Wine series: Collaboration a valuable tool to market wines

ABINGDON, Va. – For 20 years, farm wineries in Virginia could cart their hand-crafted Chardonnay from tasting rooms to restaurants, all on their own.

Then came a ruling in 2005: a federal appeals court prohibited wineries from being their own distributors. That court, too, stressed the preservation of a three-tier system in getting alcohol to market – and keeping separate the manufacturer, the wholesaler and the retailer.

The ensuing decision left many small operations, like the Abingdon Vineyard and Winery, scratching to remain in business.

“It slowed down our growth,” said Bob Carlson, co-owner of the Abingdon winery.

The operation in rural Washington County was too small for a regular distributor. So Carlson and his wife, Janet Nordin, simply relied on selling more wine through their tasting room along the South Fork of the Holston River.

Now, the winery – and more than 70 other similar operations – can regain and maintain sales using the services of the newly established Virginia Winery Distribution Company.

Launched in 2008, this state-run company technically serves as a distributor for wineries wanting to make direct sales to stores or restaurants.  Winery workers act as agents of the company when placing orders and making wholesale deliveries of wine.

To keep it all legal, a $5 fee is charged for each transaction.

The new arrangement, Nordin said, now allows the Abingdon winery to distribute bottles to six outlets, including The Tavern, House on Main, Wildflour Bakery, and Wines of Distinction, all in Abingdon; Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview; and Townhouse Grill in Chilhowie.

SPIRITS IN THE STREETS

Prior to the 2005 ruling, the Virginia Wineries Association estimated that 90 percent of Virginia’s farm wineries self-distributed their products to local markets – even if they also contracted with a wholesale distributor for wider distribution.

“If Virginia had allowed us to self-distribute, then they would have to treat out-of-state wineries the same way,” Nordin said. “The distributors did not want to be allowed that to be opened up.”

For a couple of years, from the time the ruling took effect in 2006 until the wine distribution company was founded in 2008, the operators of Abingdon Vineyard and Winery had to hit the streets – and look for new ways to get their product to market.

Today, they’re still doing that.

On Saturday mornings, Kevin Sutherland, the vineyard manager, goes to the Abingdon Farmers Market to sell wine. On Tuesdays, Carlson brings bottles to make direct sales.

“The big thing is not really selling too much wine,” Carlson said. “Our big effort was to get people familiar with the winery and hand out promotional literature.”

Grinning, Carlson said, “We’ve been in business for 10 years. But I heard people say, ‘Geez, I didn’t even know about you.’”

‘NO INTEREST’

West Wind Farm Vineyard & Winery does not use a distributor, nor do the owners want one.

“We have no interest in putting wine in a grocery store,” said 67-year-old Paul Hric, who operates West Wind in Max Meadows, Va., with his nephew Jason Manley.

“We do have a high-end product,” Hric said, “and we have a high-end price.”

West Wind sells its bottles for $13 to $18 each. “And we sell virtually all we can make – right out of our tasting room,” Manley said.

This family planted grapes in 2003 and built its winery in 2006. Today, West Wind makes 10 kinds of wine, producing about 1,200 cases a year.

Still, selling wine is only part of the business, Manley said. “We do lots of private parties, receptions, corporate gatherings, weddings, retirement, anniversary – you name it.”

Like West Wind, the Rural Retreat Winery, also in Wythe County, relies on gatherings at its facility to create business, said owner Scott Mecimore.

Coltsfoot Winery, meanwhile, is looking for a place to make wine – and greet customers – outside the family basement, Sandra Carney said.

This newly opened operation makes wines from berries at the Stone Mountain Estates home of Abingdon winemaker Sandra Carney.

Carney blends blackberries into a wine she describes as “tangy, smooth, spicy, robust,” and she takes elderberries to make a wine that is “full-bodied, buttery, warm, vintage.”

A former office manager at a public relations company, Carney also makes wine from strawberries and plums.

“We have some good wine,” Carney said, smiling. “At least, everybody who’s getting a bottle is telling us that.”

Carney sold her first wine in August after years of developing flavors with her husband, Edward, and their 25-year-old son, Andrew.

Today, the Coltsfoot brand is available at Bristol’s Inari Wines; Wines of Distinction in Abingdon; and House on Main, an Abingdon restaurant.

“Everybody’s excited,” Carney said, “because the more wineries, the more it becomes a trail.”

GROUPING

For Southwest Virginia, the idea of grouping wineries in a cluster was a longtime dream for Ken Dye, who operated Dye’s Vineyards for a decade at the foot of Big A Mountain in rural Russell County.

Several wineries in one geographic area would make the region attractive to tourists, Dye figured. “Nothing – absolutely nothing – brings in more tourists than grapes and wineries,” Dye said in 1999.

Still, while Dye dreamed of having similar wineries around him, his business, for years, stood isolated from other operations – and at least an hour’s drive from Abingdon Vineyard and Winery.

No longer operating in Russell County, Dye’s operation was sold a couple of years ago and relocated a couple of counties away. It is now part of the Rural Retreat Winery, which still offers longtime Dye’s Vineyards brands called “Richlands Red” and “Russell Rose.”’ 

Possibly, today, the Rural Retreat Winery stands poised to realize Dye’s dream: It is located along I-81, about halfway between Davis Valley Winery in Smyth County and West Wind Farm Vineyard & Winery in Wythe County.

Both Manley and Hric, of West Wind, want more wineries in Southwest Virginia.

“The more, the merrier,” Hric said. “You have that cluster effect that benefits everybody.”

The Mountain Empire, still, remains far from the wine-packed region of the Shenandoah Valley.

South of Abingdon, two Northeast Tennessee wineries – Countryside and Corey Ippolito – are located within a couple of miles of each other in Blountville. West of Abingdon, the MountainRose Vineyards of Wise, Va., lies about an hour from the newly opened Vincent’s Vineyard of Lebanon, Va.

‘TOURISM INDUSTRY’
Tourism remains key to this business, Nordin acknowledged.  “We’re basically a tourism industry.”

Often, Manley finds summer tourists creating their own wine trails, going from Abingdon to West Wind.

“Nothing would make me happier than having half-a-dozen more wineries in this area,” Manley added. “They draw people.”

Linking all these wineries together, too, can only be good for business, said Rusty Cox, the owner of Davis Valley Winery.

“It’s not D.C., where you have six million people,” Cox said. “You have to help each other. And all the wine businesses, they all help each other. All are good, good people.”

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