By Roy Wood, Special to the Times Chronicle
Barring a heat dome or a cold snap, hail or too much rain, or clouds of wildfire smoke, South Okanagan vintners are generally upbeat about this year’s wine grape crop.
In fact, a slightly warmer than normal spring has seen vines progressing a bit more quickly than usual, which they hope will lead to an early harvest.
More than two years after the 2024 disaster – in which a brutal January cold snap saw virtually the entire crop destroyed and hundreds of acres of vines pulled out and replanted – it looks as though things are getting more or less back to normal.
In a recent interview with the Times Chronicle, Mythology Vineyards owner and winemaker Mark Simpson described this year’s vine yield as “normal or better and … looking very promising.”
Simpson said the warmer winter in 2025 resulted in a normal crop, and this year is trending the same way.
“The coldest it got in Osoyoos (this year) was maybe minus 14 over the winter,” he said. That, combined with a “little but warmer spring,” has led to the fruit being a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
“Which is good news, because it means we can pick a bit earlier,” reducing the chances of the crop being hit by an early frost in October.
As for the dangers lurking to threaten the hoped-for bounty, Simpson mentioned rain, cold weather, smoke from wildfires and extreme heat.
“The sweet spot for ripening is 23 to 35 degrees Celsius,” he said. Limited amounts of rain and a bit of wind to avoid mildew-inducing powdery mildew would make conditions ideal.
Too much heat – as occurred during the late-June heat dome of 2021 when high temperatures were in the low- to mid-40s for a week – will cause the plants to shut down.
Smoke from wildfires tends to block out the sun’s heat, which is critical to the growth and ripening of the grape crop.
Don Urquhart photo
Nk’Mip Cellars winemaker Justin Hall concurred with Simpson that the crop looks very good and a bit ahead of schedule. “It looks good so far. … The grapes are coming back like crazy for us anyway,” he said.
“Right now, (with) the temperatures and the little bits of rain that we’re having … the growth is looking really, really good,” said Hall.
“It’s going to be an early crop by the look of it,” he said. “As long as a normal summer comes along, we should be looking golden, honestly.”
Hall also cited a heat dome as a potential danger. “I think we lost about 30 per cent in 2021 right in the middle of June. That’s when your berries are just developing and they dry out.”
Once the grapes are getting ripe, Hall said, there is another naturally-occurring threat to the crop: bears. Not only do bears eat a lot of grapes, they seem to be getting smarter and harder to control.
Hall said Nk’Mip employs electric fences to keep bears out of the vineyards. “But somehow, they seem to just walk right through (them) … They seem to realize that it’s just a quick zap and if you’re tough enough you can still get to the food anyway,” he said.
“They seem to be getting smarter … They seem to train themselves. You chase them out, then they hear the action die down in the vineyard and they come back in.”
Hall estimates a large adult bear can eat between $2,000 and $5,000 worth of grapes in a week.
At Over the Fence Winery, co-owner, winemaker and vineyard manager Dakota Hood said that as the vines are “going through the bloom … I think it’s going to be another good year.”
He said that Over the Fence “got lucky” during the 2024 cold snap and didn’t end up having to pull out any vines.
At this point, he said, he will continue to monitor the vineyard, making sure “everything is healthy and … getting enough water to keep pushing.”
River Stone Estate Winery founder and vineyard operations director Ted Kane said in a recent interview that the vineyard’s mature plants came through the winter well “started flowering a week to 10 days ahead of schedule,” which will mean an early harvest, “all things being equal.”
River Stone was forced to replant vines on nine of its 16 acres following the 2024 deep freeze. At this point, the goal is to focus on the growth of the new plants, not so much on producing grapes. Kane estimated that new vines produce about 50 to 85 per cent of a full crop of grapes by their third year.
Kane said he took advantage of a provincial government program in 2024 that permitted vintners to import grapes from the US to replace the crops lost to the cold.
The program is over, he said, and wineries are required to have sold wine made from those grapes by March 2027 or face a heavy tax.
Burrowing Owl vineyard manager Ed Tonner said in a recent interview that last year’s very bountiful crop was mainly a result of the extra nutrients stored in the plants after the 2024 cold snap prevented the plants from producing fruit.
“This year, things have come a little more in balance,” he said.
The two things that concern him about the coming season are heat domes and wildfire smoke.
“You can have everything set up, and you can have all your planning, but it’ll all go to shit real quick if the smoke comes in and the quality drops, or the heat comes in and you’re not ready for it and the plant stresses out,” he said.
The damage of the 2024 deep freeze is still being felt throughout the South Okanagan, Tonner pointed out.
When the cold happened, everything got frost-bitten, he said. “And that frostbite is now inside the trunk and it’s inside the wood and it’s scarred, and you’re losing flow. … In general, vine health is in question because of 2024. It’s a really slow ripple effect.”
Instead of ripping damaged vines out, Tonner said, vineyards may employ an alternative called “trunk renewal.”
The process involves nurturing “sucker” trunks that emerge around the base of a vine. Eventually, the sucker will grow to the point where it can become the main trunk, and the old one can be removed.
An advantage of the system is that the replacement trunk is attached to the original root system, which can be up to 15 feet deep and wasn’t affected by the cold snap because of the insulating effect of the soil.
Instead of the four years it takes for a new vine to become productive, the “renewed” vine can be producing 75 per cent of a crop in two years and be back to full production by year three.
Tonner pointed out another benefit of the return to normalcy in the world of vineyards: employment.
“The hit (from 2024) was felt everywhere, up and down North America,” he said. With no crop to be grown and picked in the southern valley, workers had to find other sources of income.
“We’ve been able to bring back guys and say, ‘Hey, we’re back to normal.’ … (It’s) not just what’s on the vine that’s back to normal, but the economy and how we’re able to support the labour force of temporary foreign workers and French Canadians,” he said.
“We’ve got two or three guys that are 20-plus years (with us). … They’re tried and tested. … They’re drivers; they can operate equipment. They can weld and fabricate. They can go out and pretty well run the farm, to be honest,” he said. “When you have a team like that, you know you’re in pretty good shape.”
Like other vintners, proprietors Sukhvir and Gurjit Dhaliwal at Moon Curser Vineyards are optimistic about this year’s harvest.
Said Gurjit, “(It) was a normal winter in Osoyoos with not (many) or any issues. (And) No damage.”
Sukhvir is upbeat about the crop provided there isn’t “too much rain” – that could lead to mildew – or an early frost.
South Okanagan winemakers and grape growers continue to make their mark in the world of wine, largely due to the area’s exceptionally conducive climate and soil conditions.
