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One of the most accomplished winemakers in Chile just moved to the Okanagan. That should tell you something.

Emily Faulconer, the winemaker behind some of Chile's most iconic reds including Seña and Viñedo Chadwick, started in June as technical director overseeing Mark Anthony group's seven Okanagan wineries — a portfolio that includes Mission Hill, CheckMate and Martin's Lane.

Why she came

Before her first visit in February, Faulconer says she knew little about B.C.'s largest wine region. It didn't take long to convince her.

"The region is so beautiful," she told the Globe and Mail. "It attracts a lot of tourists, and a lot of the wine is consumed here. That's one of the reasons why the Okanagan isn't well-known outside of this country. If you don't come here, you won't know about it."

How she works

Faulconer, a 20-year veteran, says her first Okanagan harvest starts with humility: time in the vineyards, time with the winemaking teams, validating ideas before acting on them.

She has no patience for winemaking fads. "I don't believe in low intervention," she says. "Everything we do is intervention. The human factor, the decision making that leads to the final wine, is so important."

Why it matters now

The Okanagan wine industry has taken hit after hit: a brutal 2024 cold snap that wiped out nearly all wine grapes, a wildfire-scarred summer, tasting rooms emptied by evacuations, and a string of winery foreclosures.

No government program recruited Emily Faulconer. The land did, and the opportunity did. When world-class talent bets its reputation on your valley in the middle of a rebuild, that's not a press release. That's a signal.

The bottom line

Excellence recognizes excellence. The Okanagan just got noticed by someone who knows exactly what great wine country looks like.