The 45th Annual Okanagan Spring Wine Festival launched on Friday night with the presentation of the 2024 BC Wine Awards Top 50.
The highly anticipated event marked the first public tasting of the coveted BC TOP 50 wines. Positioned as a Buyer’s Guide for fans of BC wine, the TOP 50 were announced during an Industry Reception in advance of the Grand Tasting. The reception was held at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre where the BC wine industry gathered to honour the award-winning 2024 BC wines.
The BC TOP 50 has been heavily guarded since the judges wrapped up last week’s competition. NEW for 2024, nearly 370 BC wines from 90 producers were blind tasted and scored individually by a highly respected group of judges. The scores were then averaged to produce the list of BC’s TOP 50 wines including the highest score named the Wine of the Year.
The fifty winning wines and the Wine of the Year were presented with their commemorative Riedel decanters by the ContainerWorld Group of Companies’ Manager of Business Development, Flavia Aarden-Kilger. “ContainerWorld continues to support the Okanagan Wine Festivals and the BC Wine Awards. We are proud of BC wineries and honoured to be a part of this ever-growing, exciting, and evolving industry. The Okanagan Wine Festivals and BC Wine Awards showcase the best of your wines.
These awards put BC wines in the spotlight. Congratulations to all the winners,” said Aarden-Kilger.
The prestigious Wine of the Year award is presented to the highest-scoring wine that the esteemed panel of judges unanimously chooses to bestow the honour. This year, the recipient of the Wine of the Year was awarded to Dirty Laundry Vineyards in Summerland for their 2022 Cellar Series Gamay Noir.
About the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society
The Okanagan Wine Festivals Society is responsible for the development of the wine tourism sector in the interior of British Columbia. It is well known for producing three seasonally inspired Okanagan Wine Festivals in Winter, Spring, and Fall. It is also responsible for Signature Wine Events, including the TASTE and SIPS Series, and it produces and runs the province’s most prestigious and oldest wine competition, the British Columbia Wine Awards.
