In all of the angst over the Okanagan Valley’s troubled 2023 and 2024 vintages, the good news of just how remarkable a year 2022 turned out to be was almost missed.
“It was definitely, we can’t use the word strange anymore, but it was an anomaly,” says Matt Mavety, winemaker and viticulturist at Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars in Okanagan Falls.
The bud break was late, bloom was late and by late summer, when harvest should have begun, everything was three weeks behind “and getting caught up that late in the season is hard to do,” he said. “And then we got to September.”
Suddenly, temperatures soared and stayed well above average late into October—so late that Blue Mountain was harvesting the grapes for their still wines on October 22 two years ago. The result: A huge crop, and a really good one. Many of the 2022 wines are just coming onto the market now, and Blue Mountain’s single-block Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays are among them.
“It was the right combination of weather to get a big harvest and a good vintage,” Mavety said. “It was good to see the quality wine in the cellar—and the quantity, too.”
Precise and natural
Blue Mountain is one of B.C.’s oldest wineries. Proprietor Ian Mavety purchased the first parcel of land in 1971 and the family released their first wines in 1991. As a result, they have vines that are 30 or more years old—a rarity in the relatively young region.
Over time, they noticed that blocks as little as a few metres apart had remarkably different characteristics—due in large part to the unusually “kettled” landscape of Okanagan Falls with its myriad hills, dips, soil types and slopes with varying exposure to sun. Typically, those grapes would just be mixed with all the others in their elegant cuvées. But gradually, the idea of releasing them as unique single-block wines was born.
In 2019, a trio of 2017 Pinot Noirs were the first to be released: The refined River Flow, untamed and savoury Wild Terrain and the dark, brooding Gravel Force. A couple of years and a global pandemic later came the two 2019 Chardonnays: The bright, floral Blossom Slope and rich, earthy Alluvium Reflection.
And now, after a great deal of experimentation and learning, the exciting 2022s.
“We’re seeing the correct expression and the nuances we’re looking for in each of the cuvées,” said Mavety.
“We have very unique areas, unique expressions, but they could be overpowered as well with our work. It’s part of the learning process, learning how much we should do, how much we shouldn’t do,” he added. “Without trying to label it, the approach is very Burgundian. Trying to work in small spaces and let them express themselves.”
They work with a consultant out of Burgundy who has encouraged them to do less in the cellar. And so they are using indigenous yeasts, doing whole-cluster press and minimal punchdowns, racking by gravity and, while they lightly fined the 2022 wines, they are doing no filtering at all for the 2023 vintage.
“The difference was quite staggering. Visually they are both clean, but the precision of the fruit is better in the unfiltered,” Mavety says. “You’re not adding or bringing anything to it except what came from the vineyard site.”
With the single-block wines especially, he said, “the nuance of those wines is so specific you don’t want to put a mask on that. It’s been an eye-opening experience to sit back and allow these wines to be what they are and not what we want them to be.”
Hope for 2025
That bountiful 2022 season ended abruptly, with snow and frost by the beginning of November, setting the stage for the disastrous cold weather events of late December 2022 and January 2024.
Blue Mountain, which had already lost its 2021 vintage due to smoke damage from wildfires, was luckier than some in 2023 and 2024. They had a normal crop in 2023, but in 2024, bud damage was significant and, like many Okanagan wineries, they won’t have a vintage.
However, the vines themselves seem to have survived.
“If you look at the vineyard, it looks very healthy," Mavety said.
He’s added that he's optimistic that this will be a normal winter and that they will have a full-crop in vintage 2025. Meanwhile, he’s grateful for the wines they’re releasing now.
“We’re in a fortunate position,” he says. “The ’22 vintage is a very generous vintage.”
