There are two more days of anxiety about booze prices before all is made clear on April 1, when the new pricing system kicks in. Just to keep things interesting, the government added another wrinkle Friday — a review of the Vintners Quality Alliance appellation that supposedly proclaims the high standards of B.C. wine to the world. Whatever happens to wine prices thist week, the review raises the possibility of B.C. wine prices going up some time in the future for the entirely defensible reason that the product is simply better.
That will take a while to determine and achieve. In the meantime, the overall liquor industry is gripped with angst about the big conversion underway. The incomprehensible pricing system that evolved over the years is being replaced with a new system that — on paper, at least — looks more rational. The old system took the arbitrary retail price of products in government liquor stores and worked backward, giving varying degrees of discounts to different classes of private purveyors.
They would get product and set their shelf prices somewhere near the government price. This week, there will be a universal wholesale price, applicable to all retailers, public and private alike. The government and private operators will set their shelf price as they see fit. The only limit is they can’t sell below wholesale. Converting to the new system means setting the new wholesale price close enough to the previous discounted cost to avoid price shocks. But the range of discounts is so wide that some price changes are unavoidable, particularly in the wine market.
Compounding the issue are monthly price changes from suppliers and the fact there are more than 30,000 products. Confusion abounds. But anyone expecting dramatic price cuts on the new competitive “level playing field” will be disappointed. Huge drops are as unlikely as huge increases. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton pledged: “What we’re absolutely not doing is artificially raising prices.” That might be true, but only because they’re already artificially high. The government has always built the social cost of booze and a healthy revenue grab into the price. That’s unlikely to change. Although there are dire predictions from the NDP, the best guess is a bunch of dime and quarter adjustments that will be overshadowed by varying degrees of excitement about booze in grocery stores and other changes.
While attention is focused on where the bottles are being sold and for how much, the B.C. VQA review will be working on what’s in them. Eleven vintners and a government official were named Friday to the wine appellation task group, charged with improving the system that leads to the VQA on the label.
Recommendations will be handed to government by next fall. The current system guarantees that the wine is 100 per cent B.C. and meets certain minimum quality requirements. It was an industry-operated standard for years until 2005, when the province took over administration and delegated responsibility to the B.C. Wine Authority. Wineries submit samples to taste panels who judge whether they meet B.C. VQA requirements and are free from specified faults.
The panels assessed more than 1,600 wines in 2014 and virtually all of them were granted the right to use the appellation on their labels. It’s that success rate that concerned a group of vintners. It’s read as evidence that B.C. VQA is just the minimum threshold, rather than a true measure of quality. They formed Terroir B.C. last year to advocate for raising standards all around. Co-founder John Skinner said Friday the appellation served a purpose but the industry has moved well past the standards and they need to be raised.
The group has also been outspoken in discouraging the practice of importing cheap grapes or juice from elsewhere to supplement B.C. grapes, and putting misleading designations on labels (“cellared in B.C”). Skinner welcomed the task force, which has two Terroir B.C. members on it. Mike Klassen, the new executive director of the task force, said it’s going to be controversial work because people are passionate about keeping the wine industry thriving. Any changes will be put to a vote by all wine producers.
