By: Briana Tomkinson
A new project breaking ground this year in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley aims to bring together small-batch wine, beer, cider and spirit producers to create Canada’s first “wine vil-lage.” Here visitors can explore craft beverages and culinary delights created by up-and-coming craft beverage producers.
District Wine Village (DistrictWineVillage.com) will be surrounded by vineyards and will include production facilities and consumer-facing tasting rooms for 16 producers, as well as a 600-person entertainment and event center and on-site eateries. Beverage producers will benefit from shared resources, such as a communal crush pad.
According to spokesperson Lindsay Kelm, by gathering so many craft beverage producers to-gether in one place, the District Wine Village aims to create a tourism draw that is greater than any new small-batch winery could create on its own.
“People are looking for niche producers, artisans and craftspersons. It’s a trend that’s here to stay, to support local,” Kelm said. “We’re building people up and giving them a platform to share their story.”
The circular site is designed in the shape of a wheel, with a partially covered pedestrian plaza and partially covered event space at the hub, and the facilities for each producer as the “spokes.”
Tasting rooms and event facilities will face the interior of the wheel, while delivery trucks can load and unload grapes, bottles or other material with the help of an on-site operational team directly into each facility through doors facing the perimeter. Producers who lease space in the village will also benefit from a streamlined licensing process, and co-operative marketing and PR.
Each of the 16 “pods” will feature a fully-equipped production area complete with tanks, hoses and other equipment, which will be leased to the craft beverage producer. Also included in each space is a customer-facing tasting room and patio, which can be designed and branded to suit each occupant. Pods will also include room for barrel and case storage.
Kelm said the project aims to be a launchpad for grape-growers or garagiste producers who have the passion and skill to produce wine but lack the deep pockets needed to fund a tradi-tional winery. Although Kelm said most spots are likely to be snapped up by small wineries, she said other craft beverage producers also need these kinds of spaces.
Land is expensive in the Okanagan, Kelm said. To buy a small winery may cost between $1.5- to $3-million at the low end. Because all the production equipment is leased to the producers, the startup cost within the District Wine Village is much more affordable than buying or building a dedicated space, she said.
Construction is anticipated to begin in spring 2020. The first four to six pods will be ready by fall 2020, and all 16 are expected to be completed by summer 2021.
The project was designed by Penticton’s Greyback Construction (http://www.greyback.com/), which was involved in building many other local wineries, including Painted Rock, Arrowleaf Cellars, Culmina, Wild Goose, Church + State, Nk’mip Cellars, Burrowing Owl and Black Hills.
In a press release announcing the project’s launch, Greyback Construction General Manager, Matt Kenyon, said the project aims to create a sense of community and connection among the site’s wineries, cideries, breweries, distilleries and eateries as well as the broader region.
“We are really looking to be a significant economic driver for our local communities and sup-port the future growth of wine and culinary tourism in the South Okanagan,” Kenyon said.
The District Wine Village project is located in the small town of Oliver, in the South Okanagan, in the heart of one of Canada’s most successful wine-producing regions. The town is home to half of British Columbia’s vineyards and more than 40 wineries.
Although Oliver has a year-round population of only 5,000 people, it swells with tourists in the summer months. In the fall, the town’s population doubles during its annual Fall Okanagan Wine Festival. The festival includes the Cask & Keg, a brewery and distillery showcase, and the family-friendly Festival of the Grape (http://oliverfestivalofthegrape.ca/), which features tastings from more than 50 British Columbia wineries alongside food trucks, children’s activities, and costumed competitors in the annual Grape Stomp contest.
The town’s Half-Corked Marathon (https://www.oliverosoyoos.com/half-corked-marathon/), a wine-soaked fun run through scenic vineyards featuring wacky costumes, fine food, wine-tasting and a who-cares-who-wins attitude, is another popular tourist draw. Participants have a maximum of three and a half hours to complete the route, which winds through as many area wineries as possible. The race is so popular that registration is by lottery; spots in the 2020 race in May are already all sold out. Organizers say over 8,000 people entered the lottery for this year’s race, which was capped at 1,500 participants. Tickets are $185 and include race entry, transportation to and from the start/finish lines, lunch, wine and food tastings along the route, a swag bag and a bottle of the Half Corked signature wine blend.
Approximately 84% of British Columbia’s vineyard acreage is located in the Okanagan Valley, according to the British Columbia Wine Institute (winebc.com), a non-profit industry organiza-tion representing British Columbia wine producers. The 250-kilometer valley includes four dis-tinctive sub-regions: Golden Mile Bench (located near Oliver), Naramata Bench, Okanagan Falls and Skaha Beach. The area is warmer and arider than California’s Napa Valley and gets almost two hours more sunlight per day during the growing season.
Yet unlike California, winter temperatures dip well below freezing. Area wineries began harvest-ing frozen grapes for ice wine in late November when temperatures dropped to -8 degrees cel-sius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit). According to the BC Wine Authority, 20 wineries registered to harvest ice wine grapes this winter, with approximately 463 tons of grapes expected over 124 acres in the Okanagan Valley, Similkameen Valley and the Shuswap region.
To qualify for the British Columbia Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) certification, harvesting and pressing of grapes for ice wine must occur in temperatures below -8 degrees Celsius. Artificial refrigeration of grapes, juice, must or wine is prohibited.
The interior of British Columbia, which includes the Okanagan area, is the only wine-growing region to regularly experience the frigid temperatures required to produce ice wine.
