Vineyards across British Columbia were hard hit by a major cold snap last year, which had a significant impact on this year’s production in the Okanagan.
Temperatures dropped in late December 2022, and in some areas of the valley dipped close to -30 C.
“Certainly, there was a lot of indication that we were in for a tough time well in advance of budburst,” said Grant Stanley, winemaker and general manager at Spearhead Winery in Kelowna, referring to the arrival of leaves on grape vines this spring.
“Budburst … was a little late and it revealed that there was significant damage over a huge amount of the valley.
“There are areas that escaped fairly unscathed, particularly the Naramata Bench, the area that we source a lot of pinot noir and chardonnay in Summerland. And I would say generally the low-lying areas closer to the lake that had great lake influence were protected by the lake itself.”
Spearhead Winery reported an almost 100 per cent loss, saying the freezing temperatures in 2022 damaged the majority of the vineyard.
According to Stanley, the winery normally picks around 25 tonnes, or around 40 bins, of grapes each year. This year, the winery was only able to fill half of one bin.
“It was effectively a write-off,” Stanley said. “The downside of that for us is that not only do we not have the grapes to make the wine but also we still have just as much work to do, if not more, to bring the vines to a position to come back and keep producing in the coming years.”
Spearhead is now dealing with what is referred to as ‘top dead’ vines – that is when a vine is still alive and has a root system but generally won’t produce a crop.
Workers will have to spend a significant amount of time retraining the new growth, but the vineyard won’t see wine from these grapes for up to two years.
The damage isn’t specific to just Spearhead Winery or the area. Wine Growers BC is projecting as much as a 50 per cent decline across the province in terms of grape harvest.
“It was an early harvest. We had some good warm weather early on so a lot of the crop got off a lot earlier than expected,” said Wine Growers BC president and CEO Miles Prodan.
“However, it was not to the level we had hoped. In fact, we went into this season expecting to see as much as a 50 per cent decline across the province in our grapes. It looks as though that is what the trend is.
“The quantity is down for sure, but the quality remains the same. But we are worrying about missing half the grapes.”
Wine Growers BC is taking steps to help protect the industry moving forward.
“We have been very proactive working with the provincial government with a replant program,” Prodan said.
“The grapes that were put in 30-some years ago, they are getting older now. And I think what this temperature change has really told us is that not everything grows in the best places. So we have some data to work with now we just need some funding to replant.”
Although Spearhead was hard hit this year, Stanely said the winery is optimistic that the site will bounce back.
“The impacts are wide and far in terms of market, and what you can supply to the market, employees, how many employees you can keep on in the winter,” he said.
“Definitely, we have some challenges ahead of us. We are farmers, so we are always incredibly optimistic about the future. We have some beautiful vineyard sites that are certainly going to bounce back because we have seen that in the past.”
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