rickwine, The Blog

We need the Wine Council to support VQA

What we could have in Ontario

Sometimes you just have to give your head a shake.

How are we going to move forward in this backwards province of ours if even the people who are paid to move it forward seem to be shrug off any kind of an attempt to bring progressive thinking to the table?

What we could have in Ontario
What we could have in Ontario

I’m talking about the Ontario Wine Council, or Wines of Ontario as they now want to be known, and some rather underwhelming comments this week in the local St. Catharines newspaper, The Standard.

The newly elected mayor had just announced that one of his goals for a better downtown core, part of the much-needed revitalization plan, was to bring Ontario’s first VQA-only wine store to St. Catharines. It would be close to the Niagara Wine Route, which will be re-routed through St. Catharines in the coming years after an aggressive plan to rejuvenate St. Paul Street with a huge performing arts centre with Brock University as its partner.

Mayor Brian McMullan seemed excited about the prospect of the progressive move for a VQA-only store in the heart of wine country, something that has been a long-time coming. Is there a more perfect place for this kind of all-inclusive wine store? A test for the rest of the province?

The idea was pretty much deep-sixed by Hillary Dawson, president of the Wine Council, in comments made to Standard report Monique Beech.

“One thing I know about (McMullan) is that he’s always thinking big,” said Dawson.
“Frankly, if the government was looking at expanded opportunities (for Niagara wineries), we’re not looking for just one (store),” she went on. “It would be for a much broader application. A single opportunity there is not what we’re going to be actively engaged in.”

VQA B.C. wine stores logo.
VQA B.C. wine stores logo.

Ah, thanks, for that Hillary. Thanks for your support. And here we thought it was the job of the wine council to be pro-active, to move projects forward, not to sit back and watch the world go by and shoot down ideas as they rear their heads. It begs the question: What are you going to actively engaged in? Or better yet, what have you actively engaged in? We keep hearing about the things you don’t want to do and never the things you want to do.

It’s that kind of thinking that has kept Ontario in the back waters of civilization in terms of wines sales to consumers. It is that kind of thinking that has moved us to the bottom of the barrel in terms of innovative thinking when it comes to access to Ontario VQA wines. The LCBO cannot put nearly enough of the wines Niagara or Ontario makes on its shelves. The only other option is for consumers to get in their cars and travel from winery to winery picking up what they want. That’s just not right or practical. There has to be better access to Ontario wines.

Dawson wants a “broader” application for VQA-only stores and supports the ridiculous idea (in my opinion) that we first convince the province to allow fine-wine stores that would sell a mix of international and domestic wines and “not violate trade rules.” I love that line — not violate trade rules. Ah, Hillary, they do it out in B.C., and now in nearly every other province in the country … everyone’s doing it, so, what the hell does that mean? We can’t have Ontario wine stores because Chile would get mad. Let’s get a grip here. That’s not going to happen. And, you know what, let’s take care of the people here in Ontario before we worry about wine regions in the rest of the world.

I would suggest a trip for Hillary Dawson to get on out to B.C. and see for yourself what’s going on outside of the GTA. While we sit around and yak about VQA only stores, they’re doing it out there and have been successfully for quite a while.

BC VQA wine stores carry the widest selection of B.C. wines available in the world. Some stores stock as many as 500 separate wines. There are now 19 BC VQA wine stores across British Columbia selling BC VQA wines exclusively.

And it all started right there in the heart of wine country, the first VQA only store in the Okanagan Valley, exactly what the mayor of St. Catharines wants to do.

It’s not like we don’t have exclusive private stores already in Ontario. Vincor and Peller Estates (mainly) run 300 private stores to sell its own wines across the province. It’s time to level the playing field. And we need the wine council to lead the charge or get out of the way.

So, please, let’s get to work. Let’s make some changes around here. Be a champion of change, not a barrier. Get some positive thinking going. Be upbeat. Passionate about where you can take us. Move us forward and away from  this province’s antiquated liquor laws into a new era of modern thinking.

You can start right here in St. Catharines with the first all-inclusive VQA wine store in Ontario.