Eating local means drinking local too.
It’s Countylicious right now and I’ve been enthusiastically reading about all the local farms and chefs creating wonderful meals from the bounty of the county. Except one thing seems suspiciously missing from these profiles: the wineries.
It is interesting to me that amidst talk about eating local, the food is often washed down with a $15 Chilean merlot. Why support one farm and not another?
Having spent my formative wine years buying and selling in British Columbia I can say with certainty there is a genuine thirst there for all things local, wether sourced from sea, sky or any farm. There are even top notch restaurants that only have BC wines in house.
So when I moved to Toronto I was shocked that the same support was not offered. And more locally, when I was working in restaurants here, I was surprised that many patrons seem to revert back to their familiar favourites from afar rather then explore more of the county.
When will there ever be a better time for visitors to hear about the local wines and their stories, than from the people who live here, make and buy and sell the local wines? Isn’t that one of the reasons people travel in the first place? Could you imagine going to Tuscany and drinking California cabernet?!
The one comment I frequently hear is that the wines here are too expensive. And true, locally grown wines, on average, are entering into the lower end of the premium price point category. It is hard to find anything locally grown and made for under $25 and there are many reasons for that.
Except that the wines drink above their price point. I encourage you to compare your favourite $45 pinot noir from Burgundy with a locally grown pinot and I am sure you will be delighted with the County grown quality. Not to mention the lack of carbon footprint required to get the wine from France, or Chile or elsewhere.
Like many industries in Canada: cell phones, domestic flights and of course alcohol, when there is a monopoly or few players controlling things, products and services will be expensive. Pair that with the fact that wineries are first and foremost agriculture and it is hard work that few, if any, locals are interested in doing. So in order to supply demand, foreign workers are brought in to farm the land. Bringing them in incurs costs for their visas, flights, accommodations etc, which in turn gets passed on to the consumer.
Couple that with the enormous taxes we pay for any form of alcohol in this province and you start to understand why quality wines, grown locally, have a much higher price tag than the bulk wines flooding the shelves of the LCBO.
So when you reach for that $12 Argentinian malbec, ask yourself why is it so cheap and who are you supporting?
We have award winning wines right in our own back yard that pair perfectly with how ever any chef wants to cook the local produce. When you are out enjoying Countylicious, look for VQA Prince Edward County on the bottle and know you're continuing to support local famers and families.
In a related article from Decanter Magazine, I found this that might also be of interest.