mhicken March 1st, 2010

Interesting story in the Wine Spectator today on research showing a simple way to reduce green bell pepper flavours in red wine grown in cool climates. This could be an important development for BC wineries as some, but certainly not all, of our red wines are susceptible to this problem (see the comments about growing cab sauv in the Okanagan in the last Canadian Wine Awards).

Tags: bc, bell pepper, okanagan, red wine, research, wine

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mhicken January 27th, 2010

I attended this year’s Direct to Consumer Symposium in Sonoma last week. The recurrent message was that the future of DTC wine marketing is going to skew heavily toward mobile marketing (by which I mean marketing tools such as text messaging, twitter, facebook or websites … but all of which work on smartphones such as the iPhone or Blackberry). See this report from Wines & Vines for details. At almost the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle writes that it thinks that the big breakthrough app for wine consumers will be Cellar Tracker, created by Seattle wine lover, Eric LeVine.

If you happen to have an iPhone, you might want to check out the convergence of these two trends by using the app, Cor.kz. This nifty app allows you to bar-code scan a bottle of wine using the camera in your iPhone. The app then connects to CellarTracker and displays all the relevant information about the wine including user reviews from their huge database. You can then save the wine into your own cellar or if you are drinking it, share your own rating and tasting notes using Twitter and/or Facebook (connectivity for both are built in). Check it out … this is the future!

Tags: cellartracker, consumer, corkz, direct, iphone, marketing, mobile, smartphones, wine

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mhicken October 2nd, 2009

I just watched the video below which is a brilliant explanation of why the internet and social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) is dramatically changing the landscape for retailers and for government. Think about the wine industry while you’re watching it …

Thanks to the Cherries and Clay Blog for bringing this to my attention.

Tags: bc, facebook, government, internet, linkedin, marketing, regulation, social media, twitter, wine

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mhicken September 23rd, 2009

Here’s another aspect to the current Cellared in Canada mess. The LDB reports that it sold 6.5 million litres of domestic wine in the last quarter which would translate into 26 million litres annually. That would be difficult considering that BC’s entire annual production is only 13-14 million litres (BCWI numbers). As a result, it appears that the LDB is reporting the sale of some or all CIC wines as being “domestic” (look under BC Non-VQA product in its quarterly sales reports) when in fact these products are not BC wines. If one recategorizes CIC sales into the import category then there is a dramatic affect on BC wine sale statistics. For example, the LDB reports that “domestic” wine had a market share for the last quarter of about 48% by volume and 43% by value. However, those numbers include the suspicious “BC Non-VQA” sales which are likely CIC wines. If one recategorizes those sales into the import column then domestic market share drops to 14% by volume and 19.5% by value.

Tags: bc, cellared in canada, LDB, market, sales, share, statistics, vqa, wine

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mhicken September 18th, 2009

The “Cellared in Canada” (CIC) controversy (previously covered here) hit the news again in the last few days with a feature story on CTV News at Six (there’s a print story with the video here) as well as very prominent coverage in the Vancouver Sun. The CTV story explained B.C.’s lack of regulatory oversight on these wines and how the labelling and marketing of them can be misleading to consumers. Of the three major companies selling these wines in B.C., Mission Hill and Andrew Peller came off best as their bottles featured in the story did include fairly obvious country of origin labelling. Vincor got the worst publicity since its labels (including some for its Olympic wines - now changed to VQA) only identified that its wines were blended from domestic and imported wine in very small print on the back of the bottle.

The Vancouver Sun had extensive coverage this weekend with a front page block, long story on the front of the business section and analysis by Anthony Gismondi. The focus was on the misleading nature of the labelling. The LDB came off badly in the story by answering questions only via email and basically dodging the real issues.

In reality, most of these wines are overwhelmingly import juice since B.C. has no regulations on the content (which is rather scandalous in of itself). The end result of this is real unfairness because you end up with what is essentially imported wine being marketed as from British Columbia.

Update (Sep. 23, 2009): the Vancouver Sun ran follow up stories on these issues today including a front page business section story “Consumers Dumbfounded Over Faux BC Wines” and the lead editorial: BC Wineries Must Stop Their Deceptive Marketing Practices.

Update (Sep. 25, 2009): more coverage in the Vancouver Sun today: Winemakers fight for their product’s reputation. Also stories on last night’s BCTV/Global news and CTV news. This morning, there was also a feature story on CBC’s national radio show, the Current, featuring Jancis Robinson.

