International Wine World Meets Here

One of the things that I sometimes forget is the international flavour of the wine business. To many people that may seem obvious especially on the import or consumer side of things.

At my level, it's easy to get buried under the minutiae of the work. I stepped back from the fray today to realize how magnetic this business is when it comes to attracting the steely passion of wine lovers from everywhere.

This blog now has a little gizmo in the sidebar to show where people drop in from. And over the past three weeks, I've had email exchanges from four complete strangers asking about different aspects of the BC and Okanagan wine world. A lot of them want to come work here. They were from Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S.

I've got an Australian working for Township 7 now alongside an immigrant from Germany. Thinking about the Okanagan Valley, about 25% of the winemakers and assistants were originally from somewhere else. At one time it was closer to 50%. They travelled here to lend their expertise at a time when the country wasn't producing knowledgable wine people as fast as we are now.

With a little care and cultivation, you can create quite a United Nations of relationships around here just by going about your daily business.

Not too many businesses share this unique aspect. It helps broaden the mind when you share ideas and opinions with people with from other cultural and national backgrounds.