The Price of Wine

Tax season is here and it is as good a time as any to reflect upon the last year.

One of the things I do that requires me to pay taxes is guide private wine tasting experiences. These are done in people’s homes where I bring glassware and tasting mats and lead them through a blind tasting of 6 different wines that I choose and provide. Last year I hosted 30 experiences and met and spoke with 137 different people.

Ninety-five percent of the time, the focus of the tastings is Prince Edward County and the wines made here. Sometimes the theme will be other regions or grapes. But 100% of the time the topic of value and price always comes up.

“Why are the wines grown here so expensive?” I will be asked. Or “Why can I buy a bottle of Pinot Noir from Chile for $15, yet the cheapest PEC Pinot is double the cost?”

Good questions, to which there is no one precise answer. There are numerous factors that contribute to the end price of wine made in the county. And I like to point out two of them: labour costs and taxes.

Anyone that owns a business in Canada will tell you that is it is expensive to staff it. As a business, agriculture and, more specifically grape growing, is no exception. Which is why many farms rely on foreign workers. The labour is simply cheaper.

Rightfully, there are many regulations and rules that govern how to treat the people who come here to do this work. Housing, health care, taxes, travel expenses, and other things are paid by the employers and those costs are passed on to the consumer in the price of the wines.

In other places, the living conditions might be worse, possibly dangerous, so the cost to these employers will be less. Hence the final product will be less.

Treating the people who come here to do this incredibly hard work well, and fairly, is part of our collective ethical agreement to look after people. Often the small farms here bring back the same workers year after year. They form long term relationships, and in some cases foreign workers become woven into the fabric of our community.

In the bigger branded international wineries with more grapes farmed than the entire county, there is less of a connection. The working conditions might be less inviting and people’s circumstances may dictate that they work in such environments.

And this is where we start considering the ethics of a product, or even an industry It could be fast fashion or a commodity such as wine. It all has a price from beginning to end.

Another thing to consider is the definition of value. A $200 bottle of wine for lunch might be good value for some at a restaurant, while others might think the price outlandish. So $40 for a bottle of chardonnay from the county might seem like a good value, considering the quality of the wine when compared to similarly priced wines from other parts of the world.

I’ve spoken about quality in these pages in the past, and it is an undeniable factor when comparing value of wines. Quality is objective and agreed upon but whether or not you like the wine and consider it to be $40 is entirely personal.

Many of the wines here are at least comparable in quality when tasted alongside a similar wine of the same price. Skeptical? Let me host a tasting for you so you can discover this for yourself!