Wine in grocery stores, death of small wineries?

[twobits]

It's called competition. If you can't stand the heat, get the he'll out of the kitchen. While I support BC wines, one cannot blame today's consumer for favoring the smae quality at a different price. Valley wines are few in the restaurant business across the lower mainland because of the price point.

So true. There is a noticeable absence of BC wines in many restaurants outside of the Okanagan. And when you do see it, it will be the bulk wines of Triggs or Mission Hill.
Our house tries to support BC wines but my philanthropy only goes so far. It really bothers me when a $24 bottle of a local varietal VQA, gets it's butt kicked in quality by a $15 bottle of Chilean wine.
And from a competitive advantage perspective and free trade, I have to wonder about the viability of an Okanagan wine industry without some serious consolidation in the production. I see some significant parallels here with what we went thru, and continue in some respects, with small scale apple orchards. A cry for public support/protection when the reality is that the economies of scale for efficient production are just not there. The consumer, as much as they want to buy a local apple, will not when it is twice the price of an apple imported from Washington. Same goes for the $24 bottle of wine.

[JBX]

It's public now that the Kelowna store is closing. From what I was told 21 of the vqa stores have been bought out by a single buyer.

[twobits]

It's public now that the Kelowna store is closing. From what I was told 21 of the vqa stores have been bought out by a single buyer.

Would that be an example of economies of scale? Maybe the price will come down to reality on what is good wine rather than a well meaning distinction by insiders of what makes a good wine. Let the buyer decide what they are willing to pay. Until the VQA panel samples and provides their "stamp" to every wine available retail to the public here, they are really just a self serving group. Either the wine cuts it or it doesn't.