WineLaw.ca

Prompted by environmental concerns, Summerhill Winery in Kelowna has decided to package some of its wine in bag-in-box packaging. However, the current regulations regarding eligibility for VQA status prevent VQA wine from being packaged in anything other than bottles. As a result, Summerhill\’s bag in box wine will not be eligible for VQA labeling. The story has received significant media attention: BC Vintner Loses VQA Designation and Vintner Can Teach Bureaucrats A Thing or Two About Wine. The loss of VQA status also means that this wine would not be eligible for the VQA rebates paid to wineries for sales in government liquor stores. As a result, Summerhill will likely only sell this wine to restaurants/hotels and private stores.

A potentially game changing development in the retail wine business in BC: the Everything Wine chain has been sold to the Pattison Group. EW currently has 3 large \”big box\” locations in North Vancouver, Langford (Victoria) and Surrey. This sale means that three of BC\’s largest retail wine stores will now be owned and operated by one of BC\’s most respected businessmen and retailers, Jim Pattison. The licenses held by EW are the original \”independent wine store\” licenses, which means that they receive a larger \”wholesale discount\” than most of the private liquor stores in BC.

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article today on the upcoming Ken Burns documentary covering America\’s (and Canada\’s) experiment with Prohibition. Apparently, Prohibition and that era is now a \”hot topic\” … mainly because the whole thing was such a failure … PBS describes it as follows:

Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, made a mockery of the justice system, caused illicit drinking to seem glamorous and fun, encouraged neighbourhood gangs to become national crime syndicates, permitted government officials to bend and sometimes even break the law, and fostered cynicism and hypocrisy that corroded the social contract all across the country.

Unfortunately, in Canada today, we still need to get rid of the remnants of Prohibition-era thinking from our laws: the prime example is our out-dated law from 1928 which prohibits the inter-provincial shipment of wine direct to consumers.

Even though it\’s summer, here are some wine law developments:

Vintage Content to 85% in BC. BC\’s Wine of Marked Quality Regulation has been amended to reduce the content requirement for vintage labeled wine down from 95% of the vintage that is labeled to 85%.

NY Allows Off-Site Tasting Rooms. New York state has introduced a suite of wine law reforms designed to assist its wine industry. A major change permits wineries to open off-site tasting rooms, now classified as part of the licensed winery\’s operations. Custom crush operations are also encouraged.

WA Starts Farmers\’ Market Tastings. Washington state has started a pilot project which will permit wine tastings at farmers\’ markets.

Yesterday\’s news that the 2013 Wine Bloggers\’ Conference will be held in Penticton highlights the urgent need for the government to reform BC\’s arcane and outdated wine regulatory system. Under the current system, there will be major hurdles to holding the conference in Penticton, as well as major hassles for any of the participants who want to bring wine to the conference or hold tasting events at the conference. I hope that this will be the catalyst for a full scale review of the current system which will result in changes to bring our province into the modern era. A couple of recent blog posts also highlight the need for change: Jake Skakun\’s investigation (\”Planning the Implausible\”) of the difficulties in opening a retail wine store in Vancouver would be funny if it weren\’t so sad (and true) and John Clerides call (\”Let\’s Fix Our Dysfunctional System\”) for a wine visionary to lead us out of the dark ages is prescient.

Here\’s a short roundup of summer news, most of it good:

LCLB okays Custom Crush Operations. The BC LCLB has sent out an advisory to wineries in the province that basically approves \”custom crush\” operations so long as they are structured properly. As readers may know, there was a fair amount of media coverage of this issue recently (particularly in the Globe and Mail). Here is a copy of the release (PDF): LCLB Approves Custom Crush. This is good news and, in my view, is a correct interpretation of the existing law in British Columbia on this issue.

Wine Bloggers Conference in Penticton in 2013. The North American Wine Bloggers Conference has announced that it will hold its 2013 conference in Penticton which is good news for the BC wine industry. They normally don\’t announce conferences 2 years in advance but they are obviously aware of the headaches in dealing with BC\’s outdated wine laws since they stated that the long advance notice was partly needed to enable \”local area supporters extra time to prepare for our invasion, such as making transportation easier for our attendees and making imports of wine possible for our sponsors\”. Is it too much to hope that by 2013, we might have more sensible wine import laws? Otherwise, we may have thousands of bloggers broadcasting how arcane our system is.

Privatization in the News Again. A revised privatization initiative (supported by Costco) in Washington state has gained enough support to make it on to ballots in November. Also in Pennsylvania (which has government liquor stores similar to BC), the state is debating whether to get out of the liquor business entirely.

House of Commons Motion to Reform Wine Shipping Laws Reintroduced. Ron Cannan, MP for Kelowna Lake Country, has reintroduced his federal House of Commons motion which supports the reform of Canada\’s interprovincial wine shipping laws. These laws currently make it illegal for wineries to ship direct to consumers that are outside their own province.

In a press release issued today, BC\’s Agriculture Minister, Don McRae, states that BC is pushing for the removal of interprovincial trade barriers affecting wine shipment between provinces. He also indicated that he asked all of the ministers to review their policies that relate to the interprovincial shipping of wine. Here\’s a quote from the press release:

Developing domestic markets and responding to consumer demands are also critical to the future success of the sector and the economy. That is why B.C. continues to push at the national level for further reductions in inter-provincial trade barriers to encourage the development of our agriculture and agri-food industries. Subsequently, I asked all ministers to review their positions on the inter-provincial trade of wine.

The full press release is here. Hopefully, there will be some movement by the provinces on this issue which will help Ron Cannan\’s efforts to reform the federal law which currently prevents wineries from shipping direct to consumers in another province: Ron Cannan\’s Motion 218.

The Vancouver Sun reports today that Prince William and Catherine enjoyed some Quail\’s Gate wines with their dinner while in the Northwest Territories on Tuesday evening. The wines were shipped specially for the occasion up to the NWT by the winery across provincial/territorial borders. Just FYI for those who have asked me about the legality of the shipment, there is an exemption in the federal interprovincial shipping law for \”the Crown\” so the shipment by Quail\’s Gate, since it was destined for the royal family, would have been legal.

Today\’s Globe and Mail has an article which highlights the trade law problems surrounding Canada\’s wine industry and, particularly, the related provincial practices: U.S. Winemakers See Trouble Fermenting in Ontario Election. I\’ll try to post some more thoughts on this later … when I have time!

The first wine law reference text in North America has just been published, Wine in America: Law and Policy. It\’s edited by leading Napa wine lawyer, Richard Mendelson. While the text is U.S. focused, most of the main issues are also applicable to Canada so the American analysis gives a good framework for discussion of the same issues north of the border. I can attest that I am already finding this book to be invaluable!