A CHANCE TO REASSESS THE BUSINESS OF WINE
Late last February, just before the International Tasting Room opened at the 2020 Vancouver International Wine Festival Trade Day, I sat with an Italian winery principal at lunch. I casually asked where he had been travelling since Christmas.
Besides the western U.S., he mentioned China and specifically a city called Wuhan. To say the 43-year-old annual wine fest dodged the coronavirus bullet by days is an understatement. Unfortunately, 2021 will not be so kind to organizers.
In a recent press release, organizers said: “Normally, this would be the time of year when we announce next year's participating wineries. We decided in April to postpone our application period, in the hopes that the situation would become clearer and more positive in the summer.”
Alas, the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 persists around the world.
While B.C. may be doing well versus the world, we are still experiencing persistent rates of COVID-19 infections, and there is little expectation that any of the restrictions on large gatherings will be lifted any time soon. At this point, many in the wine business are wondering if standing around in a tasting room, spitting wine into a bucket, will ever become the norm again for those in the wine business, let alone the public.
With so many unanswered questions and the sizable lead time and resources required to put on a festival the size and scale of the Vancouver International Wine Festival, its board of directors has decided to abandon the large-scale festival for 2021.
Organizers are “continuing to explore options for other activities in 2021, including smallscale seminars, dinners, virtual events, or an auction.”
There was no mention of cancelling the theme, but we are guessing that inviting South America to B.C. next spring will not be possible no matter how, or if, the festival evolves.
Even then, we can't be sure Dr. Bonnie Henry would approve anything more than personal bubble events, that while appealing in principle, may be equally impossible to pull off.
COVID-19 does present a chance to reassess where the business of wine is headed and whether there might be a more interesting path forward.
The Vancouver International Wine Festival was miles ahead of its competitors 42 years ago, with its stipulation that winery principals had to be on the floor pouring their wine.
Back then, getting a big name winery pouring its best wines was akin to low hanging fruit. Over time worldwide demand and big business pressure have pushed organizers into a corner of export directors and ambassadors and second-tier wineries pouring wines that fit their commercial interests.
It's not the end of the world but hardly ideal and nothing like those early years when the room was full of luminaries every night pouring their best wines. Now might be the opportunity to reimagine a festival as innovative as the original annual Playhouse bash born in 1979, before the internet, the cellphone, YouTube, private wine shops, most anything that is good about the B.C. wine industry and the provinces restaurant/dining scene.
COVID-19 has changed so much in our lives, and the current social upheaval around the world will undoubtedly see even more change shortly.
Much of what many hold to be true about wine will take a back seat to issues that matter more and need attention — surviving the new normal may mean looking back to the roots of wine and how we interact with it.
Caring for the environment, preserving resources, looking at wine as part of a bigger mixed-farming, and an even broader, mixed economy picture. Wine will require leadership at many levels if it is to become a normalized part of our culture.
Dismantling the dinosaur provincial monopolies would be a great start, leaving the contemporary wine merchant model in its many 21st century forms free to set a new path to the modern wine world.