Winter Wine Wars. Features on Orofino/Fort Berens



THE SHOW

 

The letters were received on Jan 22. It was the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission informing a considerable number of BC wineries that if they did not immediately stop shipping wines direct to consumers in Alberta, they would stop allowing those wines in their retail stores.

Legalities aside, the timing couldn’t be worse for BC wines and farmers.

Two winters of freezing vine damage, roadblocks in high season and wildfires have led to some wineries wondering if they can survive through 2024. Now this!

BC wineries are on record as offering to collect the taxes on their shipments, most of which are to members of their wine club.

In many cases, these are high-end, exclusive & hard-to-find wines, so the Alberta concern of younger drinkers getting their hands on these wines is simply not in play

To try and make sense of all of this new information I asked two valued wine friends to join me on Tasting Room Radio.

 

Sandra Oldfield – Former partner/winemaker in Tinhorn Creek. Now the founder of Elysian Projects and a steady voice in the Okanagan.

You may remember Sandra from the 2011 wine war between BC and Alberta. To make a point about shipping across provincial borders in Canada,  Sandra ordered a shotgun from out of province and it arrived safe and sound. However, she was not allowed to ship or carry wines into Alberta. She still has that shotgun to remind her of how far we have yet to go.

 

www.elysianprojects.com

 

 

Al Hudec – Lawyer. Farris LLP. Specializing in wine law. Runs the Kelowna office of Farris LLP.

Al is a prominent legal advisor to the BC Wine Industry and has been lead lawyer on many of Canada’s most significant Indigenous transactions of the past 12 years.

www.farris.com

 

WWW.WINEBC.COM

 

We’re going to cover a lot of ground here but please keep in mind that the wines we love sharing with family and friends come from the passion,  talents and hard work of small farmers in BC.

That’s who’s dealing with this bad news – in a year of bad news. Small farmers working sunup to sundown. Dealing with insects, fires, extremes in climate, smoke, hail and now regional politics.

 

Just when they really needed our support, there is another mountain to climb.

 

So, please buy BC as much as you can. We’ll get through this together.

www.winebc.com

 

 

 

 

John Weber – co-founder and chief winemaker at Orofino Vineyards in the Similkameen Valley.



Its been a while since John and I chatted about winemaking. Its usually about fishing.  No wait,  its always about fishing.



Please  head for the website.  As you can see they’ve been  very busy. And this is just the whites!!!

2022 Orange skin contact White

2022 Pozza Vineyard C ab Franc Rose

2022 Crossroads Riesling

2021 Home Vineyard Old Vines Riesling

2021 Chanrdonnay

2022 Sparkling Gamay Noir

 

Mostly we’re going to be talking about how the Similkameen is dealing with killer winter freeze, fires and  with climate change.  Which is what farmers do.

Every season and every year.

 

www.orofinovineyards.com

 

Alessandro (Alex) Nel – Winemaker at Fort Berens, Lilloett, BC



Before arriving at Fort Berens,  for over a decade Alex had been a winemaker at Cederberg Winery in the Western Cape of South Africa. While there he produced one of the Top 50 wines  in the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2021.