With wine brands tightening up the competition in the wine industry lately, the need to attract and, more importantly, keep loyal wine patrons becomes even more prevalent. Because of this, the quality and appeal of tasting rooms to these patrons are becoming more and more crucial to the success of any competing establishment, which is exactly what has been found in the results of Wine Business Monthly’s second Tasting Room Survey this year.
In fact, according to the study, with tasting rooms becoming the significant bulk of winery sales – specifically 43% of total sales from Oregon, California and Washington wineries – these tasting rooms are gradually becoming the most important profit centers for wineries today. Over 59% – an 8% increase from last year – of wineries in the industry are actually charging and profiting from tasting rooms and at the same time collecting the most consumer information from there.
This gradual but sure change of trend obviously signals the winemaking industry to turn and focus on these tasting rooms within the following years.
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Tanner Creek Energy, Oregon’s most experienced supplier of solar energy systems to its wine industry, designed and installed a 94.5 kilowatt system in Oregon Dundee Hills’ well known Domaine Drouhin Oregon, making it the winery that houses the largest solar panel system in the region’s wine industry.
Embracing environmentally-friendly business practices, Phillippe Drouhin of the fourth generation of the Drouhin Family of Burgundy came up with the idea and worked with Tanner Creek in order to install over 500 ground mounted, state-of-the-art Photovoltaic panels into the facing southwest within the vineyard landscape.
Being the largest developers of solar energy systems in Oregon with over 500 kilowatt of systems already completed, Tanner Creek Energy paired up with the Drouhin Family because of the winemaker’s dedication to the use of renewable energy, which they say is a quality that has brought inspiration to the industry as much as their wine have inspired many people.
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After the US had its fair share in bailing out companies within its territories, Canada takes its turn in helping out the domestic economy. Ontario’s provincial government is currently giving Ontario growers a subsidy worth CAD $4 million as a response to the sudden surplus of wine products in the market which caused significant losses this year.
This subsidy was done after the Grape Growers of Ontario, which represents over 600 growers within the province, which was done alongside the proposal to lower grape prices because the maintaining of the prices this year was actually what caused the surplus in the first place.
As of now it will be the Grape Growers of Ontario to set the standards as to who of the many wine growers within the province will be able to benefit from this subsidy, but so far discussions and writings show that they will be limiting the bailout to those who follow VQA guidelines and pass its quality standards.
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Collaboration Wine – a joint venture between Share Our Strength, a national organization aimed to eradicate hunger among children in America and Clos LaChance Winery and Wine Styles, the largest wine franchise in the country – was established to serve as a means of charity to support projects aimed towards ending child hunger.
This was in response to the acknowledged statistical fact that one out of six children in America is incapable of meeting the dietary needs of a healthy child. With Collaboration Wine, Share Our Strength manages to take ten percent of the retail sales of their products bought in Clos LaChance in order to come up with the money to feed the less fortunate children. That is, for every bottle of Collaboration Wine sold, Share Our Strength gets to give $7 worth of food for their beneficiaries, which is said to be equivalent to three meals for one child.
Alongside what has been mentioned, the partnership formed between Share Our Strength and Clos LaChance is also coming up with other forms of fundraising events.
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Australia’s wine industry might be pushed to make major cuts with the rising compulsion from major winemakers to reduce the number of existing wineries including significantly lessening overall production. Specifically, these leading winemakers want an approximate 60 percent cut on producer population alongside a 20 percent cut on actual wine production within ten years time.
These industry reforms were outlined in the recent Wine Industry Outlook Conference in Sydney, where there was also a push to reduce the number of wines sold in Australia by half, including the replacement of smaller wine producers with bigger ones.
The actual count on the pressing need for these industrial reforms is shown in the comparison that the average harvest for winemakers is as high as 1.9 million tons, compared to the less than 1.5 million ton demand on the products.
But discussions show that things are not as simple as producing less because authorities would still have to discern among Australia’s 170,000 ha of vines as to which should be cut down and retained. Nevertheless, this reform was meant to reduce the number of actual producers that are losing money annually.
