International wine critic gives the Okanagan an excellent report card | Canada Voices

Shortly after landing in Kelowna, B.C., celebrated American wine critic James Suckling posted a video to Instagram from the tarmac, announcing he would spend the next five days exploring the Okanagan wine region for the first time.

“It looks like New Zealand,” he said, with the tail of an Air Canada plane visible behind him.

If Suckling was hoping to make a low-key entrance, he didn’t succeed. His 30-second social-media post on May 26 spread quickly. Within a few days, it garnered more than 400,000 views and 1,300 comments across Suckling’s various accounts. Most of the replies were from Canadians sharing welcome messages or recommendations of wineries and restaurants to visit.

“I have never had such an amazing response from wine lovers from a particular country,” he said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail. Suckling, who travels eight months of the year to report on wine regions around the world, left impressed with the quality of the wines and the passion within – and evoked by – the industry.

While in the Okanagan, Suckling visited two producers each day, including Blue Mountain, Le Vieux Pin, Martin’s Lane, Phantom Creek and Synchromesh. The focus was meeting established, high-quality producers located in different areas who had different approaches and different grape varieties.

Each day also included a tasting of a selection of Okanagan wines to produce a report published in June on JamesSuckling.com. Suckling’s website offers readers comprehensive tasting reports on major and emerging wine regions, featuring interviews, videos and ratings, and scores of wines tasted during the visit.

He reviewed 211 wines for the report, with scores ranging from 97, for the top-scoring Phantom Creek Riesling 2022 from Similkameen Valley, to a lone, low 84-point review. There are also producer spotlights and related content featured across various social media channels, including YouTube and Instagram.

“The best wines were excellent, particularly riesling, chardonnay, pinot noir and syrah,” Suckling wrote. “The landscape was compelling, the wineries serious and the vintners calm, focused and welcoming. Many wineries also have well-designed tasting rooms and restaurants, with reasonable prices and an easy, unforced atmosphere.”

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Suckling said he had concerns as well: “The Bordeaux blends were disappointing … Old school with too much extraction and new wood.” As a critic who extensively covers Bordeaux and the Napa Valley, which are regions whose success was largely based on cabernet blends, this is significant feedback.

While planning his Okanagan tour, Suckling saw potential, so he brought a team like the ones he uses for visits to Bordeaux, Champagne and Napa Valley. He was accompanied by Jim Gordon, the site’s senior editor in California’s Napa Valley, and Ryan Chau, the company’s videographer and digital editor based in Hong Kong.

“We don’t do such an extensive team approach with every region,” he said. “I had a hunch that the trip to Okanagan would be epic, and it was.”

Suckling got his start in wine writing as one of the first contributors to Wine Spectator in 1981. His role evolved as he became the magazine’s first European bureau chief in 1985, before he left to establish his own imprint, JamesSuckling.com, in 2010.

“We taste and cover wines that our readers and millions of followers want to drink,” Suckling said. (The last report on Canadian wine was published in 2011. Based on wines tasted in Montreal, it offered specific praise for Okanagan red blends and Ontario rieslings.) Wineries around the world use wine scores and reviews from the site as endorsements. To help promote retail sales, stickers displaying JamesSuckling.com ratings can be seen on bottles in liquor stores across the country.

Suckling’s self-funded visit was prompted by Martin’s Lane winemaker Shane Munn, who sends samples to his website for review and participates in Suckling’s Great Wines World tasting seminars in North America. Martin’s Lane is working to develop an export market, and Suckling scores help to legitimize their efforts with consumers who don’t know anything about the Okanagan or Canadian wine, Munn explained.

“None of the significant international wine media, whether its Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate or him [Suckling], include Canada in their regular reviewing schedule. The aim was to get him to come here and review Okanagan wines,” said Munn, a New Zealand native who came to the Okanagan to launch Martin’s Lane in 2014.

For Synchromesh winemaker Alan Dickinson, Suckling’s visit was an opportunity to present a selection of wines from the winery’s Storm Haven Vineyard.

Rather than just trying current releases that are for sale, Suckling was offered various vintages across a 15-year span, said Dickinson, whose winery specializes in riesling located in Okanagan Falls.

“We wanted to show him that there are some sites that excel year after year,” Dickinson said. “These aren’t just one-off, individual wines, there’s a history of consistency and quality here.”

The Mavety family produced their first vintage of Blue Mountain wines in 1991. and have welcomed media and visiting wine critics to their estate over the years. “It’s not often we see someone with James Suckling’s reputation,” said Matt Mavety, who succeeded his father, Ian, as winemaker.

They toured Suckling’s team through the vineyard to get a hands-on understanding of the process before tasting wines. “We wanted to show him around our site so he could see our commitment and approach,” Mavety said.

The family winery was surprised by the reaction following the publication of Suckling’s report, which included favourable reviews of 14 of its wines. There were orders from consumers and congratulatory messages from friends and industry colleagues. “I’m surprised how many of our customers read and follow Suckling’s work,” he said.

Suckling said he was so impressed that he’s already planning to return to the Okanagan for more tastings and visits next year. “I will bring my wife this time,” he said.