Over the years I have been asked countless times for my opinion on which is Canada’s best winery. The answer has been Blue Mountain. The reason is consistently high quality and sense of place in the glass, delivered at honest prices. Put another way, it is the Canadian wine I most often purchase on restaurant wine lists. I just know it’s going to deliver its character well and offer real value. Confidence earned.
This is the first of several winery profiles to come at Canada’s Best Wines. They will focus on, but not be limited to, estate wineries because this model — where the vineyards and winemaking are controlled together — most often delivers consistency of style and identity of place. There are many excellent estate wineries in Canada, and they will have their turn in this space.
The Context
It is perhaps no coincidence that Blue Mountain happens to also be among the very oldest of Canadian wineries, with vineyards first planted in early to mid 1970s, and the first vintage made in 1991. (They sold their fruit in the interim.) This long history has laid a solid foundation, with many vines now having reached prime maturity and the viticulture and winemaking techniques having been honed to the nth degree. The one thing that stands out about Blue Mountain to me is the fixation on its vineyards. Most of the world’s best estate wineries correctly claim the that great wine is made in the vineyard, but Blue Mountain takes this to the next level, with fastidious attention to detail.
Blue Mountain is owned by the Mavety family. Ian and Jane Mavety are the founders, with son Matt now the winemaker and daughter Christie the winegrower and marketing director. The family-synched mindset is yet another gear in the control of quality, having a long-standing and shared vision for the wine, based on the land upon which they have grown up.
As Christie says on the website: “During 45 years of owning and growing grapes at Blue Mountain our family has recognized one key thing — that our South Okanagan vineyard microclimate is a dream for creating a particular style and quality of cool-climate wine. Our site delivers wine with great minerality and acidity with a fruit freshness offset by a unique, cellar-worthy richness.”
The vineyard overlooks Vaseux Lake in the Okanagan Falls sub-appellation, where the north and south Okanagan come together in a geologically rough and tumble landscape formed at the toe of an ancient glacier. The vineyard is simply spectacular, and one of the most photographed in Canada. As the accompanying aerial shot shows, the 40-hectare site is planted on a patchwork of aspects, grades and soil types. In general, it is farmed with low-intervention practices: minimal spraying, use of cover crops, composting, and the encouragement of biodiversity. Electric bicycles are used by vineyard workers, with all work, including crop thinning and harvest, done by hand.
Modern Times, Hard Times
Vintage 2015 began a new era for Blue Mountain. Prior, they were focused on the Burgundian varieties, making sparkling wine, chardonnay and pinot noir, with some pinot gris and a little pinot blanc. They made “estate” and “reserve” versions of each (except the pinot blanc). But that year, after spending time with a consultant from Burgundy, they began to respond to their vineyard’s variations and create what Matt calls “layers” in their portfolio based on trials with individual vineyard blocks. In 2019 they bottled the single-vineyard series pinot noirs and chardonnays from the 2017 vintage. We detail the 2023s below. During this time new plantings were gradually moved to high density in an effort to achieve more flavour concentration.
The Burgundy consultant also re-focused the winemaking, with the aim of doing less in the cellar, while making the wines more stable and age-worthy. One important decision, which finally came into full effect in 2023, was to eliminate filtration. That meant changing steps backwards/upwards along the winemaking chain, with longer ageing in barrel, longer cold stabilization, later malolactic fermentation, less punching down, use of indigenous yeasts from the specific vineyards and whole or partial cluster pressing, all of which began to be worked into the program beginning with the 2017 vintage.
From 2000 onward however, natural events conspired to challenge the remodeling. The 2020 pandemic vintage was terrific weatherwise but, of course, was highly disruptive in terms of staffing, visitations and diminished sales in the hospitality market. Then along came the 2021 wildfire season, with Okanagan Falls being one area notably affected by smoke as the grapes ripened in early fall. The Mavety family made the very difficult decision not to bottle this smoke-tainted vintage. It was not a popular move, with many in the industry who worried the reputation of the vintage as a whole would take a hit. But it certainly spoke the Mavety family’s idea of quality integrity.
The 2022 vintage was excellent, abundant and free of smoke issues. But not without stress. Everything was late by about three weeks — bud break, fruit set, véraison, and the growing season was cooler right up until the end of August. But September warmed up and stayed sunny for weeks. They picked fully ripe grapes for their still wines the third week of October, at least a month later than normal.
Weeks later in December a wicked cold snap with temps of –30∞C cost significant crop losses in the 2023 vintage in the Okanagan Valley, averaging 50% loss. Blue Mountain was not as badly hit as some. They still managed to harvest a decent crop and continue on with their winemaking adjustments and single-vineyard program which we review here.
Then came the even greater blow in January 2024. Another freeze decimated the Okanagan, causing more than 95% crop loss, and leading to significant replanting. Blue Mountain did not make a 2024 vintage. They decided, however, not to import grapes from Washington, Oregon or elsewhere, as many others were forced to do. I don’t believe they have ever used grapes from a vineyard other than their own. And Matt Mavety has reported that the 2025 vintage is in good shape.
Missing two complete harvests in four years is not something many wineries can absorb financially. In my years as a wine writer I have never asked wineries for their financial details. It’s not my business. If they are producing wine I assume they are in business, and I go about my job of reviewing the contents. But I will assume here that the long history and solid commercial reputation of Blue Mountain have helped them weather the shortfalls.
The Current Portfolio
Another tactic has been the focus on traditional method sparkling wine. Matt Mavety explained that about 30% of the production is sparkling, a style that can be blended across vintages to even out availability of grapes, and use less ripe grapes in any vintages that don’t ripen well enough for still wines. He calls sparklers “the buffer for the bad years.” He is now using more aged “reserve” wines in his bubbly blends.
Two of the currently available sparkling wines — Brut Non-Vintage and Brut Rosé are reviewed below, complete with production backgrounders. The superb Blanc de Blancs 2016 is now sold out at the winery, but you can read the full review in Post #3 Canada’s Sparkling Wine Specialists published in December 2025.
Among current white wines, the 2023 Estate Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc are sold out at the winery and, of course, no 2024s were made. The 2025s will be released in June 2026. Both the 2023 Estate Chardonnay and 2023 Reserve Chardonnay are excellent but also sold out. The release date for the 2025 Estate Chardonnay is spring 2027. So, for this post we focus on the 2023 Reserve and Single Vineyard Chardonnays.
The story is similar with the red wines, although there is some 2023 Gamay, that we review below. The 2025 Estate Pinot Noir is tagged for September 2027 release. So, this post focuses on the 2023 Pinot Noir Reserves and Single Vineyards, which is where things get most interesting.
Blue Mountain is only open to visitors by appointment. It sells to restaurants and wine shops in western Canada, and sometimes to the LCBO in Ontario when quantities allow. And it ships to its club members across Canada. It is a sophisticated wine club program, so I suggest you simply go to the website and have a look. Please note that in B.C. applicable retail taxes are not included in the prices listed below.
