Ursa Major Wines

We own a 14 acre plot in the Similkameen Valley, BC, that we farm organically with regenerative practices. With the goal of working towards biodynamics within the next 5-7 years. We had two back to back extreme cold snap winters that completely killed 100% of our vines, we are currently in the process of replanting this spring 2024 to hybrid varieties that will be better suited for this environment, better suited vinifera vines, apple trees, plum trees, peach trees, table grapes for eating as well as a ground crop area for organic vegetables and berries, and towards the environmental and financial sustainability that we are aiming for. We also lease a few smaller vineyards further north that we farm organically ourselves as well. We do not have our own production facility so we have been renting different facilities to produce our wine over the last few years. Our wines are fermented with wild yeasts, usually through pied de cuve fermentations from our vineyards, and we add anywhere between 15ppm to 35ppm of sulphur after both primary and secondary fermentations are complete. No additional sulphur is added at bottling and we bottle unfined and unfiltered. Our main focus at the moment is bringing our farm back to health and back to production as we have yet to harvest a crop since purchasing the land. 

Our climate is very unique, mostly in its extreme swing of temperature from the peak of Summer to Winter, we see highs of 40 plus degrees celcius in the summer and lows of -25 degrees celcius in the winter. Our soils consist mostly of sandy loam, alluvial and glacial deposits of granite and ancient riverstones, as well as small pockets of clay. We grow and produce varieties such as Gamay, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Seyval Blanc, and Marquette.