Iconic Wineries of British Columbia Is Leading the Okanagan Valley Into Its Second Era

Like them or not, big brands tend to set an example for others to follow. Across industries, in one way or another, they set the standard for success. In a healthy ecosystem, industry leaders provide support and guidance to fledgling businesses, creating movement that helps push the field forward. The wine industry has its fair share of big brands, and the best of them—like Italy’s Antinori Estates and France’s Famille Perrin—not only find financial success across portfolios that offer everything from entry-level to ultrapremium wines, but also provide a template for smaller wineries to follow.

No premium Canadian wine company is as big and important as Iconic Wineries of British Columbia (known as Von Mandl Family Estates until 2018), the collection of seven wineries stewarded by the inimitable Anthony von Mandl. Since West Kelowna’s Mission Hill Family Estate, the crown jewel of the company’s portfolio in terms of both quality and consumer appeal, was founded in 1981, Iconic Wineries of British Columbia has helped propel the Okanagan Valley’s modern wine industry into the future. Now, after the polar vortex of January 2024, when temperatures plummeted to -30°C, ravaging the region’s vineyards and unexpectedly ushering in a second era for the wine industry, the example it sets is more important than ever before.

When senior winemaker Taylor Whelan arrived at Mission Hill from fellow IWBC property CedarCreek Estate Winery that January, it was on the heels of his own run of successes, including guiding CedarCreek to a win for Winery of the Year at the 2022 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada. While at CedarCreek, he had tightened up the portfolio and helped spearhead its move to organic and regenerative farming, an initiative that was eventually adopted across the IWBC vineyards, boosting an industry-wide trend that has resulted in the Okanagan Valley having among the highest proportion of certified organic vineyards of any region in the world.

After the polar vortex, which came just five days after he started in his role at Mission Hill, Whelan put his progressive vineyard philosophies to the test once again, collaborating with other IWBC team members to replant the now-organic vineyards with grape varieties better suited to the increasingly extreme climate. “It ended up that there is actually an opportunity, several opportunities, to do things differently,” he says. “Obviously, we didn’t get everything perfectly right on our first shot in the ’90s planting those vineyards.” Among the favourite varieties for replanting is cabernet franc, a rugged grape that can handle everything from scorching heat to frigid cold and can be made in a wide array of styles.

Another positive of the replanting process is a renewed engagement with different terroirs, and Whelan predicts increased adoption of the sub-geographical indication model (smaller, more focused appellations within the greater Okanagan wine region) across the valley in the future. It was the vineyards in one Okanagan sub-GI in particular that convinced Martin’s Lane Winery general manager and winemaker Shane Munn to relocate from New Zealand to the Okanagan Valley in 2014. “Stepping foot in our Naramata Ranch vineyard, which is the most northern vineyard on the Naramata Bench, is really what sold me on moving here,” says Munn, who was first drawn by von Mandl’s famed ambitiousness. “Because, you know, having an ambitious plan is worthless if there’s no substance behind it. You’ve got to see the raw product, which is where the fruit comes from.”

Munn was also excited by the prospect of growing and making wine in spite of inclement conditions. According to him, the Okanagan Valley is “the most difficult place” either he or viticulturalist Kurt Simcic has ever grown and made wine in, “in that there’s just some things that are very unpredictable about growing grapes and making wine here.” The natural impediments to making wine in the Okanagan Valley—wildfires and bears among them—have long pushed IWBC wineries to put an added emphasis on winemaking implements and facilities. It was among the first in the region to employ clay amphora and concrete eggs for aging wine at scale and use drones to monitor vineyard health. And some of its facilities, including the stunning gravity-flow Olson Kundig-designed home of Martin’s Lane, are among the most advanced in the region, setting a standard that is being replicated widely by deep-pocketed competitors. According to Munn, “the cold snap has thrown every winery in the valley a pretty big curveball in terms of weeding out those that don’t have a plan for the future.” Luckily enough, Martin’s Lane, and other IWBC wineries, are already well on their way there and ushering everyone else into the time machine behind them.

If a rising tide does indeed lift all boats, then the water displaced by Iconic Wineries of British Columbia is great enough to change the tide of the Okanagan Valley’s fortunes entirely. As a driving force for the development of the region’s wine industry for decades, IWBC’s resolve to continue pushing it forward has only been strengthened by the stumbling blocks of the past few years. “People are going in with a more focused mindset,” Whelan says. “Hopefully we can build a better story for the Okanagan in the future.”

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