washington business
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
After a devastating freeze wiped out British Columbia’ s wine grape crop in 2024, an innovative move allowed Washington’ s oversupply of grapes to keep the Okanagan wine industry alive.
Joan Pringle
A 2024 freeze in the Okanagan Valley devastated the British Columbia grape crop. A temporary change of regulations on the Canadian side and a grape surplus in Washington helped the 2024 wine vintage survive.
At A Glance
In January 2024, freezing temperatures over three nights in B. C. wiped out the grape crop, threatening the 2024 wine vintage.
An exemption was made to one of the B. C. government’ s primary requirements for land-based wineries, allowing B. C. wineries to temporarily import Washington grapes for their 2024 wine vintage.
The program not only helped the Okanagan wineries but Washington vineyards experiencing a surplus of grapes due to declining wine sales.
AWB’ s 2024 trade mission to Canada also highlighted this opportunity for cross-border collaboration, with support from Lt. Gov. Denny Heck and Washington State Department of Agriculture Director Derek Sandison.
Son and father, Jeff and Mike Andrews, owners of Coyote Canyon Vineyard, helped wineries in the Okanagan Valley in B. C. after a devastating freeze in 2024 by selling approximately 300 tons of grapes to the region.( Photos: Jeff Andrews of Coyote Canyon Vineyard)
The temperature dipped as low as minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit during three days in January 2024 in the Okanagan Valley.
The deep freeze would affect several hundred wineries throughout the 155-mile-long basin in British Columbia who depend on grapes grown in that area for the 2024 vintage.
Ron Kubek of Lightning Rock Winery said 100 % of his crops were lost in the freeze and up to
40 % of the plants were wiped out in his vineyards.“ We knew we had a problem,” Kubek said. By some figures, 95 % of the total grape crops in the valley were wiped out. And about 15 % of the vines were dead by the time the effects of the cold snap were over.
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