Sunday, July 17, 2005

Wine Land of Opportunity

This valley (and the rest of the province) is quickly becoming the land of opportunity to anyone with even a little winery experience and and a lot of passion.

There seems to be unprecedented levels of investor interest in the Okanagan right now with plenty of money being tossed around to secure land and talent.

Vineyard and potential vineyard properties spend little time on the market before they're snatched up and sellers seem to be getting the prices they want. New winery operations are cropping up and demand for quality grapes is putting some upward pressure on prices.

The situation is similar for human resources. The new players want talent on staff and they seem to have no qualms about making offers that can't be refused. In the past, wineries would look outside the country for established experts but now there seems to be added interest in winemakers and vineyard managers who already have a working knowledge of the BC climate, soils and varietals. That's not to say there still isn't considerable cachet attached to imported talent. But a lot of these new operations want to hit the ground running and to shorten the time axis on the old learning curve.

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