very different. And so what would be the top red and white grapes? And you can separate them out from north to south if you want. But they just all the kind of standard cool climate grapes. Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot, Cabernet Franc.
Luke Whittall (34:13):
Yeah, the only real consensus grape or grapes seem to be Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Kelowna until recently has really shown a lot of promise with Riesling and Pinot noir. And so you get wineries like Spearhead or Tantalus or even Summerhill, Cedar Creek. They have extensive Pinot Noir and Riesling plantings that are very, very good. Tantalus especially has been on the radar for Jancis Robinson for years because of the age of their vines. But you’ve also got Martin’s Lane, which is a project from Mission Hill, that started up that only does Riesling and Pinot noir, and that’s it that’s all. They make eight versions of each, but still it’s single vineyard things.
So Riesling and Pinot Noir is there now I say until the last five years. The last few winters have been really hard, and especially on Pinot noir. So we’ll see how that kind of changes around Kelowna as we go south.
Naramata has Merlot and Pinot Gris, just beautiful examples of each one of those. And they’re right up against the lake, so they can do things like Merlot where they can get a good amount of heat, and they make the Merlot from there is just got a little bit of a spicy tinge to it, which I love. I think it’s just absolutely uniquely, Naramata. Okanagan Falls has Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Chardonnay really starts to shine in Okanagan Falls in Oliver. Then we get down to Franc and more Pinot Gris and Chardonnay as well. And I was a huge, huge, huge, huge fan of Syrah from Osoyoos and Oliver in the really southern region and that has not fared well in the last few winters. Apparently Syrah in particular has been really, really hard hit. So I have a feeling…
Natalie MacLean (35:56):
It needs a lot of warmth to ripen. Was it getting too much frost?
Luke Whittall (36:00):
It has a tendency to die when it gets too cold. So they’re harvested so late for the most part, apparently – and well I know they are – they’re harvested a little bit later and they vines just don’t have time to shut down and protect themselves properly. And so that’s what happened over the last few years apparently where just the vines weren’t protected and they had to be. And then they got subjected to this really lengthy cold snap. And just bud damage and trunk damage and it just split the vines in the wood and it just, yeah. I’ve heard a lot of people are replacing their Syrah with Cabernet Franc or other grape varieties.
Natalie MacLean (36:37):
That’s too bad, although Cabernet Franc is great, too. But what would be kind of your top two travel tips if we want to visit the Okanagan? Now I know there’s all these sub regions. But two things we should keep in mind when we go there?
Luke Whittall (36:48):
Plan your trip, plan your trip, make appointments wherever you can. The difference, and I haven’t been to Ontario during the high season yet to really know how important appointments are, but in BC they really are. Especially in the shoulder seasons because some wineries just aren’t big enough to be able to stay open all year round. Ontario’s industry is much more 24 7, not 24 7 but full-time year round. It’s not as seasonal. Whereas in BC it’s very seasonal, so you can’t just sort of walk in to a winery at any time of the year and expect to get a tasting.
Natalie MacLean
Good to know.
Luke Whittall
So that would be one thing. The other thing is you can see the whole valley in a day. I’ve done it. You can stay in Kelowna and go to Osoyoos and back. You’re going to be missing out on a lot of things. So if you’re planning to stay, I would just stay in two places. Stay in Kelowna or West Kelowna for a few days and then halfway through your stay or after a week or however long you stay, go south. Stay in Osoyoos or stay in Oliver. Stay somewhere else. And it’s a very, very different thing when you’re in the south because there’s no lake. The Okanagan Lake ends in Penticton so the South Okanagan doesn’t have a lake and the climate changes. It’s noticeably warmer, noticeably. I think it’s more beautiful. I used to live there, but that’s the tip of the Sonoran Desert that you were talking about before and you’ll really, really notice that. To be in Kelowna and never venture south of Penticton, I think is a real shame. You’re really missing out.
Natalie MacLean (38:14):
Oh, those are great tips. And if you were to highlight three or four must try wines from the Okanagan, which ones would you be? I know that’s hard like picking children and so on, but just do it anyway.
Luke Whittall (38:26):
Yeah, boy, wine’s not to miss. Let me see. I would suggest. Okay so if you’re in Kelowna, the wineries not to miss. Tantalus would absolutely be one of them. Just to experience that level of Riesling. The Riesling there is fantastic. Tantalus would absolutely be on my list.
Going south to Naramata – I really suggest everyone go to Naramata – Lake Breeze has probably one of the most Naramata experiences. You’re outside. Most of the tastings are always outside. Even before Covid, you could do their tastings outside, which is really interesting. And you’ve got the lake, you’ve got the vineyards around you. It’s a really cool little environment that they’ve set up there. And the wines are all fantastic.
