Government shutdown repercussions in the wine business

My tale of woe.

If any other Berserkers ITB have them, please post:

In December I went to Argentina on a brief prospecting trip. In 3 1/2 days I tasted 188 wines and picked 24 to taste stateside. 3 of them were already in the U.S.
I asked for 3 bottles each of the other 21 wines to be shipped from Argentina. The shipment went by FEDEX under two waybills. 33 bottles arrived. 30 did not, as the shutdown occurred while they were in transit. Of the 33 that arrived, there were 3 bottles each of 9 wines, 2 bottles each of 2 wines and 1 bottle each of 2 wines. Assuming everything would arrive, I had arranged to ship one bottle of each from my Virginia office to California, where one of my team members would taste simultaneously with the other three team members (me included) in Virginia. On a conference call, we would jointly make decisions. Then we would present the third bottle of the selected wines at our national sales meeting last weekend. However even among the nine wines where all three samples arrived, we couldn’t make decisions because among the missing were other wines from the same producers, and we were trying to decide which producers to carry. As a result, we showed no new Argentine wines at the sales meeting, which was held in DC at significant expense, with people attending from ME, VT, MA, NY, MD, DC, FL, IL, TX, UT, WA and CA. The remaining Argentine samples are… somewhere. I have no idea if they are being stored at 0 degrees or 85 degrees, or anything in between. In other words, if and when they finally arrive, I will have to taste a bottle of each to determine if they are in good condition.

I also had samples coming from France of wines that others on my team had tasted last fall. Most of those also did not arrive, so could not be tasted with the group.

As it now stands, wines that are already being imported can continue to be imported, as they have federal label approvals. Wines whose labels have not been approved, whether samples or commercial shipments, cannot be imported until the government agencies that approve labels reopen.

This is a pretty big deal for me.

On the other hand my business problems are less than nothing compared to a million people either thrown out of work or being forced into slave labor.

Dan Kravitz

At least you’re getting a paycheck.
And I’m sure the labels will be approved whenever the politicos decide the pain has lasted long enough.

Yeah it was 30+ days for label approval when they shut down. Who knows what a month or more of backlog is going to do to the timeline. Not holding out hope for our spring releases to be approved on time.

to Markus S, you wrote “At least you’re getting a paycheck”.

I agree. And I wrote: “On the other hand my business problems are less than nothing compared to a million people either thrown out of work or being forced into slave labor.”

Dan Kravitz

I would think the label approval thing will prove to be a pretty big deal to wineries, at least in the short term. Impacting breweries as well.

Yeah, a couple of local breweries have expressed concern about label approval for new releases. Fortunately it seems previously released seasonals are OK.

Not my winery but a buyer I work with who owns a winery has a bunch of wine in tank and can’t bottle until approved… it’s his ‘driver’, so cash flow is at a standstill right now…

New product labels are not being approved, bottling schedules are being shuffled around, products made not be bottled as needed…
When you work for a large company, the impacts could be huge if this goes on much longer. Even if it gets resolved tomorrow, it will mean many many $$$$$$

My son is furloughed, EPA project manager, the difference between you all and him is that he will get paid for all days furloughed, you will not.It is not slave labor as referenced above ,they get paid for not working.We should all wish for that kind of security.

A local winery has posted that their new satellite tasting room’s opening has been postponed by the shutdown. I’m guessing it’s an issue of new vintage inventory not being able to get label approval.

I’m an investor in a new Kentucky bourbon company. Our bourbon is in barrels, at bottler ready to bottle, but labels have not been approved. We are hoping for a Pre-Derby release. :man_facepalming:t2::crossed_fingers:t3:

The issue for many workers is that they cannot go thirty days without a paycheck. It sounds like that’s not true for your son, which is good, but that doesn’t minimize the impact on many families, where the money is not coming in. It will be great when they get the back pay, but that does not pay rent or buy groceries now.

Also as they say, write or call your congressperson to complain. If you stay silent about these problems, then no one will know.

The saddest part of this fruitless exercise is how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck. An increasing number of business people I know (including my wife) are feeling peripheral effects from the shutdown.

Something like 40% of the workers not working are contractors rather than federal employees. They can’t be required to work without pay (would violate FLSA and state laws), but they typically are not paid for the time they were furloughed, they simply lose that income.

-Al

Apologies for the thread drift, but I really hope you’re not an investor in Saint Cloud Bourbon.

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=157723

Ha! Oh HELL NO!!:joy:

True.

But, in relation to this thread, the other sad thing is how dependent on government producers are to just go about their daily business. I honestly have no idea why we spend money funding TTB to approve labels, what a ridiculous regulatory waste of time. I assume most food producers aren’t hampered by similar restrictions.

Alan,

There is actually very little ‘oversight’ in the wine industry compared to others. And believe it or not, even though the COLA label approval system is arcane in some ways, as a consumer, I would think you’d appreciate it. These folks do go over labels to make sure the info is factual and not misleading - and they usually do a great job with it. You can very well imagine how ‘marketing’ would want to dictate what is stated on labels but is not allowed.

For instance, when submitting my labels, I know that I cannot use the term ‘rhone-like’ because by using the term ‘rhone’, it is misleading . . . Just one example . . .

Cheers

Have three new labels for ready to bottle wines that are just sitting. I personally know two families who are opening wineries with a target date for Memorial day who still need to submit their entire wine list for approval. Every day they aren’t open during Memorial day means money lost. Can’t open a tasting room with no wine.

Label approval was sitting at ~3 days before the shut down, so fingers crossed the backlog isn’t monumental. It is bottling season though.