The concept is so brilliant and simple it’s shocking to me that it has’t been considered or talked about. And I say that with as much humility as I can muster — why didn’t I think of it?
I cannot tell you where I heard the idea, let’s just say it’s one of those ah-ha moments which makes such perfect sense. I’m burning through the keyboard of this laptop trying to get it out there as quickly as possible.
VQA wines in Ontario suffer from under exposure. Most Ontarians cannot buy the vast majority of wines made in any of our wine regions. The LCBO, though much improved over the last year or so, does not have the capacity, willingness or infrastructure to offer all the great wines made in Ontario.
But the LCBO is the only game in town — a monopoly that can sell what it wants and offer you only the wines they want to. Wineries have long fought hard to gain access to the LCBO, but only a small majority ever gets to the shelves where consumers can buy them.
Let’s face it, not a lot of people can make the drive to Niagara, Prince Edward County or Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island to purchase wines to bring back home. They are left to pick over the limited choices on LCBO shelves (and those choices are downright terrible when you get outside big urban centres).
Ideas to fix this injustice have been suggested and quickly rejected by the present government and all governments before that. Each one systematically sent to the graveyard of broken dreams.
There’s the private VQA store idea. The ruling McGuinty Liberal government wants nothing to do with it, the Ontario Wine Council doesn’t support it (and can’t, by the way, push for something the government has told them will never happen) and there have been suggestions private stores are in breach of free trade rules (pure BS, but that’s another story … just ask the good folks in B.C. who have some how found a way around that).
Then there’s the private store idea that would erase the trade issues and allow some international wines to be sold along with VQA wines. Don’t hold your breath. The Liberals aren’t going to move an inch on this. Tory leader Tim Hudak has shown some flexibility with VQA stores but we’ll have to wait and see what he does if he gets elected.
Here’s a simple, easy and brilliant, yes truly brilliant, solution and it’s been staring us in the face for years.
We tap into the 300 or so private stores we already have in the province and force the holders of those grandfathered and exclusive licences to open up shelf space to all Ontario wineries. I want to shout that from the rooftop. It is a revelation.
The infrastructure is in place with kiosks already operating throughout the province. These are the little wine stores, owned primarily by Vincor and Peller, that have the right, because they hold the licences that were granted and grandfathered pre-Free Trade, to sell their own wines unshackled by the monopoly that is the LCBO. Vincor has 165 stores, Peller 120 stores.
And, please, before anyone at Peller or Vincor starts sending me angry emails, this is a win-win situation for you guys. You open up shelf space, of course at a fee to the other wineries who want in, and you grow your money.
Do you see the beauty of this? Consumers have access to potentially ALL Ontario VQA wines at 130 (maybe more) locations that have proven to be ideal. The current licence holders earn money from opening up their stores and, dare I say it, will benefit from more traffic because of the larger selection of wines.
I predict that these stores will be grow in size and, depending on where they are, will be a huge draw for consumers looking for a full selection of Ontario VQA wines, not just the wines of wine winery.
Now, I would hope Vincor or Peller would do this without a gentle push from the government, but, regardless, some minor law would have to be enacted to open up at least some shelf space in each store. But it’s not the huge job it would be to change legislation to allow private VQA stores.
And the infrastructure is already there.
We could have this done by April.
And, it’s not unprecedented. The Beer Store, previously called Brewer’s Retail, operates exactly like that.
The Beer Store was established after the end of Prohibition in 1927 to distribute beer in Ontario and was originally owned by every small mom-and-pop brewer then in business.
Successive waves of industry consolidation reduced that ownership to a handful of very large players.
The Beer Store, though owned by only a few very powerful brewers, has a legislated policy of accepting any brewer or craft brewery in the world to sell its product, as long as the brewer meets the requirements set by the LCBO.
The same could be done with the stores Vincor and Peller own (there are others, and I don’t mean to pick on these two, but they own the vast majority). Sure, sell your great wines, but allow all wineries who want to sell wine privately, because they can’t sell through the LCBO, to have access to your shelves.
I love this idea.
It’s not perfect, I would rather see VQA wine stores in the hands of independent retailers, but at least it opens up new possibilities for the wineries of Ontario to get their wines into the mouths of those who want it.
Interesting idea Rick, but I think it would still be in breach of the GAAT/WTO agreements of 1993 (or so). Vincor and Peller both sell only their own wines. They have a lot of brands, but they own them all and I believe that’s a key clause of the “grandfathered” private wine stores’ agreements.
