What’s been a nightmare on many levels for the British Columbia wine industry is turning out to be somewhat of a godsend for growers in Washington state — especially with news that the 2024 harvest in the Evergreen State is projected to surpass 200,000 tons, up from the 159,500 tons picked in 2023.
And some of these young relationships between British Columbia winemakers, particularly in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, and Washington grape growers could endure well into the next decade.
Ron Kubek, owner of Lightning Rock Winery in Summerland near Penticton, said, “The general feeling is that it will be 2032, maybe 2034 before we get back to full production here in the Okanagan Valley.”
Those eight to 10 years might help save some noteworthy vines farmed by members of the Washington Winegrowers Association, one of several groups represented Sept. 17 within the online seminar titled Regulatory Roadmap for Importing Grapes by British Columbia Wineries: First Mover Experiences. The panel was orchestrated by The Canadian Chapter of the International Wine Law Association.
“The Washington market is almost in a flip right now,” said Colleen Frei, executive director of the Washington Winegrowers Association. “We have over 50,000 acres of wine grapes planted – compared to BC, which is a little under 15,000. And our projected yield from this 2024 season is strong.
“Right now, we’re looking at well over 200,000 tons, in addition to the supply we’re sitting on from last year,” she added.
Some BC vineyards ‘down 100%’ for 2024 vintage
For Kubek, his estate at Lightning Rock has been a picturesque example of British Columbia’s historic farm gate wine industry, providing visitors the opportunity to enjoy internationally acclaimed wine while being surrounded by vines with Okanagan Lake as a backdrop.
Throughout much of its agricultural history, that 84-mile long and 250-foot deep lake has helped nearby orchards — and more recently vineyards — withstand cold snaps. However, a blast in December 2022 took a toll on the 2023 vintage. And 13 months later came a devastating stretch of arctic cold for vines already suffering from years of virus damage.
“Last year, we were only down about 12 percent in our vineyards,” Kubek said. “The rest of the valley was down about 54 percent. This year, we’re down 100 percent. In January, it was minus-28 (Celsius) for three days.”
Sections of the wine industry Washington, Oregon and Idaho — particularly pockets of the Walla Walla Valley and the Lewis-Clark Valley — also were hit by that blast, approaching minus-20 Fahrenheit in some places. Growers and winemakers are dealing with some of the same financial hardships as Kubek, who said his farming costs this year increased about 50 percent “to bring suckers up so that we can hopefully have plants and vines for next year and start all of it again.”
Efforts for Lightning Rock include replacing Viognier with Riesling and going with more winter-hardy clones of Syrah. Kubek also said the nearby research station estimates as much as 85 percent of the Okanagan Valley wine industry is dealing with plant viruses.
“So at 61 years of age I have a 15-year replant program for all of our vineyards. That’s not what I was planning,” Kubek said. “The good thing is this year we’ve had no smoke and no blockade from the rock slide across the highway that killed tourism last year, so sales were up for us in our winery.
“We had wine inventory for three years, but I have neighbors with peach and cherry trees that got zero fruit, so they need the (government) help more than we do because they don’t have anything in reserves.”
Kubek said he’s moving ahead with his vineyard operations and producing wines from the 2024 vintage, and rather than waiting for government assistance and oversight, Kubek connected with Craig Pacheco, founder of Vin-Star Consulting in Seattle.
“I think molasses on a cold winter day is faster than the BC government in responding to what goes on,” Kubek said.
He said collaborations with other wineries such as Blasted Church, Dirty Laundry and Poplar Grove also have boosted spirits. Economics are another factor as the cost of farming in British Columbia has soared while mark-ups for wine sales charged by some provinces approach 80 percent.
“BC’s land prices have gotten so high,” Kubek said. “When I bought my property, it was $110,000 per planted acre. It approached $330,000 per planted acre, and now they are back down to $170 and $180.
“So fruit last year was costing anywhere from $3,300 to $6,000 per ton,” Kubek continued. “The rule in the wine business is ‘take that number, divide it by 100 and that’s what you’ve got to sell a bottle of the wine for.’ My rosé is epic, but I can’t sell my Cab Franc rosé for $44 just because we paid $4,400 a ton for the grapes.”
WA Winegrowers reach out to BC wineries
Kubek credits Pacheco for helping him work through the provincial government regulations and tax implications on importing grapes. Kubek also heaped praise on the work by Frei, an attorney with a history of working with the agriculture industry.
Her first day on the job with the Washington Winegrowers Association was Jan. 1, 2024 — less than three weeks before the regional winter kill event. Outreach by the WWA began in March with a clearly worded seven-page guide on how to get grapes into British Columbia. Frei also pointed to her agency’s Grape and Wine Dating Service, a section of the site that for several years has listed grape varieties available by AVA, the tonnage and the price per ton. Recently, it began to highlight those grapes grown within the state’s young Sustainable WA program.
In contrast to Frei’s forecast of more than 200,000 tons to be harvested, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northwest Regional Field Office has projected the Washington state harvest to come in at 155,000 tons — “down 3 percent from last year.”
The global wine glut has prompted Washington’s largest wine companies to dramatically scale back. As a result, growers have been removing vines across a state that once boasted more 60,000 acres in production and yielded as much as 270,000 tons as recently as 2016.
This spring, British Columbia wine producers realized they would need to purchase grapes, juice or unfinished wine because their vines would not be producing in 2024.
“My wife and I started making trips down to Washington state in June,” Kubek said. “We met some fantastic people who we entered into contracts with and are going to do business with long-term. I went to six vineyards that have twice as much acreage as the whole Okanagan combined.”
