An icon wine is the very best wine that a producer can make. It truly is the rising tide that lifts all boats, in the sense that the prestige of an icon wine cascades across a winery’s entire portfolio. Icon wines are made with a winery’s best grapes, and are aged in the winery’ s finest and most expensive barrels. They are aged another several years in bottle before release, and production volumes are often limited.

British Columbia has a thriving and exciting wine industry that attracts winemakers from across the globe, and has brought global acclaim to local vintners. It now has a such an array of high-calibre winemakers that John Schreiner has compiled a book showcasing the icon wines from BC’s best wineries—and the region itself.

For each wine profiled, readers will learn the behind-the-scenes story of the winery and winemaker, as well as the history, provenance, and inspiration behind each wine. The available vintage is listed, along with detailed tasting notes, information on number of cases produced, percentages of varietals in the case of blends, and even clone number of particular varietals.

Schreiner emphasizes that there is no better way to understand a wine than to assemble vertical tastings, or five or more vintages of the same wine. Vertical wine tasting allows one to drill down to a wine’s essentials, and demonstrates how a wine can vary from year to year due to weather, variation in style of winemaking, and other factors.

Not only is this book the essential guide for any collector of BC wine, but it is also a culmination of research that illuminates John Schreiner’s passion and unique contribution to BC’s wine region.