Atlantic Canada Wine Symposium - Recap Day 2
The morning started with Bill Redelmeier, owner of Southbrook Vineyards near Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario. Their LEED Certified winery is an amazing place which we have visited on a couple of occasions when in the Niagara region. It was a treat to hear him speak about the industry and his experience growing grapes and making wine. His talk revolved around where the industry is heading. He wanted us to focus on how everyone in the wine industry in Nova Scotia can work together to advance the entire industry.
Nova Scotia Wineries are not as much in competition with each other as competing against Beer and Coca Cola for consumer dollars and attention. He also told us about his adventures on Dragon's Den with his Bioflavia Grapeskin Powder product which was awesome as we are avid watchers.
Up next was the Commercial Vineyard Techniques with Wes Wiens from Vine Tech and Joe Pilliteri of Lakeview Vineyard Equipment. Their session was an overview of the various areas of Vineyard management and the Commercial tools that can help increase productivity and reduce the manual labour associated with maintaining a strong crop.
This session was an eye-opener for me (the lay-person) with regards to the amount of labour, planning, and detail that actually goes into the planting and maintenance of grape vines. I has some idea but not to the extent that was outlined to us in this session (which was still pretty high-level which worked for me). Of even more interest was the cost, both in equipment and labour. These Commercial tools are certainly not cheap and depending on the circumstances of the winery could require significant investment just to get the grapes from vineyard to bottle. Though it is clear that if the economics work out, there are absolutely time and effort savings by using these tools.
The next session was an examination of the Nova Scotia Wine Enthusiast (ahem..) with Tara Rowe, faculty member at the Nova Scotia Community College. Her review of the survey results were pretty thorough and needless to say I could spend a whole lot of time discussing those which we may do later. That said, here are the highlights (very abridged).
They studied three main groups:
Wine Lovers - experienced Drinkers overall, they love the romance of wine and wine country. Gaining Wine knowledge is key, not likely to visit events, but likely to visit farmers markets, and likely to visit winery websites.
Wine Interested - experienced Drinkers overall, skewed to the demographics of age 45 and up AND age 24 and under (parents and their grown-up kids?), not regular wine drinkers, price sensitive, and love restaurants.
Curious Tourists - 40% Wine drinkers for more than one year BUT 19% have been drinking for less than a year, more than expected came from the Annapolis Valley, they may attend a winery event, these are uninvolved consumers who view a Winery visit is a novelty experience, and they will not spend more than $30 for a bottle of wine.
One surprising thing to note for those folks (many of whom were from the Annapolis Valley or the Halifax region) was that they did not leverage many of the traditional marketing materials when making their visiting plans. As I said, this just scratches the surface of the surface of the numbers that were presented but was a interesting discussion with lots of questions from the audience
The next session was Experiential Marketing for Wineries led by Sandra Oldfield from Tinhorn Creek Vineyard. Sandra has been an awesome resource for me during the Symposium and her Social Media skills are impressive. Once she had the floor she gave us all a great lesson in impressing consumers which is something we take to heart. She outlined the differences between Relationship and Traditional Marketing. Here are some of the highlights:
Relationship means talking to consumers and finding out what impacts them. The winery should help consumers use their 5 senses.
The disadvantages of this:
- More work
- More staff and overhead
The advantages:
- Sustained sales
- Long term strategy of customer retention
- Continuous transactions
- Consumers who are less sensitive to price
- Can carry you through difficult times
- Brand Connections
- Ambassadors for your winery
Connecting to the Five Senses:
- Taste - it`s a Winery (kinda obvious)
- Smell - bring the outdoor smells indoors (Sandra puts sagebrush in the tasting room)
- See - the entire operation
- Hear - music and natural sounds
- Touch – tactile experience like touching some of tools of the trade
Post-Lunch we had another session with Elizabeth Slater, this time revolving around Events. The key takeaway was to Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, and Plan. Good advice we say. She was extremely detailed around the types of things to watch including Flow, how to manage Volunteer staff, and how to react to the chaos of things going off the rails. Her document for recording what happened during your event is great.
Up next was He Said She Said - Sensory Perception session with Debbie Trenholm of Savvy Company in Ottawa (a wine marketing firm) and Harry Hertscheg from the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival. Their discussion was very entertaining discussing the differences in attitude and perceptions of wine. This ranged from the language and adjectives used to buying patterns. For example, the gender difference grows on higher price point wine in the likelihood to purchase at $100 or more: 45% Men, 24% Women. There was a great discussion in the room with lots of comments being passed about.
The Tidal Bay Story was next with a evolution of the first appellation for Nova Scotia. Peter Gamble gave us a great understanding of Appellations such as those surrounding wines like Prosecco as well as a description of other common appellations such as:
Barolo - specific small region, one grape, and one method to make it.
Bordeaux - trickier with defined grape varieties, minimum percentages of those grapes, blended, sub-appellations (i.e. St. Emilion).
Ice Wine - international (German), protections within the system, methodology but not of origin.
Alsace - regional, different grape varietals, very controlled winemaking methodologies.
Napa - geographical location only, no grape limitations, arguments about sub-appellations and appellation of origin.
Meritage - not appellation of origin, Bordeaux blend outside of Bordeaux with looser rules.
So for Nova Scotia's Tidal Bay came from discussions around what can we really do well? Well, aromatic whites and mineral whites. The terrior was as important as the varietals. ACOA, WANS, Wineries, NSDA, all involved to define standards. Let’s set really tough standards. Which in our minds equals - Vision.
Finally we wrapped up the day with a Media Panel with Christina Harnett from the CBC, Sean Wood from the Chronicle Herald, and Peter Spurway from the Halifax International Airport Authority. The panel was moderated by Craig Pinhey who is a local Wine Writer and Sommelier. The question revolved around how to generate stories of interest in the wine industry and how to maneuver through the world of Media Relations. Good information and good questions from the audience.
Whew.....Day 2 is in the books. One more day to go and I can't wait. This has been so interesting. I really would recommend this to those who are serious Wine Enthusiasts. It is a worthwhile window into an amazing industry.
Keep on drinking!
Chris & Shannon
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