Thursday, November 20 2008

Consumer Wine in the News

Is it am already? I'm late!

My friend David Foley sent me an interesting link the other day. It's a segment from the news program, Canada am, by reporter Pat Foran, on Wine On Premise. I'm normally pretty gun-shy about news reports on our industry. It's not that I'm unwilling to talk (ha ha ha, that's funny) or that I think we have anything to apologise for, but it's a lot easier and for producers to take the angle of 'look at the funny people making fake wine'--looking at someone else ironically is a kind of culture virus that doesn't really convey the right kind of message, for me, and I've seen dozens of news pieces that talked about consumer wine disparagingly.

Not this time! The piece is well-balanced, covers the facts, and points out something that's rapidly becoming more and more important to a lot of people: making your own wine is very cost-effective. Check out the video here: Canada am Consumer Winemaking. Foran even has something nice to say about the quality of the wine, a refreshing and welcome change. Of course, the segment features wines from my competitors, so he might have been even more enthusiastic if he'd had Winexpert to taste (oh, kidding, kidding! I love my competitors).

Something to note: in many jurisdictions in Canada, it's against local alcohol laws to advertise based on price. In British Columbia we're not even allowed to compare cost-per-bottle in signage or advertising. Other jurisdictions have different rules, and some folks get a bit cheeky:

I didn't know Ty Domi made his own wine!

I've never made wine because it was cheaper to do so: my motivations have usually been because I'm such a geek and I love to taste new and interesting wines, I like to be involved in food and drink I consume, and I like a hobby that cahllenges me to do better and learn more every time. But there's a bunch of folks out there who really do appreciate the cost savings, and I have to agree, I get to taste a lot more wine because I make my own, rather than if I bought it all at a liquor store.

posted by Tim at 07:01PM

0 comment(s)

Post a Comment  Post a Comment

Email