Monday, April 1 2013

Canada, Where Wine Comes to You!

This is going to be good!

 

This is without a doubt the most exciting announcement I’ve ever made in the 13 years I’ve been with Winexpert—and it’s something that’s going to change everything about the Consumer-Made wine industry, from coast to coast!

Let me explain: in Canada there are two ways to make your own wine. The first is obvious: you buy a wine kit and a few pieces of necessary equipment and in the comfort of your own home you go through the process of making up the batch, pitching the yeast, transferring the resulting wine, clearing and stabilising it, and finally bottling it so it can age until it’s ready to drink.

The second way, as done in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and in parts of Quebec is to use the service of an On-Premise operation. There you go in, purchase the kit, make it up (right there!) and pitch the yeast. At that point you get to leave, and over the course of one to two months the proprietor takes care of all of the racking, clarifying and filtering—you don’t have to worry about clean-up, setting up a wine room in your house, or buying equipment. All you have to do is pay a fee for the service and come back to bottle and remove your wine.

What’s not generally known is that consumer wine sales in On-Premise provinces are generally much higher than they are in take-home only markets. There is a certain amount of consumer hesitation about the process done at home, and it limits the number of people who are willing to try it on their own. Legislation to allow On-Premise in the other provinces is stalled with governments that are opposed to small business or against changing any regulations on principle.

But all that is about to change, because of a terrifically unlikely confluence of two laws, a quirk in interprovincial trade agreements, and the rise of Food Truck regulations. Let me explain.

Ontario and British Columbia were the first (and for a long time the only) provinces that allowed On-Premise because of a small grammatical error in the legislation covering home wine and beer making. Instead of saying, ‘Canadian residents can make any amount of wine or beer for their personal use on their own premise’, the act read, ‘on a premise’. Sharp folks in Ontario and BC noticed this slip and immediately opened storefronts and declared that their ‘premise’ was open for business. That’s the first law that we’re concerned about.

This was all well and good for them, but expansion has slowed down in recent years, despite a cadre of hard-working small business owners who helped grow the industry and promoted On-Premise winemaking for decades. What would really help things is a new business model—and the governments of various provinces have made this happen.

The second law has been in effect for many years, but was only noticed in the context of the consumer wine industry last year. It states that no-one may store or consume beverage alcohol in a vehicle, unless that vehicle is listed as their primary residence. This is to allow folks who own campers, 5th-wheel trailers and motorhomes to carry and to consume (when they’re not driving!) alcohol without violating the law.

Those are just the forms to fill out the forms . . . 

 

The interprovincial trade agreements, signed into law by Ontario and British Columbia, now allow for shipping of wine between provinces without tariffs or restrictions. Many Canadians may not know it, but before this agreement, if you bought a bottle of wine in Ontario and brought it into BC, you would be obligated to pay provincial duty and taxes, and there are very strict limits on the amounts you could bring. Other provinces copied the legislation as boiler-plate and approved it with no debate—after all, BC and Ontario are the biggest producers, with Quebec and Nova Scotia well behind, so it just made sense to go along.

Everything tastes better out of a truck!

 

Finally, in an attempt to catch up with consumer trends and changing demographics, all major Canadian cities have passed Food Truck regulations, governing the kind and types of vehicles that are allowed to convey and sell ready-to-consume foodstuffs, with licensing, inspections and details now well sorted out.

When you put it all together, here is what Winexpert will be rolling out this April: the Winexpert Mobile On-Premise™.

A majestic sight!

 

In this business model a standard 40-foot tractor-trailer unit is used, our Winexpert Authorised Retail Partner (all Winexpert Mobile On-Premise™ operations are independently owned) declares it first as his primary residence, and second, as his licensed place of business. It is outfitted with kit storage, shelves, power and water supply, sinks, hoses and racks for transporting the wine. Because the trucks fall under Food Truck legislation, and sell only prepackaged juices, the inspections and licensing are minimal. Because there is already extensive legislation regarding making wine ‘On-Premise’, they are perfectly legal. And because there are no longer inter-Provincial trade barriers against the transport of alcohol between provinces, they are coming to every neighbourhood in Canada in the next three months!

Truck shown in stationary mode--clamp racks and grapples come down when in motion

 

Just enough room for the operator to move the customer's wine onto the racks

 

The trailers are very carefully designed and laid out, with air suspension, heating and cooling and sprung shelving with safety restraints and impact bars—there is no worry about spills or broken carboys. There is enough room to make up each batch of wine and move it onto the shelves safely and easily

Our new facility can hold over 300 fermenting units at a time

 

Although onboard storage space is limited, which could hamper sales (Winexpert carries over 100 different types of wine kit to choose from!) that problem is eliminated because at the end of every run, the operator transfers the wines each customer makes to a fermenting trailer, separate from the primary business trailer, located at our state-of-the-art Winexpert trucking hub . The wines are finished there, fined, racked and filtered, at which point they are ready to go back to the customer.

Roomy and well-lit, it's a very welcoming space

 

When the wines are ready for bottling they are transferred back into the Winexpert Mobile On-Premise™ truck, driven to the consumer’s home, and steps outside their front door (or their place of business, or any location they choose!) they can fill and cork in the airy and spacious bottling compartment! It’s big enough for groups of up to four people to bottle at once, making short work of even multiple batches of wine.

Naturally Winexpert is very excited to be rolling out this amazing service to our friends and neighbours in the other provinces of Canada. We’re starting with a fleet of 130 trucks, based out of locations in St. Catherines Ontario and Port Coquitlam British Columbia, and we’re on track to add another 3-400 trucks by the end of 2015.

If you’d like to learn more about this amazing service, including when it will be available in your location, please contact your local Winexpert Retailer by April 1st, 2013.

Winexpert:

Love Your Mobile On-Premise™ Wine

Guaranteed

Posted by Big Tim Sports Camper AT 12:17AM

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