Okanagan, B.C., Wine festival The Cultured Traveler Newsletter Festival of the month

Festival of the Month

Sheri Leigh, Publisher

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Spas Heal Body and Soul

Why The Terrorists Will Lose

Heat and Healing: the Hot Spring Culture of Japan

Turkish Baths

4 Host of the Month

4 Museum Pick

4 World Heritage Site

This month's festival pick...

Okanagan, B.C., Wine festival

Okanagan’s dry climate defies British Columbia's wet image. . . and produces some great wines

A winery nestled at the base of glacially carved cliffs offers a quintessential Okanagan Valley view.

Two percent of all the water that falls on land on this planet falls on British Columbia. Not bad for a territory that covers only 0.6 percent of the earth’s land surface.

The effects of that vast quantity of water on British Columbia’s landscape are well known: the province boasts the world’s most prodigious temperate rain forests, vast glaciers, a year-round cycle of rain and tumultuous rivers like the Fraser and Columbia.

So it’s intriguing to come upon a part of British Columbia where water is not the overwhelming player in people’s lives, at least not in the sense of it being an omnipresence. Instead, the absence of water is the bigger concern – When will it rain? Will it rain too much or too little? What kinds of crops work best in a drier climate?

The lakeside road heading south to Penticton shows off the valley’s the bold meeting of lake and steep hillsides.

The place in question is the Okanagan Valley, a 150-mile-long rift between major mountain ranges that started out as an uplifted plateau millions of years ago, and then was later gouged into valley form by scouring glaciers. When the ice retreated 10,000 years ago, it left behind it Okanagan Lake, a narrow, 65-mile-long blue gem bordered by sloping benches of rich soil that climb to steep, sometimes Yosemite-like cliffs of sedimentary rock.

Because the valley is in the rain shadow of numerous mountain ranges to the west, it enjoys a very dry climate compared to British Columbia’s big western cities of Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo. In some parts of the valley, less than 10 inches of rain fall annually – an amount that barely keeps the area from being officially designated as a desert. (A desert is defined as receiving five or fewer inches of rainfall per year. A semiarid locale like Los Angeles, for example, receives 14 inches of rain per year.)

In fact, Canadians can claim that the valley’s southern region is the only true desert in their country’s 3.85 million square miles. Geologically, climatically and biologically the southern Okanagan region is the northernmost extension of Washington and Oregon’s vast eastern high deserts.

Lack of rain means much more sunshine and lower humidity relative to the province’s wet Pacific coast. In summer, because of its high latitude, the valley enjoys almost 20 hours of sunshine daily. Not surprisingly, the valley has the greatest concentration of population in British Columbia’s vast interior.

Vernon (32,000), Penticton (33,000) and Kelowna (95,000), the valley’s three main cities, flank Okanagan Lake’s long shoreline and provide a surprisingly sophisticated array of services, including resorts, restaurants, accommodations, medical care and goods.

Much of that sophistication derives from the wine industry that has taken root along Okanagan Lake’s rich bench lands. More than 70 wineries now dot the valley, taking advantage of the valley’s various microclimates to produce both red and white varietals.

These are serious wines that have top honors in international competitions, including London’s International Wine and Spirits Competition, the Los Angeles County Fair and the San Francisco International Wine Competition. Although the valley’s winning wines have ranged from merlots, cabernet francs and cabernet sauvignons to rieslings and ice wines, the four top varietals that have won its winemakers the greatest recognition are chardonnay, pinot noir, merlot and gewürztraminer.

The rise of Okanagan wines to international repute has produced a confident group of vintners. Not surprisingly, the valley’s wine industry has been putting on a fall festival for 21 years, a spring festival for seven, and an ice wine festival that will enter its fourth year in January. The fall festival, which lasts 10 days (and draws 90,000 people), is the biggie, coming at harvest season when the autumn days are warm and the angle of light makes the valley look its most beautiful.

A new festival, one in early August, will debut in 2002 to cater to the height of the tourist season. A three-day affair, from August 8-10, 2002, the summer festival will give visitors a four-season array of opportunities to sample the winemaking prowess of a region that will soon join Oregon and Washington as the West Coast’s premier complements to California’s fabled Napa and Sonoma valleys.

— Patrick Totty