As you go farther south into Okanagan Falls, Wild Goose I think is really, really interesting in terms of the style. It’s a very German style of winery. But what they do, they do really, really amazingly well. And then in the South, boy if I had to, Burrowing Owl probably be the one. It’ll give you the best sense of what it is to be in the South Okanagan amongst a huge vineyard land, huge plot of vineyards and with a beautiful view and screaming good wines.
Natalie MacLean (39:45):
And they have a great restaurant, and I think they have a place to stay there too, and inn or something.
Luke Whittall
They do.
Natalie MacLean
Which is nice. And one more that I should mention. I don’t know if there’s been any changes or updates with the wildfires, but when I went I stayed in Osoyoos at – I always have a hard time pronounce it – Nk’Mip, the indigenous owned winery. And there’s also a gorgeous restaurant and hotel and then they have a history museum. It’s fabulous. Is that still all operating?
Luke Whittall (40:14):
Yeah and it’s fantastic, too. That’s Spirit Ridge as well. That’s the resort that’s right there. But Nk’Mip is there. You pronounce it absolutely properly too. A lot of people just get that wrong, but they have that visitor centre. It’s a fantastic place to stay and that’s the real desert experience. They have that desert cultural center there
Natalie MacLean (40:34):
And the wines are fantastic.
Luke Whittall (40:36):
They are. I actually went there and I didn’t know it was their first season, but I went there in 2003. It was their very first spring that they were opened and they had the winery and Spirit Ridge wasn’t there. It was just a field, a bunch grass and black sage and rocks, and it was really cool. I have pictures of there from that time of the winery and then nothing around it. And now it’s like all kinds of built up and everything.
Natalie MacLean (41:02):
Yeah, and I love that it is indigenous owned and operated. And the chief winemaker, Randy… what’s his last name?
Luke Whittall (41:08):
Randy Picton.
Natalie MacLean (41:09):
Picton is indigenous himself, part of the band.
Luke Whittall (41:12):
That’s correct.
Natalie MacLean (41:12):
Yeah, so it’s a great story.
Luke Whittall (41:13):
Randy retired recently.
Natalie MacLean (41:15):
Oh, did he? Okay.
Luke Whittall (41:15):
Yeah, he’s passed it off. And I didn’t know this until just recently actually, but because I always assume. I’ve been to winemakers dinners there for years and I know Randy and they passed it off, and I can never remember. I think it’s Aaron who’s taken over now, but his celler hand, who he’d trained for like eight, ten years or something like that. So there’s going to be some great consistency there.
Natalie MacLean (41:36):
Good transition.
Luke Whittall (41:37):
Yeah. They’ve done a really good job. And that in itself, as any winery will tell you, is a difficult thing to do. So they did a really good job.
Natalie MacLean (41:45):
Absolutely. Because you get one chance each year. It’s not like beer where you’re making batches all year. It’s like, let’s learn once a year. Did we do it right or not?
Natalie MacLean (41:59):
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Luke. Here are my takeaways. Number one, there were so many fascinating nuggets about BC that Luke shared from the profound influence of the lake to how embers from wildfires were actually able to traverse two kilometers across it. That’s wild. Number two, the range of wine styles and grapes is both a blessing in its diversity and experimentation, and a curse in that optimization still needs to happen as BC matures as a wine region. And number three, Luke’s tips for visiting the region were helpful, particularly breaking up your journey into a few days and visiting several wineries that have restaurants.
In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Luke, links to his website, books and podcast, the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now no matter where you live. That’s all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/260. Email me if you have a sip, tip, question or if you’ve read by book or in the process of reading it at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.
If you missed episode 74, go back and take a listen. I talk with wine writer John Schreiner about flagship wines from British Columbia’s best wineries. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite
John Schreiner (43:28):
By icon, I mean not just an expensive wine but a wine that’s good enough to be collected and cellar. And that was what I was trying to do with the book was to encourage people to identify wines that they could collect and cellar.
Natalie MacLean (43:41):
Yeah, it’s still a fairly young industry, and yet you felt propelled to write this book. So it must sort of signal, at least to you, a coming of age being able to name icon wines.
John Schreiner (43:53):
I would not have even thought of doing a book like this 10 years ago. It’s just steady and in some cases exponential progress. And I, as a wine writer, also came to the understanding of what we had to do very slowly.
Natalie MacLean (44:13):
If you liked this episode, please email or tell one friend about it this week, especially someone who’d be interested in the wines, tips, and stories we shared. You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with Luke. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps a delicious mouthwatering, savoury wine from British Columbia.
You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full-bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
