Growing the Canadian Wine Brand...Part 2

Since my November blog on the topic of growing the Canadian Wine Brand the wheels are turning. We recently sent our first wines to Good Company Wines (www.winebcusa.com or invino.webmocha.com), our distributor in California, and will be participating in the BC Wine Institute led launch of BC wines at the Four Seasons San Francisco on January 21st, 2014.

This is an important first step for small/medium B.C. wineries to get into the U.S. market. One friend commented, "John isn't that like taking coal to Newcastle?" I say no! That market has some of the most sophisticated wine drinkers and it has the all important US wine media. If we want to build profile in these markets we have to be written about in these markets and generally wine writers will not write about a product that is not available in their market. Simple as that.

In my opinion, and to follow the point made by David Gleave MW, we must next reach across America and focus on New York. My preference would be that this initiative be a pan-Canadian wine initiative. Again making the point that we first should rebrand Canadian wine, show all our best stuff from all our regions and later worry about identifying the uniqueness of specific regions and provinces when our national brand is established.

These are baby steps, but in my opinion utterly necessary, if we want to ascend to the world stage. I think it's time for our young industry to take ownership of our future and broaden our reach. Toeholds will become footholds and our industry will thank us for this.