It’s not that successive Ont. premiers have been or are “against” or “not interested” in VQA stores, it’s that they’re not allowed by the trade agreement. As a regular MPP, Tim Hudak repeatedly attacked the McGuinty Liberals for not pushing for VQA stores knowing full well they were not possible – and you don’t hear him talking about them now that he’s leader of the Tories. As for BC’s VQA stores, well, BC allows private wine stores to sell wines from all over the world and there are a number of outlets that are completely independent of the BC liquor board. Thus in BC a VQA-only store is not prejudicial as foreign wineries could sell to stores like one of my favourites, Marquis Wines on Davie St. in Vancouver. Check it out online – it also has a great selection of BC-VQA wines.
The only way selling a range of Ont. VQA wines would be allowed is if it were in a private wine store selling wines from other countries, or if other such private wines store existed. And that is another issue all together…
A better idea I think would be to accept that we’re stuck with the monopoly for the foreseeable future and to work to change it. Why not more freedom and variety within the LCBO? We have Vintages, including at least one freestanding Vintages-only store (in Mississauga). There could be LCBO-VQA stores, perhaps small and in select areas likely to generate profitable sales. They could be run as independently as possible by enthusiastic and VQA-savvy managers, exempt from province-wide distribution requirements so stores could order small lots.
And if such stores had to have foreign wines as well, which they probably would, just tack on the most basic “general list” store template while keeping the focus on the VQA section.
Actually, that’s a great idea I’m going to look into :-)
Cheers,
Alan McGinty
Alan, thanks for your comments. I have on very good authority that new Free Trade rules would be broken using the Brewer’s Retail model and adopting to current licence holders (Vincor/Peller retail stores). This is a very do-able plan that can be implemented quickly. On one other point, Tim Hudak is on record as saying he supports VQA only stores and said, if elected, he would work to implement some sort of plan to facilitate better access to Ontario wines. The Liberals have no such plans and no will or desire to move from the status quo.
This idea has been rejected a number of times. Number one, Vincor and APL don’t want to do it. No argument will sway them. Number two, based on the general animosity between craft brewers and the Brewers Retail, small wineries aren’t hot on it either. Believe it or not, most craft brewers prefer the LCBO.
As for Alan McGinty’s comments about “fixing the LCBO”…well, that’s exactly what has been happening in one form or another since Prohibition ended, and the result has always been and always will be a disappointment.
The sad truth is that the current Liberal gov’t has failed to live up to their own promises to modernize our industry regulatory regime. If and when they are gone hopefully the new crop of politicians can get serious about things.
Thanks, Jeff. I was wondering when you’d join the conversation. I’m pretty confident (unless someone can show me otherwise) that the idea of legislating the current private stores to be inclusive has never been rejected, because it’s never been legislated. Doesn’t matter if Vincor/Peller don’t want to or not, it can be a law written to reflect inclusive representation, or they won’t get their licences renewed. As for politicians getting serious about things … it ain’t going to happen. Trust me, I’ve been at this issue far too long to ever believe that a change in government might bring about change at the LCBO. The government needs a nice, easy solution to get things started. This seemed like a no brainer.
Unfortunately the Vintages only store in the Sherwood Forrest Plaza was closed last May and as far as I’m concerned it was never adequately replaced. Unfortunately I don’t see a store like it being built in the foreseeable future—everything seems to be the newer bigger stores with a similar floor plan. Some of them are nice but they’re all largely the same. I miss the old world feel, knowledgeable staff and carefully picked selection of the Sherwood store greatly.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked to various ON craft brewers but about five or six years ago I had some in depth discussions with some and just like Jeff Aubry has mentioned they preferred the LCBO for various reasons (store layout/retail space, the cost of listing in Brewer’s Retail, control over the freshness of the product, etc.) At the time they were citing the VQA section at the front of LCBO stores and VQA promotion in the LCBO as something they were hoping to achieve. Since then I think the OCBA has gotten much better promotion and representation on the retail floor at the LCBO but they still have a long way to go to even get close to VQA. Certainly the VQA presence and promotion at the LCBO could be much better and I hope that it improves drastically in the next few years. But I just thought that it was interesting that a system similar to Brewer’s Retail was being mentioned. No system is absolutely perfect but any change to open things up would certainly benefit the vast majority of wineries and consumers. It probably won’t be changing my personal buying habits because I prefer the interaction and experience of buying directly from the winery but anything that gives VQA wineries another outlet for their wines will benefit us all as we start to build a local wine culture in Ontario.