With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
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14 BC BU S I N E S S .C A F E B R U A R Y 2 0 24 O k a n a g a n p h o t o : i S t o c k / K e v i n M ill e r ; Illu s t r a t i o n : i S t o c k / S a k o r n S u k k a s e m s a k o r n " Ice wine is made at minus-8, not minus-30. Minus-30 is just lethal." Most growers aren't making drastic changes to what they plant or where, says Prodan, but they are adjusting to the shifting climate using decades of data on viticulture tech- niques. For that reason, he remains confident the $3.75-bil- lion business will bounce back. "Once we're able to reset and re-invest," he says, "we can continue growing." Dr. Miranda Hart, a profes- sor of biology at UBC Okana- gan, isn't as optimistic. The recent freezes and fires may seem anomalous, but they are merely a sign of things to come. "All of the things that hap- pened to impact the industry are forecast to keep happen- ing—and more frequently," says Hart. Growers are now scram- bling to replant, but Hart fears their efforts will be in vain. "We don't know what's going to be resilient under this new climate. So just planting the same varieties and rootstocks is terrifying, because we don't know if it's the right way to go." What's more, the vines that did survive are more suscepti- ble to insects, disease, drought and other stressors, adds Hart. As a result, more research is needed to map out a viable path for the future—if there is one at all. "[For] any of these stressors on their own, you could find a management strategy to deal with it. You could irrigate differently, you could prune differently," says Hart. "But they're all happening at the same time. There's just no way to deal with that." Paterson is doing his best to deal with it. At Tantalus, the wine volume for the 2023 vintage is down 40 percent, and overall revenue is down 15 percent. They were spared significant crop loss—just 5 or 6 percent—but the full extent won't be clear until spring. Growers with greater damage are having to remove their vines and start over; because it takes years for the plants to start producing fruit, the road to recovery is long. For now, Paterson is keep- ing a watchful eye on the thermostat, hoping for a re- prieve from the wild weather. He would like to see govern- ment improve insurance for growers, offer a wage subsidy for replanting and help cover losses at the winery level. In the meantime, he expects a "changing of the guard," with some wineries going out of business and new players coming in. But if severe climate pat- terns persist, he warns, even the most established growers will have little choice but to consider their options. "We can't do it this way forever. You will start seeing these pieces of land changing hands, and then new people coming in and doing some- thing different," says Paterson. "But I think we're a few bad freezes away from that needing to happen."