I was at a fascinating seminar yesterday put on by the British Columbia Wine Institute (BCWI). Led by BC winemaker and Master of Wine Rhys Pender, the event introduced several new designated Geographical Indications (GI) and a new sub-Geographical Indication (sub-GI) in BC. What the heck is a GI or a sub-GI, I hear you ask, and why should I care? Good question.
Well, the short answer is that GIs are the official names given to various defined wine regions across BC, and sub-GIs are the official names of more specifically delimited smaller wine regions within larger GIs. These legally designated names are the building blocks of a quality pyramid of wine regions and subregions in BC, and are directly analogous to, say, Appellation d’Origin Controlée (AOC) wine regions in France or Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) wine regions in Italy. These designated certificates of origin are intended to be a quality assurance label for their respective country’s wines. All major wine producing countries in the world have similar naming systems. In effect, such protected geographical designations of origin are a guarantee that the wine inside the bottle it is sold in is in fact from that specific region and has been made following certain quality control regulations.
While such systems can’t guarantee the quality of any specific wine, they do provide a set of rules and regulations that define all the wines from a designated region based on historical experience and, most often, on climate, elevation and geology (soils), and this is the fundamental basis for comparing wine quality. Without such systems in place, a wine can come from anywhere and be anything it’s maker wants it to be, and indeed it can masquerade as something it is not.
BC’s wine industry is in its infancy, relative to many older established wine regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy or even places such as South Africa or Australia’s Barossa Valley. So the designation of GIs (a rather bureaucratic term if you ask me, which could be improved) here is in its very early stages, and sub-GIs are even less established. But these moves are an important and useful first step in BC’s evolution into a mature wine producing region. And they will help educate consumers about what to expect in the glass from different wine areas across the province.
So what are BC’s new GIs and sub-GIs?
We already had GIs such as Okanagan Valley, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island. But whereas wines from elsewhere across BC (which is larger than France!) could only be labelled as being from British Columbia before, the following new GIs have been added to the list: Thompson Valley, Shuswap, Lillooet and Kootenays. These regions are now recognized and the new GIs will help these regions to develop their own distinct wine identities. Furthermore, a new sub-GI called Okanagan Falls has been recognized within the broader Okanagan Valley GI. This joins Golden Mile Bench as the second sub-GI in BC. In time others will no doubt join these two (for example Naramata, Black Sage Bench-Osoyoos, etc.), as we begin to further define the various wine styles coming out of the diverse terroirs of the Okanagan Valley. Just as Bordeaux has its famed sub-appellations such as Haut Medoc, Margaux and St Emilion, and Burgundy has multiple sub-appellations such as Volnay, Beaune and Gevrey-Chambertin, the Okanagan Valley (and other GIs) will eventually be subdivided into a series of sub-appellations, each reflecting its unique terroir.
British Columbia’s wines are indeed growing up, and these moves are to be welcomed. I for one will be searching out my next bottle of ‘Okanagan Falls’ designated wine with keen anticipation. Some Meyer Family McLean Creek Road Pinot Noir, anyone?