Wine Economics
It’s Complicated. The Globe and Mail's Christopher Waters asks Why are Canadian wines so expensive? Waters explains that it is currently bottling season for wineries across Canada — which you'll see below with a few new wine releases (hello wine release szn!) — as producers empty their barrels to prep for the 2022 harvest, which begins in August. But wineries are facing challenges, which include continued supply chain disruptions, inflation, rising fuel costs, and material shortages for bottles, boxes, and pallets, to name a few of the issues.
The retail price of Canadian wines has been a long-standing problem for consumers who struggle to understand why imported wines can be so much more affordable than wines made at home. Domestic prices are set to climb, along with the price of international wines as wineries struggle to absorb rising costs of labour, fuel and other associated goods.
Waters explains that “the price of a bottle of wine is a complicated thing,” which encompasses many costs: land and vineyard management, the cost of harvest (picking the grapes), wages, equipment, etc. Plus, there’s the regulatory landscape:
Canadian wine growers don’t benefit from the same various agricultural, tax relief and marketing subsidies as producers working in established wine regions in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere.
These factors all add up, and according to the article, Ontario wineries get 35 cents for every $1 earned through retail sales at the LCBO. Waters writes that “Canadian wineries have never and will never be able to match the best value brands made by large producers working in warm and dry wine growing regions.” But that is not necessarily a bad thing:
Vintners everywhere are looking to produce better quality wines that are sustainably made to keep their vineyards and bottom-lines healthy…. Winemakers across the country have shown an ability to produce high-quality chardonnays, rieslings and sparkling wines as well as cabernet francs, gamays and pinot noirs that might not appeal to price driven consumers but attract the wine savvy who opt to drink less, but higher quality products.
The Summer According to Pearl Morissette. Ontario winery Pearl Morissette released their first (of three) releases of the year, which include the 2021 vintages of Oxyde, Primesautier and Roselana, as well as the 2019 Irrévérence. Their latest newsletter poetically states that “These are the wines that for the next few months will be refreshing our days and twinkling through our evenings and nights like a garland of string lights.” The new wines can be ordered direct from the winery, and are also available at Boxcar Social locations in Toronto.
Pearl Morissette is located in Jordan and has been said to be contributing to a movement of low-intervention wineries that are attempting to create a product whose taste reflects a sense of place. They began selling their wine in 2012, but their story starts ten years before that. In 2002, real estate developer Mel Pearl purchased a vineyard site as an investment — at the time, there had been buzz about plans to develop a Frank Gehry-designed winery nearby — but when that didn’t materialize, Pearl decided to get into the wine business instead. And in 2007, winemaker François Morissette moved from Burgundy to Niagara to pursue his vision of natural winemaking. The rest is low-intervention winemaking history.
Scout Vineyard Spring 2022 Release. Based in the Similkameen Valley in British Columbia, Scout Vineyard was started by four friends who shared a dream to make minimalist, farm-driven wines. And that is exactly what they have been doing since 2018. Their wine-growing philosophy is inspired by regenerative farming that considers the vineyard’s entire ecosystem.
By building a healthier ecosystem we grow healthier vines that are more resilient to mildew, pests and climatic instability. We are just at the beginning of this new journey, with much more to learn but we believe that we can restore health and balance to our ecosystem through biodiversity, enriching microbial and fungal life in our soils, growing beneficial cover crops and reducing our inputs.
The new release includes the 2021 Skin Contact Riesling, which was farmed organically, fermented spontaneously on the skins for 7 days, bottled unfined and unfiltered, and described as “salty, stony, dried apricots, warm spices, bitters, and citrus peel.” The release also included the 2021 Rose, which is already sold out (sorry!), but you may start seeing it around town soon. It is a co-ferment of Gewürztraminer and Cabernet Sauvignon, blended with Pinot Gris, Riesling and Muscat, with nothing added, and nothing taken away…sounds like a chilled summer wine dream come true.