An additional point on the LDB’s involvement: the BC LDB makes little if any money on the sale of “real” BC wines because of the VQA rebate system. However, the LDB makes tons of money on the sale of CIC wines because there is no rebate on these products which are really imported and subject to full (117%) LDB markup.

As of yesterday, the LDB was still displaying Cellared in Canada wines underneath “British Columbia” signs in its downtown signature store. In my opinion, this is really a transparency issue - if the products were clearly labelled and marketed honestly, there would be no issue. Since most of the consumers for these products, buy on price, sales probably wouldn’t even be affected that much. In today’s world, transparency is critically important for product marketing and that’s the way to solve this problem.

Tags: andrew peller, bc, cellared in canada, laws, marketing, mission hill, regulations, vincor, wine

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mhicken July 31st, 2009

In a move of breathtaking hostility towards both the BC wine industry and Alberta wine consumers, the Alberta liquor board has recently threatened BC wineries with “criminal enforcement” action if they ship wine from BC into Alberta. The legal justification for this? An 80 year old prohibition era law which on its face prohibits all movement of liquor across provincial borders (even, for example, the act of carrying a single bottle of wine across the border with you for personal consumption). Many lawyers think the law is unconstitutional but it’s still on the books. Message to all federal and provincial politicians … help! Canadian wine consumers need to be rescued from our provincial liquor boards. Theoretically, we, as taxpayers, own the liquor boards. You would think that there might be more accountability in terms of consumer needs … unfortunately, revenue is pretty much the sole consideration. 

More information from the wineries perspective is on this site:

http://johnschreiner.blogspot.com/

More information from a legal perspective is here:

http://www.winelaw.ca/cms/

Tags: aglc, bc, laws, liquor boards, shipping, wine, wineries

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mhicken June 24th, 2009

The California ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) Branch has issued an advisory on the possible illegality of certain internet marketing services that seek to sell wine (and other alcohol) on behalf of a licensee such as a winery. I have written a summary on my companion site, winelaw.ca, which describes the issues, most of which are likely relevant here in BC as well due to a similar statutory provision in the Liquor Control and Licensing Act.

Wines and Vines also covers the story here and the text of the advisory is here.

Tags: ABC, bc, california, internet, laws, LCLB, licensing, liquor control, marketing, sales, wine

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mhicken June 22nd, 2009

Good article on the Wine Business Monthly web site today discussing the structural problems in Ontario’s wine industry. The article covers off issues related to overproduction, imported juice, “cellared in Canada” wines, direct sales, restrictive LCBO distribution policies, VQA rebates and domestic/import market share. The article points out that B.C.’s industry is much healthier than Ontario’s, partly due to better retail distribution for domestic product, VQA rebates and greater consumer acceptance of domestic product. However, there are common problems. Given Canada’s relatively miniscule share of the international wine market, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a common national vision in order to fix the problems and create growth for all Canadian wine?

Tags: bc wine, distribution, LCBO, LDB, market share, ontario wine, retail, vqa, vqa rebate

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mhicken June 1st, 2009

In a surprise development that could have far reaching implications for online wine sales, one of California’s leading logistics and fulfillment houses, New Vine Logistics, has suspended operations this morning. The shut down will have a major impact on many California wineries and wine businesses which depend upon New Vine for order fulfillment and processing. In addition, New Vine was Amazon.com’s partner in its fledgling online wine site which had yet to launch.

Update: the CEO of New Vine issued a statement today confirming the shutdown and indicating that New Vine is attempting to transfer shipping and fulfillment operations elsewhere for its customers.

Further Update: New Vine is now operating again after Inertia Beverage Group took over some of New Vine’s debt.

Tags: amazon, california, fulfillment, marketing, online, shipping, web, wine

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mhicken March 12th, 2009

Our related web site, Free the Wine in BC, is now live. The Free the Wine coalition is dedicated to reforming BC’s arcane wine laws and reducing our wine tax levels to sensible levels. If  you support our goals, please join the coalition on the site and, importantly, please also contact your MLA to request reform.

An op/ed piece appeared in today’s Vancouver Sun, “It’s time to get B.C. wine regulations out of the dark ages“, describing our objectives and the problems with BC’s system of wine regulation. In my opinion, reform of the system is long overdue on multiple fronts. Let’s try and make it happen before the Olympics.

Tags: government, law, LDB, reform, regulation, taxes, wine

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