Okanagan must be one of the most beautiful wine regions to visit at harvest time: you are constantly accompanied by beautiful lakes and mountains, the aromas of the many orchards and gardens, and the sunshine is warm and daylight hours are long. It has become a haven for the rich playboys of Vancouver and Calgary, and is a hot spot for Americans coming from the neighbouring northern regions of the US. For locals who live here all year round, the summer is a reward for bearing through the tough Canadian winters – and that’s the same for the vines.

From October through to May, Okanagan, like most of Canada, is bloody cold. It has the sort of winter you expect from the northernmost country on the continent: temperatures frequently drop below zero, a couple feet of snow is the norm and grizzly bears roam in the woodlands.

Okanagan may in fact be on the same parallel as Champagne (49°) but it’s winters are more extreme and it is a marginal climate by all means, with winter freezes a constant threat. So what are the secrets to the success of this cool, northerly region?

Here comes the Summer… The bright side of Okanagan Valley

While the summers are short, they are rather hot and incredibly sunny. During its summer, Okanagan has over 16 hours of sunlight, some two hours more than Napa for example. The long days are comparable to the long days at similar latitudes in England and Champagne, but Okanagan’s peak summer temperatures can reach up to 40°C in certain parts of the valley. That’s pretty impressive considering nighttime temperatures can drop back down to 8°C even in summertime.

What keeps this continental desert climate in balance for grape growing are the lakes. In particular, Lake Okanagan is 232 meters deep and 135 km long, and this large body of water has a moderating effect making the hot spells cooler, and making the cold spells warmer. Lake Okanagan never freezes over, and neither will the vineyards near it.

There’s a sweet spot, on the slopes close to the lake between a range between around 320 to 600 metres above sea-level. Long-standing agronomist Dick Cleave has planted almost half of the vineyards in Okanagan, and in his opinion the only remedy to the extremity of planting in Okanagan is by keeping to this certain altitude belt. “If you plant too low it is too cold, and if you plant too high it is too cold,” he says, “you have to stick between a certain range of altitude – otherwise you can lose the entire lot to frost.”

Beyond the lakeside: New Okanagan wine regions 

However, that doesn’t mean that the only vineyards are next to Okanagan Lake… We all know that winemakers like to look for extremes, and Canadian winemakers are no exception. One such area is southern Okanagan’s region of Oliver near Osoyoos, which is home to over 40 wineries. The more southerly latitude gives Oliver slightly warmer temperatures in general but the biggest difference is that its biggest lake, Osoyoos Lake, is only 23 km long and has a far lesser moderating effect with temperatures being much more extreme than those further north surrounding Okanagan Lake. In fact, Oliver can be some 4 degrees warmer than Kelowna in northern Okanagan on any given day. This is the reason why later ripening red varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc have found their home in Oliver.

However, there are risks planting so far from the protection of Okanagan Lake. This is the region whose vines suffer most from heat spikes (forget growing easily flustered Pinot Noir) and the region which is most likely to suffer an evening frost during the growing season. Any vineyard vista in Oliver is punctured with frost turbines and sprinkler systems to battle the inevitable low temperatures in spring and autumn.

There are also daring plantations happening over the other side of the hills – not facing the lakeside. The intrepid team at Okanagan Crush Pad have placed a bet over the hills from their winery in Summerland, and co-founder David Scholefield says breeze is going to be their secret weapon:

“The pioneers here always said that grape growing is absolutely impossible where the vines couldn’t see the lake, so the immediate assumption is that everything will freeze solid in the winter. But, not quite! All day, every day, there’s air moving here. And so warm air from the lake comes up over the mountain here and then washes down over the vineyard, and so far nothing has frozen. And that’s this very subtle, very delicate thing of this, it is the movement of air from one end of the valley to the other. As Alan York always used to say: ‘Wine is about shit you can’t see!’”

Whether finding the sweet spot on the lakeside, or elsewhere, intuition and experience is leading Okanagan producers beyond the traditional zones and further out of comfort zones to make some thrilling cool climate wines.

Get to grips with the terroir of Okanagan in our Fast Facts & wine region guide.