In B.C.'s south Okanagan region, some wine grape growers are struggling to find buyers for their fruit, during a year many were hoping to make a solid profit after devastating crop loss in recent years.
After two years of severe winter damage, vineyards across the region produced strong yields this season.
But some farmers say a provincial program that allows wineries to import grapes from the United States is crowding the market and leaving them with grapes they can’t sell.
Despite strong quality and sugar levels, Gill said his Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes should have been picked two weeks ago. He’s concerned about making his loan repayments.
There are grape farmers who don’t make wine and wineries which don’t grow their own grapes? TIL
Had a girlfriend from decades ago where her dad started a family owned winery in the Okanagan (though they eventually sold to a larger company, I guess none of the kids wanted to take over?). They would sometimes age and bottle grapes from other vineyards (who didn’t have their own equipment) for that vineyard to then sell.
For all I know there are companies that buy grapes off the market, pay a winery to process, age, and bottle them, and then sell it under a brand name that’s basically just outsourcing all the work so they could exist in a small office somewhere.
Another example on a brewery tour at Big Rock brewing in Calgary, they would bottle for other companies sometimes. At the time our tour guide pointed out a bottling line that was being used for Smirnoff Ice iirc. Or maybe it was Mike’s Hard Lemonade? One of those.
Those American grapes should be rotting on the vines
Come the fuck on! What the fuck is Carney doing??? Where are our trade tarrifs against this bullshit?
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Not really the federal government’s fault.
According to Gill, the struggles growers are facing selling their harvest are linked, in part, to the B.C. government’s decision to extend the vintage replacement program.
The program relaxes long-standing rules on the importation and taxation of wine grapes and juice from the United States and other regions.
It was introduced in 2024 after the wine industry was impacted by an extreme cold snap that wiped out last year’s grape crop and damaged vineyards throughout the Okanagan.
Many B.C.-based wineries decided to import and process American-grown grapes to stay afloat, and the province extended the program again in 2025, with industry leaders citing a deficit of 10,000 tonnes of grapes as the reason.
Which means there’s some forecasting and balancing needed here. Not so simple/straightforward. You might shift the pain from the farmers to the wine producers if the conditions are unfavorable.
As with many things, when you go past surface level, things get complicated.
Ah that’s a good explanation.
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a provincial program that allows wineries to import grapes from the United States
Pretty sure a provincial program is the provincial government’s fault.
The federal government still has the final say on international trade. Not to let the provincial government off the hook, though.
[Edit] Do my downvoters disagree that the federal government could veto this if they wanted to? My point is not that the federal government is the only one responsible or even primarily responsible. Only that this is within their purview if they cared to act on it.
The program was implemented by the province as a result of weather that absolutely devastated vineyards in the province and would have resulted in the wine industry also being devastated without grapes to make wine. It was an emergency measure to save Canadian businesses. It needs better administration until vineyards are fully recovered and it can be closed, but it was an essential response to save a BC industry.
That was two years ago and apparently the most recent season produced a good crop that grape farmers are having trouble selling thanks to the program which seemingly isn’t needed at all anymore and should have been ended. Particularly in the context of our more recent political situation with the US. This is also pretty tangential to the point I was making with my previous comment.
It’s really not that simple. Grapes are not all the same and are not just interchangeable. Some vineyards that were not wiped out having a good crop this year is great, but it does not mean everyone is recovered or that the grapes they grew are workable for all wineries. It’s a more complex, fragile and unpredictable industry than you are recognizing.
It’s also not really tangential. If the federal government stepped in and blocked the program, it wouldn’t have just protected Canadian businesses. It would have been blocking a valuable emergency program to save Canadian businesses. You don’t win a trade war by kicking the legs out from under one of your own industries when they’re on the rocks.
But according to the article the emergency program is kicking the legs out from another local industry that has been devastated by crop loss in recent years. Surely Canadian vintners could find uses for the merlot and cabernet franc grapes mentioned by name in the original piece.
It’s really not nearly as straightforward as that. The wine industry in BC is made up of many smaller wine producers, all dealing with a lot of uncertainty over the last couple of years. They make different styles with different grape varietals and all have to plan ahead and do their best while dealing with both market change and climate change, not even being sure which varietals will be viable in the province as the climate changes. Also, farming fruit is just subject to a lot of unpredictability. Can you predict the weather? Nobody knew winter 2024 would be so cold and kill so many vines. Nobody knew summer 2025 would be a great growing season. People running businesses still had to plan ahead and sign contracts, and wineries can’t just elastically expand production without expanding plants through large and long-term capital investments. Most couldn’t even afford to do that anyway. Also, for places that lost their vines entirely, they can’t just have new vines producing grapes the next year. Plants take time to grow. Many vineyards also resorted to trying things to save their vineyards that were totally experimental and nobody knew for sure how they would work out. It’s just a lot more complex than you’re recognizing, and if the winter is brutal again in 2026 or there is a terrible summer growing season that follows, the program might need to be preserved. It needs better administration to avoid problems like the current one, but it’s a result of nature’s chaos and uncertainty combined with less-than-perfect administration of a pretty good emergency response.
Pretty sure tarrifs and international trade are at the federal level.
He’s just being a massive disappointment selling out canadians.
Ask the BC NDP.
Ontario has the VQA program. LCBO has shelves of Ontario wines made from global grapes, but VQA designation means 100% home grown. I don’t buy anything else.
BC has VQA, and none of the wines being made using US-grown grapes should qualify.
The problem is that BC vineyards faced extreme cold that killed off huge numbers of vines a couple of years back, and if importing grapes hadn’t been allowed it would have devastated a bunch of wine producers who just couldn’t have made wine for years as their vineyards had to be replanted and take time to produce grapes.
The problem, as it so often is in Canada, is sensible rules on paper with absolutely shit enforcement and oversight. So, instead of ensuring that wine makers are only sourcing from the US what is not available in Canada, they have enabled them to source excess from the US and leave the BC growers stuck.
It should be great news for the BC wine industry that there is a good harvest this year after utter devastation last year, and if they make adjustments and start ensuring that only grapes to meet demand beyond local supply are purchased, it will be good news in future. It’s just really dumb right now.
It takes three seasons for new vines to produce wine grapes, so there should be no need for the province’s exemptions on US grapes at all after a one more season. Hopefully they deal with this properly.
Think BC has the same kinda program. these are grapes destined for cheap wine anyways.
Man… the Carney fan bus just rolled in here or what?
