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Howard Soon has been making BC wine since it was often bottled in four-litre jugs with a ring for your finger.
Things have changed a lot since then and the recently named member of the Order of Canada has played a big role in it.
Howard Soon is the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. So he doesn't mind telling you how proud he is to be recognized as a member of the Order of Canada. "I'm very proud of this. I'm a proud Canadian to be a part of this!"
He was given the distinction for his contribution to the wine industry.
Soon had a background in beer when he started in quality control at Andrew Peller. A year later, he became the company's assistant winemaker and quickly realized something.
"Creating something, making something that people would like or not like," he remembers with a grin, "I wanted to do that."
Soon was the first to release a series of single-vineyard wines. "Give credit to the guy who grew those grapes!" Soon remembers telling his colleagues the time.
"Every one of those growers, they had their name on the back with me."
Nowadays that kind of thinking is a central theme in the BC wine industry. It's an industry that's grown during Soon's career to contribute an estimated $3 billion a year to the province's economy.
Soon made headlines in 1997 when a white wine he made for Calona Wines took gold at the Chardonnay du Monde in Paris. It was a huge honour, but the first thing the ever-humble Soon brings up about it was his biggest regret.
"My biggest failure, I didn't invite my wife," he said. "I owe her a trip to Paris."
The refreshing thing about speaking with Howard Soon is that he shows no shame about how the BC wine industry used to be. When he came to work for Andrew Peller, he was involved in the production of mass quantities of an easy-drinking Riesling blend called Schloss Laderheim.
"There was a market for it otherwise we wouldn't be in business doing that," he said.
"It's a phase. It's a phase in the wine industry."
Soon was there when the North American Free Trade agreement forced the wine industry to change. Out came most of the hybrid vines that grew easily in BC but produced generally inferior quality wine.
And he was among the believers as those hybrid grapes were replaced with the vines that produce award-winning Okanagan wines today.
"The myth, and I was taught that myth, was that the winters were too cold and we couldn't grow those kinds of sensitive varieties, but in fact, we can."
Spend just a few minutes with Howard Soon and it becomes clear: the process of making wine, from the soil, to the vine, to the barrel, to the glass, is something he truly loves.
"There's 2000 decisions used to make a batch of wine," he said,
"I love that part."
If there is one thing Soon has failed at, it's retirement. After a few attempts at giving it up, he now works as Master Wine Maker at Vanessa Vineyard in the Similkameen Valley.
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