Image: Sandhill Wines
Key players from the international wine and food industries converged in Kelowna late last week to weigh in on the industry’s future.
The first annual Wine and Culinary Tourism Futures conference brought together a range of specialists–from Canada, Italy, New Zealand and beyond–for four days of panels, lectures and visits to local wine and food producers.
Dr. John Hull, an associate professor at Thompson Rivers University’s Tourism Management program, was one of the conference’s organizers.
He says one theme in particular was omnipresent at the event, with many of the experts returning to it continuously: the ability to adapt will likely dictate the success of wine regions like the Okanagan in the future.
“The one thing that everyone’s been saying is we have to think of multiple futures,” Hull explained.
With this year in the Okanagan marked by swelling lakes and an ash-filled sky, Hull said many of the visiting experts stressed the importance of being able to adapt to the ever-increasing threat of climate change and major natural disasters.
Beyond merely adapting, however, Hull said many talked about how places like the Okanagan need to start planning today for a different kind of future, one where major weather events could dramatically alter the landscape itself.
What if a giant wildfire won’t swept through and dramatically change the landscape of the Okanagan forever? If that does happen, does the region have a plan to refocus its economy?
Hull said some touched on the fact that an increase in average temperature of just one degree can change the viability of some grape varieties.
As climate change continues, will the Okanagan have to rip up vines that have thrived for decades and replace them with others more suitable to the new climate?
Hull said this kind of change is already evident in Kamloops, where the wine industry has grown as temperatures have warmed.
“We may find we have to be in a situation where we’ve never really been there before, as a region,” Hull said. “How do we have resilience for places like the Okanagan with situations we’ve never had before?”
The key, he said, will be to foster not only a diverse economy, but a diverse ecology that will “allow us to adapt to things like climate change over time.”
To do that, he said the wine and food producers in the Okanagan will need to make sure they have innovative people around them who can find solutions to these problems as, and even before, they arise.
With the conference now over for this year, Hull said organizers are looking at what format it might take in the future.
About 75 people attended in its inaugural year, and Hull said there is talk of moving to a bi-yearly format, and possibly cooperating with an Austrian conference that touches on many of the same themes.
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