This month the #Winophiles are taking a look at French varieties made into wines around the world. While we could think of many examples from various regions we have visited, we want to shine a spotlight on our own backyard where the Okanagan Valley is making some truly world-class Chardonnay. (To read the other articles related to this month’s topic, please refer to the links at the end).
The beautiful vineyards at BC’s Blasted Church Winery.
Chardonnay has an association with Burgundy that is an unbreakable bond. That is simply because so many of the world’s most profound Chardonnay wines come from that region. The great wines of Puligny Montrachet, Chassagne Montrachet, Meursault and Chablis, among other Burgundy sub-regions, make the reference-point wines from the Chardonnay grape. But Chardonnay is a chameleon-like grape that has been successfully planted all over the world and shown its ability to adapt to new terroirs with the potential to make great wine outside of Burgundy as well as within. One of those regions that is rapidly gaining notice is the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada.
The Okanagan Wine Initiative (OWI) is a collaboration of some of the top wineries in BC, who got together with the purpose of promoting the region’s wines to the international marketplace. Their purpose statement on their website states it well: “The Okanagan Wine Initiative was formalized in 2018 by a group of winery owners seeking to elevate the region’s rich and diverse narrative through business excellence and the promotion of quality Okanagan wines outside of British Columbia, Canada.” This summer we met with three of the 5 wineries that currently make up the OWI and asked them to tell us more about their project.
Our latest video AdVINEture features one of the most interesting and more surprising regions we’ve explored yet: British Columbia’s Cowichan Valley. Tucked in the southern part of Vancouver Island, the Cowichan Valley is BC’s newest sub-Geographical Indication (GI) and for good reason. Despite this region being one of the most demanding growing areas in the world, we visited 4 wineries (Venturi-Schulze, Blue Grouse Estate Winery, Averill Creek & Unsworth Vineyards) who are proving that making great wine there is possible. This video shows just a few highlights, click on the individual links for the full story on each…cheers!
In terms of up and coming wine regions to watch, BC’s Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island is definitely worthy of consideration. Not only has it been named the Province’s newest sub-GI, it’s also getting the attention of some serious global wine players who didn’t just consider it, they invested in it, purchasing Unsworth Vineyards earlier this year.
Venturi-Schulze is a highly original winery found in the recently designated sub-Geographical Indication (“sub-GI”) of the Cowichan Valley, located on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. Our discovery of Venturi-Schulze is a bit of a surprise: we are two British Columbians who had never heard of it until we discovered it in, of all places, the United States.
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