Wine areas lack clear definitions

A whirlwind tour of the South Okanagan -- with a stop at the celebrated Oliver Banée(held now at Nk'Mip Resort in Osoyoos) along the way -- suggests new appellations and sub-appellations are not only a likelihood but a necessity.

When it comes to identifying clearly from where wine comes, B.C. lags behind other New World regions. Today, 98 per cent of grown-in-B.C. wine originates from the still too broadly defined Designated Viticultural Area (DVA) Okanagan Valley. Despite winery thinking, which is increasingly itself far more geographically focused, most is still labelled as such. It's been that way for years. The last change was in the mid-'90s, when the Gulf Islands got their own DVA.

Yet, winery types now all talk comfortably in terms of distinct regions -- such as the (informally defined) South Okanagan. Even there, a now well-engrained understanding of climatic and geological differences distinguishes between the Black Sage Bench and Oliver's Golden Mile -- the term is now generally used to refer to (too generally) part of the western valley's slopes.

By contrast, Washington State's emerging pockets that produce desirable drops have been formally recognized (think Red Mountain and Horse Heaven Hills), incorporated relatively quickly into the system of AVAs (American Viticultural Areas).

Despite the fact that B.C. wines continue to evolve, while wine makers are all about "terroir" and ever more eye-catching labels, the fact is, as consumers, we really don't know a whole lot more about the origin of what's in the bottle than we did a decade ago. Or more.

The reason? True to Canadian form, we're stuck in a quagmire of red tape and competing inter-industry interests.

Wine marketing consultant Christine Coletta (who headed the B.C. Wine Institute for nine years) says, "We're still collectively bickering over the basics. It's time to look at what other people are doing, find common ground and move forward."

It's not that hard, suggests Coletta, who currently works with several winery groups.

She says the never ending discussion over standards and origin has "been a fundamental waste of time. We've missed market opportunities -- the only people we're hurting are ourselves."

A sure sign of things to come is the speed with which wineries -- not content to wait for the rules to arrive -- are forming their own marketing groups or associations, based often on funding available in part from tourism models.

The most successful regional definition to date within B.C. remains the commercially branded Naramata Bench -- a clever take on inferred terroir, developed by guru Bernie Hadley-Beauregard, who came up with such icons as Blasted Church, before bringing the bench bunch to prominence.

He says while we might be "titillated by the idea of a landmass, even 'the bench' displays its own contrasts and micro-climates. "We always thought, 'What if we had a signature variety we could all hang our hats on?' But sometimes the ability to be unanimous just isn't there."

And, as Hadley-Beauregard points out, "anyone focused on big reds has to get their grapes from the south valley."

Interestingly, there's a glimmer of hope: the recent formation of the Similkameen Wineries Association is based on an already defined DVA, an area generally regarded as the Next Big Thing.

As a consumer, you too can play a role. Next time you're ordering a B.C. wine in a restaurant or wine shop, why not ask where it really, specifically, comes from? You might be surprised by the answer.

Or not.

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