Enjoying the fruits of their labour: Northern Lights Winery produces bottle 500,000

The Northern Lights Estate Winery has produced half a million bottles and counting.

It’s an important milestone for the owners, who say this level of success was not anticipated when the business opened in 2015.

Doug Bell expected to sell between 20,000 to 40,000 bottles per year across the province when he and his family started operations.

Now, it has become the largest fruit winery in BC, and the province’s northernmost winery as well.

Since its inception the winery has far exceeded those goals and has now bottled the 500,000 bottle of wine,” Bell said.

The winery is a point of pride in Prince George, and has won awards for environmental sustainability, entrepreneurship, and tourism.

In addition, the “Seduction” wine has won the best fruit wine in BC 3 years in a row.

While the winery sometimes imports fruit from elsewhere in the province, the focus remains northern.

“When we started out, we thought it was a dream. Some people thought it was a delusion,” said Bell.

“Obviously, there are a lot of opportunities and challenges about living in the north, and growing fruit in the north. I think one thing people didn’t understand is how great our agricultural products could be, and how many things you can grow in the north that maybe people hadn’t tried before.”

Those fruits include classics such as strawberries, apples, and raspberries but also include rhubarb, blueberries, saskatoons, haskaps, apricots, and black currants.

In short, anything other than grapes.

In the future, the winery is hoping to move towards becoming herbicide and pesticide-free, with the goal of achieving organic certification.

But as for bottle number 500,000? It won’t be poured anytime soon.

It will be kept in the storage vault and brought out to showcase on special occasions.