Kubek said Pacheco has helped him to understand contracts with Washington growers as well as regulations, allowed mark-ups and compliance with the The BC Liquor Distribution Branch — the provincial agency that oversees alcohol and cannabis.
“The relationship between BC and Washington state growers is phenomenal,” Kubek said. “The challenge is at the regulatory level.”
The Sept. 17 panel was moderated by Karen Graham, principal of WineDrops, vice-president of the Canadian Wine Law Association (AIVD Canada) and who also serves on the board of directors of the Vancouver International Wine Festival.
As public policy consultant in the Okanagan Valley, she sees the suffering of what she described as a “black swan event.” Her goal for the seminar was “to provide a systematic overview of the emerging regulatory and business road map for the export and import of grapes, juice or unfinished wine from Washington state to British Columbia.”
Megan O’Neill, an Ivy League-educated attorney at Farris LLP in Vancouver and Kelowna, has negotiated 30 winery sales in British Columbia, including those on Vancouver Island by storied Jackson Family Wines. She contributed to the playbook for BC producers considering following Kubek across the 49th parallel.
“Ron is a perfect example of someone doing this and putting it into action,” O’Neill said.
Temporary, yet fluid regulations for BC wineries
Among the subtleties within the recent July 25 statement by the provincial government for wineries to bring in grapes or unfinished wine from Washington state is that participating wineries would be required to sell all of their imported products by April 1, 2026. After some additional feedback from the wine industry, the government has extended that to 2028.
“For us, we make a lot of reds and a lot of traditional method sparkling wine,” Kubek said. “Having it ready and selling it all within one year (by April 2026) does not make sense.”
Kubek urges his peers in British Columbia to work with a customs broker to help with the process, which includes three required forms. There’s a bit more involved when dealing with pressed juice such as the Chenin Blanc and Riesling that Kubek is driving back to the Okanagan with his winemaker — Sébastien Hotte, a product of Washington State University’s viticulture and enology program.
“We don’t want that juice to be on the (grape) skins for eight hours,” Kubek says.
Several factors will drive the approach by some British Columbia wineries in the next few months, predicts Pacheco, who also serves on the board of the non-profit Washington Wine Industry Foundation.
“My sense is that we’ll see the market for unfinished bulk wine become really active in December and the first quarter of 2025 — mainly due to the delay in getting clear regulatory guidance and also confusion over the mark-up relief cap,” Pacheco said.
There also might be a bit of trailblazing when it comes to a BC winery labeling these wines, particularly if it wants to reference a specific vineyard within an American Viticultural Area — the U.S. equivalent of the appellation of origin in France or geographical indication (GI) in Canada. Customers throughout the Pacific Northwest will recognize some of the acclaimed vineyards now selling grapes to British Columbia wineries.
“I think there’s an open question as to whether a winery can say on the label that the grapes used to make the wine come from a certain vineyard which is located within a certain AVA,” Pacheco said. “If you are importing grapes from the ‘Green Giant Vineyard’ in the Yakima Valley AVA, for example, it’s a somewhat complicated question that’s untested as far as I’m aware of.
“If that label were approved by the BC regulator, does the U.S. have jurisdiction to challenge that use for compliance?” he continued. “And if so, would that really be a priority for enforcement?”
Laurie Macdonald, executive director of the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority, encouraged transparency, a lesson learned when her province permitted “replacement wines” in the aftermath of the 2005 vintage. There were more restrictions back then than there are now, she said.
“Any winery can import grapes if they want and make wines from imported grapes. The issue is that most of them don’t because their brand identities are really tied to local grapes,” Macdonald said. “The wineries sell their wine to Ontario consumers because it is Ontario wine.
“We had this runaway media story (from the 2005 vintage) about the VQA allowing imported wines, and it wasn’t good for the industry,” Macdonald said. “It took years to put that to bed.
“It’s just something to think about,” she cautioned. “Whatever the solution is, the consumer has to be brought along with it. They will support the industry; they just have to understand why.”
Macdonald also noted Ontario — about 2,500 miles east of the Okanagan Valley — has a surplus of grapes and is working with some BC producers. Finished wine could carry Ontario’s Vintners Quality Alliance brand, even though BC’s VQA standards aren’t 100% identical.
Lightning Rock customers will taste the exploration
Cross-country prospects for Lightning Rock don’t seem to interest Kubek. Instead, he’s excited to be making two trips this week down to Washington state. On the horizon for his customers will be Counoise and Malbec grown in the Columbia Valley rather than in British Columbia.
“And we’ve got some epic Cab Sauv from Jeff Andrews at Coyote Canyon Vineyard,” Kubek said. “I’m getting probably one to three emails/social media contacts per day from Washington, Oregon and California grape growers — more so Oregon and California because they were not ‘on it’ as much as the Washington state winegrowers.
“They made it so easy for someone like me who didn’t think he’d be dealing with regulations like that,” Kubek said.
News coverage of the winter-kill event has helped, and a number of British Columbia producers — such as LA FRENZ and Township 7 on the Naramata Bench and Fort Berens in Lillooet — have shared with their wine clubs some of their plans for Washington state grapes.
Kubek said, “We’re making it in BC so we’re going to be telling people, ‘Hey, we’re just sourcing a little farther south for our grapes. Have you been to Lake Chelan? It looks exactly like Summerland.’ ”
And because of Washington state, Kubek added, “We’re going to have a successful harvest this year.”
Leave a Reply