- access issues- LCBO and gov't in general only want a few big wineries, and set up seemingly-fair standards for all, including such inanities as a minimum of thousands of cases of the same product to get a listing. Obviously a small winery can't do this, and can't get big unless they do. Catch 22 setup.
- excess regulation and audit standards - trust biggies but not them (they accept numbers from monster wineries, but force the little ones to count every bottle. Guess who (big guys or little) can best afford to detail people to do this kind of stuff.
- 5 acre requirement (herd of beef). For a small winery to open in Ontario, they need to have five acres of fruit. If this were applied to a hamburger joint, they would need five acres of grazing beef. Al Capone would have been proud of this dodge.
- unfair taxation vqa sales vs them, restaurants. If rich enough to be part of the club, a $10 bottle sold to a restaurant gets the winery about $7 to keep. If not rich enough, or a member, then they only get $3.
- no funding for the small wineries, but funding for the factories, means that the government is giving an unfair competitive assist to the big guys.
- govt focus on big wineries means that all attention is drawn away from the little guys.
- vqa control of common english terms means that only those rich enough to become VQA wineries can play the game.
Problems specifically affecting the fruit wineries in Ontario
- access issues
- taxation issues
On page 2 of the LCBO Strategy 06-07 it states that "As far as VQA is concerned, VINTAGES only sells VQA wines. "We have implemented many new programs that have increased our sales of Ontario VQA wines and we anticipate that this will continued to grow," says Wilson." (Referring to Vice President Tom Wilson, Vintages) This statement has two very negative prongs. First it says that no matter what the quality, price or other concern, Vintages will not be sourcing Ontario non-VQA wines. This automatically excludes Ontario Fruit Wines, or for that matter, wines made from any variety of grape that is not on the approved list of VQA varieties, or any wine that comes from any winery that chooses not to belong to the Private Club that is VQA. This is another example of the Ontario government deciding which wineries are allowed to thrive. Seems unethical on the face of it. Please also look at the year over year support that Vintages has given to the Ontario industry...2007 seems to be at a horrendous low as of late July 2007.