This Aspirational New Winery Is a Moonshot for the Okanagan Valley

Todd Heintz, founder, CEO, and winemaker at Oliver B.C.’s Spacedog Wines, won’t settle. The former software salesman counts among his favourite wines top examples from Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Provence, the Rhône Valley, and Tuscany—in other words, the thoroughbreds of the wine world. Scroll through his Instagram, and iconic wines from Guigal, Domaine Tempier, Clos Cibonne, and Fontodi paint a picture of a life well imbibed. Now, with Spacedog, his nascent Oliver, B.C., venture, Heintz is himself taking aim at the pantheon of wine, with cuveés inspired by the greats and informed by Okanagan Valley terroir.

Founded alongside his friends and drinking buddies Dean Prevost and Jason Harding, Heintz’s new District Wine Village-based outfit is surely the most exciting and aspirational winery to grace the Okanagan in years. But it was boredom rather than aspiration that initiated the idea that would become Spacedog. After leaving the software industry, Heintz spent a half a year enjoying retirement before getting the business itch. Over many shared bottles, Heintz, Prevost, and Harding, who both continue to work full time at their “day jobs,” concluded that wine was the way forward. But it was a meeting with one of the Okanagan’s foremost consulting winemakers that gave them the confidence to make the leap.

“When we started talking about, you know, what am I going to do after being bored for six months in the Okanagan, we started to sort of craft the idea of getting into the wine business,” Heintz says. “I was introduced to Pascal Madevon and started talking with him about the kind of program we wanted to do and the kind of wines we wanted to make. He was very interested, I think, because we are trying to reach for the upper tier of the market, and he loves to make wines of that sort of style and character.”

At the beginning of 2025, Spacedog began in earnest, and by summertime, the business partners had signed a lease for a space in Oliver’s District Wine Village. From there, the team began envisioning the wines that would form the Spacedog portfolio—a deliberation process guided by the founder’s favourite wines, what grapes were available to them, and their desire to set themselves apart in the Okanagan. “For example, we want to have an iconic white,” Heintz says. “We don’t want to do chardonnay. There’s just enough chardonnay. I think, for me, I feel like it’s hard to differentiate with chardonnay, whereas viognier is a very special grape.” In the future, distinctive grapes such as sangiovese, which is exceedingly rare in the Okanagan, will help define Spacedog’s as-yet-unveiled red wine program.

Heintz’s original plan was to let Madevon oversee winemaking with the help of an assistant, but a last-minute complication meant that he had to step in, gaining a first-hand education in fermentation while also overseeing operations and all the other minutiae of a fledgling winery. “We actually had intended on having an assistant winemaker, but it didn’t work out at the 11th hour going into harvest,” Heintz says. “So I was always going to be fairly hands-on, but I ended up being two or three times more hands-on than I thought I was going to be.” Luckily, with a full understanding of Heintz’s vision, Madevon was able to teach him enough about winemaking to see the first vintage through successfully. “Pascal was the coach and the guide, and he’s very very good. He’s a very good teacher and he’s very gracious with his time.”

The two current releases—Grace Undone Rosé and Disinherited Viognier, both from the 2025 vintage—aspire to the heights of the wines that inspire them while staying true to their Okanagan Valley home. The former, a Provençal-style rosé made from 100 per cent merlot, is gastronomic rather than glou glou, and its herbaceous backbone will stand up not only to food but also time, promising to be one of those rare rosés that improves with age. The latter, which looks to the Northern Rhône’s Condrieu appellation for inspiration, is fermented in barrel before undergoing six months of sur lie élevage in French oak barriques. Unabashedly opulent, its bold vanilla and honey flavours are tempered by the purity of its stone-fruit and citrus qualities. Future releases currently in barrel include a traditional bordeaux blend of cabernet sauvignon (65 per cent), cabernet franc (15 per cent), merlot (12 per cent), and petit verdot (8 per cent) as well as an 80/20 cabernet sauvignon and merlot blend and a blend of syrah and petit verdot with the same proportions.

According to Heintz, Spacedog’s total production is unlikely to ever exceed 5,000 cases. The dream is not to saturate the wine world with yet another vanity project, producing millions of litres of characterless chardonnay and greeting VIP guests on a helipad. Instead, the wine remains top of mind. “We’re never going to have the $50-million winery with the billion-dollar view,” Heintz says. “Right now, we’re focused on the wine. All we care about is how do we make the best wine possible, and everything else will fall into place behind that.”

With such clarity of vision, it’s easy to forget that Spacedog, like all emerging wine projects, is a leap of faith. The name comes from a feeling that Heintz had while walking his dog on a trail in the Okanagan, but it may also represent something greater: the will to succeed. Not since Laika entered orbit aboard Sputnik 2 back in 1957 has a dog in space been such an impressive moonshot.

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