(Wines&Vines) - One short year after processing the province’s first sub-appellation proposal, the British Columbia Wine Authority faces an industry-led movement to overhaul its system of geographical indications (GIs).

“We just had the Golden Mile Bench sub-GI approved, however, the way the regulations are written it could be that is the only sub-GI that British Columbia wine will ever get,” said Ezra Cipes, CEO of Summerhill Pyramid Winery in Kelowna and chair of the B.C. Wine Appellation Task Group.

The 15-member task group formed at the end of March and has met twice since then. Supported through a mix of federal and provincial dollars (James Mack of the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture is a member), the group gave itself six months to complete its work.

The issue, Cipes explained, is that the existing appellation system developed 25 years ago and entrenched with the formation of the B.C. Wine Authority in 2008, carves the province into six large geographical areas. New GIs are possible only for “geographically distinct” areas with “commercially viable” volumes of grape production and wines exhibiting “distinctive characteristics related to shared soil, topography and climate, enhanced by the adoption of specific production practices.”

On the surface, this sounds appropriate, as vineyards have sprouted in regions previously considered marginal or outright unsuitable for wine grape production, including the Fraser Canyon, Shuswap, Thompson and Kootenay regions.