mhicken October 5th, 2009

It appears that change is already in progress for “Cellared in Canada” (CIC) wines as 2 of B.C.’s Big 3 commercial wineries are reported to be changing their CIC labels so as to promote more transparency and honesty in labelling. The Vancouver Sun reported on the weekend that changes are in progress and will be in place prior to the Olympics. The adjunct to this is that the retail level marketing and display of these products also needs to be changed so that consumers will not receive any misleading information as to the origin of the wines at the store level. In both government and private stores, CIC wines need to be displayed separately from real B.C. product, perhaps in a new display section with a name something like “Global Blends”. The BC LDB will also need to fix its statistical reporting practices for BC wines as it is currently including CIC sales within BC sales statistics. It’s not really that difficult to do … hopefully, we will see change on this quickly in order to protect the “British Columbia” brand for wines that are produced from 100% BC grown grapes.

Update (Oct 9, 2009): More coverage on this issue from the political side on Global TV News yesterday. However, it appears that good progress is being made on cleaning up the labelling and marketing issues: Jancis Robinson has stories on her web site that cover changes for Cellared in Canada wines in British Columbia and a working group for Ontario to enact changes on Cellared in Canada there. I have also heard that changes are imminent at the BC LDB.

Tags: bc, cellared in canada, labelling, LDB, retail, vancouver sun, vqa, wine

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mhicken August 25th, 2009

The “cellared in Canada” controversy is growing across Canada. For those of you not in the know, this refers to wines that are labelled as “cellared in Canada” but which are made from a mixture of imported and domestic juice. In Ontario, regulations require that at least 30% of CIC wines be domestic juice (so you can almost guarantee that 70% is imported). However, in BC, there are no regulations on CIC wines so they could theoretically contain 100% imported juice. Most of them are labelled that they are a blend. As a result, the imported juice predominates, sometimes massively so (99% anyone?). As a result, these wines are not really Canadian wines at all, they are imported wines which are simply bottled here. Some of the larger Canadian wine companies such as Vincor, Andrew Peller and Mission Hill make a good chunk of revenue from the sale of these products.  However, Ontario grapegrowers particularly are upset about these products given the soft market in Ontario for grapes.

In addition, a consumer revolt is gathering steam as wine writers rail against the marketing of a product which is, frankly, misleading to many consumers. For example, the esteemed British wine writer, Jancis Robinson, recently visited a BC LDB store where the “cellared in Canada” product was displayed prominently underneath a “British Columbia” sign. BC’s new wine labelling laws prohibit the cellared in Canada product being labelled as “British Columbia” wine (often the fine print ‘fesses up to the content) but it seems a little off side for the LDB to circumvent this by displaying the product in a section labelled the same way. The Wine Spectator has also recently joined the fray, writing an article illuminating the labelling problem and describing how Canadian consumers are being misled by the description “cellared in Canada”. Update (Sep. 15th): no less an authority than the stalwart British magazine, the Economist has also now joined the chorus of complaint.

In Ontario, consumer and industry pressure has resulted in the “cellared in Canada” product being moved out of the “Ontario” aisles. However, the real solution to the problem would be to prevent this practice entirely. Maybe it’s time for the BC government to take some action?

Here are some links to recent articles on this subject:

Jancis Robinson on the Canadian Con

Wine Spectator Article

Facebook Page on Cellared in Canada

Wines & Vines Trade Article on Cellared in Canada

Cherries & Clay Blog Post on Cellared in Canada

Financial Post Article on Cellared in Canada

The Economist Article on Cellared in Canada

Tags: bc, canada, cellared in canada, labelling, marketing, ontario, wine

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