Between the Vines


BCWI now in its third decade


Organization’s role has evolved along with huge improvement in quality since the bad old days of ‘jug wine.’


By Judie Steeves T


he British Columbia Wine Institute celebrated its 20th anniversary this fall with a new executive-director, as it evolved from its beginnings shaping the province’s VQA program and promoting a small and young wine industry into simply promotion of a larger, maturing industry.


Miles Prodan, formerly executive- director of the Thompson-Okanagan Tourism Association, came on board to work toward matching consumer demand with the wine-tourism experience available in B.C. He joins the institute following its change from keeper of the B.C. VQA program as well as promoter of the province’s wine regions, to an organization quite separate from the quality control function, which has now been taken over by the B.C. Wine Authority, under Steve Berney, who succeeded John Nixon as general manager last summer. The BCWA is responsible for implementing the Wines of Marked


18


Quality regulation, including the panels that assess wines for specified faults under the VQA program, independent of the wine industry. When the BCWI was created in 1990 there were only about a dozen wineries in the province, compared to today’s 181 licensed wineries—and quality was all over the map. With the start-up of the institute, legislation was passed creating the VQA program, which would ensure all such certified wines were made entirely in B.C. from B.C. grapes and that all had passed a sensory


evaluation, conducted in blind tastings by various local winemakers. One of those was George Heiss, owner of Gray Monk Estate Winery in Lake Country, who was also a director on the BCWI board for 10 years. Creation of the BCWI and the VQA program occurred as a result of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, when B.C. wines no longer had preferential treatment at the till.


Grape growing acreage shrank to 900 acres, then began to build up again as growers replanted from


Proud Distributors of Rack & Maintenance Source All Rack & Maintenance Source racks are made to handle Burgundy, Bordeaux and American Barrel shapes. All standard order racks have four crossbars to maximize strength and safety. The one exception to this is our two barrel half-rack or bottom rack.


GERARD’S EQUIPMENT LTD. 33684 Highway 97 South, Oliver, BC


(250) 498-2524 or (250) 498-6231 • Fax (250) 498-3288 British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Winter 2010-11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28