"With the addition of Canada to our regulatory portfolio, LANXESS is able to offer uninterrupted service to North American customers throughout the entire market and thereby closes an important registration gap for Canadian as well as U.S. based beverage corporations."

Sources close to the trade negotiations in Brussels say the two sides have had a relatively easy time settling on rules governing wines and spirits, although European vintners likely still view wine producers in Ontario and British Columbia as receiving preferential treatment.

Wine bloggers tasted their way around the region this week, though there was not a drop to drink at a Saturday morning breakfast in Penticton.

Local wineries are sparkling about the opportunity, saying prior conferences have resulted in significant increases in wine tourism for the host region.

Sales were up 4.4 percent to record levels on solid growth through majority of trade channels.

Tyler Harlton is making small-batch Okanagan wines in Summerland, B.C.

It's [in Penticton] due to the lobbying efforts of Tourism Penticton in partnership with social media expert Allison Markin, who saw the potential in not only using social media to promote Penticton but the larger potential in drawing a group of bloggers here ...

It would take more than four consecutive days to view every item in what just might be the world's largest wine-label collection.

To help welcome wine bloggers to the Penticton area this week, Acting Mayor Garry Litke has proclaimed Thursday, June 6 as Wine Bloggers Day in the city.

Attendees will spend June 6-8 learning about social media and blogging, while at the same time experiencing wine country and "live Tweeting" as they go. The Penticton Lakeside Resort will be the hub of the conference as the host hotel, with a packed schedule of seminars, wine tastings and menus overseen by the resort's award-winning chef, Chris Remington.

A recent Acadia University biology graduate heads a company called VITIS Mobile Winery Services, which is looking at ways to help the Nova Scotia wine industry's continued growth.

There are more than 210 wineries in British Columbia, and approximately 170 of them are in the Thompson, Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys. With apple orchards being ripped out in favour of the more profitable grape faster than you can say "ka-ching," the wild growth of this region is expected to continue.

One of the biggest signs that Canadian wine culture has evolved is our reaction to pink wine.

Many winery owners welcome visits from wine bloggers, and Taste Camp - conceived by wine editor Lenn Thompson in 2009 - combines opportunities for bloggers to socialize with a weekend-long tour that hits a different Eastern winemaking region each year.

The wines - 2012 Sparkling Gamay Noir and 2012 Sparkling Chardonnay - are sourced from different vineyards in British Columbia with different micro-climates but made identically.

Tyler Harlton took quite a circuitous route to making great wine in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley.

Government involvement in British Columbia wine has created measurable success

It's the current war cry by the voices of those who know. A plea and a calling to Canadian growers and winemakers to plant and bottle more Gamay Noir.

On May 16, over one hundred wines from several dozen Canadian wineries were on display in London at a trade and media tasting at Canada House, Canada's High Commission on Trafalgar Square.

There were fewer than 50 Canadian wines entered in this year's competition. I believe that the CMB would be a great opportunity for Canadian wine producers to increase the level of awareness internationally of the evolution and quality of the wines we are growing.