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Regal Life Concepts, Inc. recently announced that it intends to acquire up to 51% equity interest with Gangzhou Awa Wine Co., Ltd., entering into a Letter of Intent with the company.
Awa Wine was launched in 2005, where it has rapidly expanded in the Chinese wine industry with its imports and distributions. With the help of its innovative and tested business model, Awa Wine was able to capitalize on the rapid growth of a majority of the Chinese Wine consumers, making the company one of the catalysts of China’s accelerating and steady growth in the winemaking industry.
With the kind of position that Awa Wine has right now, Regal Life’s endeavor with the company makes great strategy in positioning itself in the rising Chinese wine market where the demand for imported wine has significantly shot up from the past annual 711,000 liters to over 41 million since 1995.
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The California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance just received $125,000 worth of support U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which will serve as a specialty crop block grant in exchange for the creation of a certification system.
This effort was started with the promulgation of the voluntary Code of Sustainable Winegrowing five years back due to the clamor of environmental-protection advocates for verification from third parties regarding the comprehensive management practices in the said Code. Hopefully this recent effort will be what they are looking for.
The California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance was created by the San Francisco-based Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Grower in order to serve as the administrator of the Sustainable Winegrowing Program. The recent $125,000 support was for the purpose of coming up with the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing mentioned above as well as the creation of the guidelines for the certification process.
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Since the supply of glass bottles for the wine market has been in relatively greater demand than the wine manufacturing capacity itself for the past years, which subsequently caused the delivery of supplies on time for trade requirements, Fevisa Industrial of Mexicali, B.C. Mexico together with Encore Glass of Beneficia, California were proud to announce a new wine bottle supplier to join the domestic US wine market.
This proudly presented solution was in lieu of getting supply for Asia, specifically from China, which had long term limitations. The coming of this new supplier gave exactly what consumers were asking for – another North American source, which has materialized itself in the form of Fevisa.
Fevisa, a major glass manufacturer for beverage containers that has been the supplier for prestigious companies like Coca-cola, Anheuser Busch and Modelo Brewing, is a manufacturing company that focuses on quality, improvement and customer satisfaction. Now that it’s a new manufacturer for the wine industry, production is projected to mark new highs in December 2008.
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There will be a series of fine dining etiquette and wine appreciation seminars and dinners with certified educator and Maitre d’Hotel Dieter Schafer on different dates and venues, including January 26, 2009 (Monday) in Seattle at 6:30 PM and February 3, 2009 (Tuesday) in Bellevue, also at 6:30 in the evening.
Dieter Schafer will personally address the common and uncommon questions on etiquette such as ordering in restaurants, giving complaints and compliments, pairing wine with food, tipping and other guest-server relationship principles as well as hosting dinners. The do’s and don’ts of fine dining will reflect how manners are essential in making good impressions in one of the most socially significant human activities in the world – fine dining.
Interested participants must acquire a reservation from winedieter@cs.com. Participation will cost $75 per person, which includes dinner and four Washington wines that will be served for a wine tasting primer during the event.
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Discover all sorts of wine flavors from the Northwest this November 15 as the Memorial Coliseum Exhibit Hall in Portland’s Rose Quarter hosts the Northwest Food and Wine festival where hundreds of wine types and food to sample will be featured in the attempt to let its patrons find new tastes in wine and food from new restaurants in the area.
The event will feature two major happenings which are mainly food and wine tasting, namely the Grand Food and Wine Tasting and the Preferred Tasting. The Grand Food and Wine Tasting will hold its general admission from 5 to 9 in the evening until it admits 2,000 participants at $75 per person. The Preferred Tasting will allow 500 participants to take another hour to drink and sample as well as meet winemakers and chefs from 4 to 9 in the evening at $95 per person.
Interested parties may inquire at info@nwfoodandwinefestival.com for more information. Everyone who joins will be given a commemorative wine glass after the event.
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