SEASONAL BOUNTY
Celebrate fall flavours with rich duck
The British Columbia wine business was turned upside down last week with the sale of three, well-known estate wineries in Tinhorn Creek Vineyards, Gray Monk Cellars and Black Hills. The buyer was Andrew Peller Limited, an Ontario-based public company that paid $95 million.
Together, the three wineries produce some 125,000 cases of wine totalling some $24.5 million in annual sales and own about 250 acres of vineyards across the Okanagan Valley.
As shocked as some were by the sales, all three wineries had been rumoured to be for sale for some time and all were facing aging owners with seemingly no exit strategy. Whatever the motivation to sell, the result is another chunk of the B.C. wine business is heading for an Ontario head office a scenario that is never good for local wine.
Today some 67 per cent (by volume) and 53 per cent in (net dollars) of all B.C. wine sales are controlled from Ontario by companies with competing interests in several other Canadian markets. Given the trust level between the little wineries and large ones I can’t imagine this helping any future marketing, sales and export strategy as it relates to B.C. wine. Which brings us to the question, what is next for the Okanagan?
Without a bona fide Pied Piper who can command the wine community I’m afraid it’s beginning to look like every man and woman for himself. Even the notion of regional marketing groups such as the Naramata Bench Wineries, The Similkameen Growers Association and or the Oliver Osoyoos Winery Association may be in jeopardy.
How does one market expensive, multi-clone, terroir-based, non-VQA wine inside a system increasingly structured to sell Canada first, Ontario/B.C./Nova Scotia second and somewhere way down the road, high-end, single-vineyard, sub-appellation wine that starts at $50 a bottle.
There have already been talks about alliances between small wineries with “like-minded goals” to band together to look after their own needs. So it could come down to the big and commercial, versus the small and unfocused, both of whom seem OK living vicariously off a handful of small, rock star wineries pushing the boundaries and reaching out to the world to put B.C. wines on the map.
Last week’s sale illustrates how under-capitalized most wineries are and how little long-term planning they do. Who can blame them? Most winery owners are too busy trying to survive the dog-eat-dog business of selling wine in one of the most overregulated wine markets in the world.
On the good side, it is an excellent time to be a grower, and perhaps time for that sector to step up and contribute a bit more to the narrative.
If you didn’t know, there is an ongoing shortage of grapes in B.C., a dire shortage of high-quality grapes, and by extension, quality vineyards down the road. As the big get bigger, and more and more growers begin to make their own wine, there will be increased pressure on grape prices adding to an already insane level paid for grapes in B.C.
In the case of small wineries, a shift in power toward the growers only adds more stress to their financial bottom line.
And you thought it was a straightforward sale of three unrelated wineries looking for a graceful exit from the business. To say it’s going to be interesting times in the Okanagan is an understatement, but then when hasn’t wine in B.C. been interesting.
Oh, should anyone care, the 2017 harvest is looking good. If the weather holds it should be another fine year and that is four in a row.
It gets scary when the weather is more reliable than the business.