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60 B C B U S I N E S S . C A N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 24 T here's plenty we can learn from Hallmark movies, but no lesson has been more valuable than this: sometimes love is lurking in your own backyard, and you just need to have the courage to find it. I am, of course, talking about wine. Much like the protagonist in 2012's Hitched for the Hol- idays (starring a very grown- up Joey Lawrence), I have some trepidation as I point my car south down Highway 99. Not because I'm desper- ately looking for a partner to fool my parents before Christmas, but because I'm doing something with much higher stakes. Wine touring. In the winter. In Langley. For Western Canadians, visiting wineries comes with a pretty specific set of criteria: it takes place in the Okanagan, during the sum- mer, and it's always crowded. The reward for this is excel- lent wine served up against a stunning backdrop. But the last few years have made this ritual more fraught— first with the ever-present wildfires, then with the less publicized but far more damaging winter cold snaps, which have ravaged the vines to an unprecedented degree. Historically, the option at our doorstep—the Fraser Valley—got about as much respect from wine lovers as VINO IN THE VALLEY The Fraser Valley, that is. Welcome to Langley wine country. BY NEAL MCLENNAN 2018's Frozen in Love got from the Oscars. But in the last few years, the wines emerg- ing from these temperate vineyards have been not just surprising, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the country. The traditional challenge of getting the grapes here ripe enough has become a positive in the era of climate change and shifting tastes toward fresher wine. My first stop is Township 7, whose insanely good sparkling wine, Sirius, was the first to open my eyes to the region's potential when it debuted a few years back. The turnoff from Highway 99 takes you through Surrey and past the Pacific Highway bor- der crossing and, within five minutes, you're metaphorical miles away from any suburban bustle. Farms abut either side of the road, and you're sharing the right of way with horses here, so the pace just seems to slow with each passing ki- lometre. By the time you turn into the winery, you're already at peak mellow. The modest tasting room—this isn't Mission Hill, kids—is surrounded by the chardonnay and pinot noir vines that go into Township 7's amazing bubbles. Most win- eries scale back their hours in the winter, but T7, like most of the other spots in the region, keeps it going 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week (later on Friday and Saturday), in part because locals treat these wineries like their neighbour- hood liquor stores, frequently stopping by on their way home from work to grab a bottle for dinner. Another lovely throw- back to the early days of the Okanagan Valley boom? The tasting fees (that start at $10) are waived with the purchase of wine, a practice that seems to be waning as other wineries maximize all their revenue sources. T7 has the benefit of having a much larger winery and significant landholdings in the Okanagan, so my tast- ing also includes bold reds, which would be exception- ally tricky to grow here. And while I go for the entry-level tasting, had I wished, I could have dropped a still pretty reasonable $30 to learn the art of sabring a bottle of bubbles and taken a deep dive into the history of sparkling wine. If T7 has been moving the needle with its pricey bubbles, my next stop, a mere three minutes away, takes a more egalitarian approach to the art. Old timers will remember Domaine de Cha- berton as the OG of Fraser Valley wineries, but a new ownership group bought the historic property in 2005, dropped the "Domaine" and did a full-on rebuild of the brand as Chaberton Estate Winery: new labels, new winemaking ethos, an in- vestment in high-end French barrels and a doubling (or, to be honest, probably tripling) down on quality. That sort of glow-up is usually followed by a corresponding rise in price, but as I amble into the tasting room, I'm blown away by the old-school pricing—huge swaths of the varietal-specific bottles are priced at $18.95. And make no mistake, the wine is good (the unoaked chardonnay is one of the better deals I've seen) and it's enabled Chaberton to quietly become the fourth-biggest winery in the province. That might, coupled with its long track record, allows the win- ery to secure excellent grapes from growers in the Okana- gan so that, like T7, it can offer a full range of wine. But, after strolling the 50 acres of vineyards, I'm most intrigued LANGLEY G E T A W A Y G U I D E DREAM OF A WINE CHRISTMAS Clockwise from top: Township 7's tasting area; T7's fabulous sparkling wine, Sirius; Chaberton Estate Winery's excellent unoaked chardonnay; and high-end French barrels at Chaberton

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