What’s the mood re Coronavirus in wine country?

I know the feeling here on the east coast, but how are people in the wine biz feeling? I take it “hospitality” is slowing down a bit. I just don’t want the wine business to take a hit when it needs visitors and customers.

Don’t know how it is regarding visitors but it’s caused the cancellation of a few large tastings. I guess the idea of people spitting and splashing isn’t quite what the doctor thinks is a good idea.

I did not go to any vineyards, but the restaurants around there were full…

I’ve heard from friends here (Napa) that they’re seeing less traffic, large tasting groups are canceling, and hotels have unusual vacancy. Also, this reporting: https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/northbay/sonomacounty/10812413-181/wine-tasting-room-sales-drop-tourism-coronavirus

My wife and I are going to Napa on Friday. We switched a few weeks ago to Carmel & Napa after our Italy plans for this same time got disrupted.

Anyway, we had Shafer booked and paid for when I got a call and email stating they have cancelled all tastings for the rest of the month. Supposed to get a refund soon, but I hope this trend doesn’t continue or we will be sitting in a hotel room all day. Oh well…

Hotels back here in Europe are 50 to 90% less occupied than a year ago. So impact is heavy. Same will be the case in wine country at some point in the next weeks. Let’s just hope that we see a quick normalization into summer (or at least fall).

The en primeur tastings will take place at the end of the month as planned according to the President of the Union des Grands Crus.
Of course, should the virus situation go to the third stage (full epidemic), that might be called into question.

France is the biggest country in the EU, and the situatoin is quite varied depending on where we’re talking about - serious in Alsace but not, for the moment, in the Aquitaine region.

You might think that with the absence of the Chinese and many Americans (even if they are not affected by the travel ban) that attendance the en primeur tastings will suffer greatly.
And that will probably be the case.
But these tastings are not actually part of a buying trip and importers generally go on a wine’s reputation and what critics say.

Be that as it may, the situation is unprecedented and the sales campaign will certainly be like no other.

Best regards,
Alex R.

We had to pull the plug on Napa this weekend. Son’s school trip was cancelled. Daughter’s college is shutting down. We were not thrilled about flying through Oakland anyway. We felt good about the wine country itself, but had to pull it on a variety of factors.

Shouldn’t this be combined with the “Who’s Going to France?” thread?

Me thinks this will get worse before it gets better. As of now, HdR is still planned for the end of April, but with a big focus on producers from France, my guess is that they will have to postpone it. I think the same will happen with a lot of regional tastings - not only wine, but beer festivals as well.

It’s interesting that Shafer has cancelled all tastings through the end of the month - have not heard of any other individual winery taking that stance. Anyone else have more information about others doing this?

I am doing a tasting at California Adventures at Disneyland this weekend - relatively small groups of 40 or so - should be interesting . . .

Cheers.

I would imagine as the virus spreads in the next week or so, wineries will have to make a very difficult decision to halt visitors from coming, especially at larger wineries like V Sattui, Mondavi, Sterling…Weird times.

I love wine and all things wine but if HdR does not postpone or cancel the event soon it will be very irresponsible on their part, especially with the travel involved.

Tom

I’m surprised the Wine Spectator Grand Tastings in late April have yet to be cancelled. Can’t imagine winemakers would fly in from France and Italy.

Tom

And as of tomorrow, they literally cannot, per the President’s order.

The wine bar I work for does frequent events with groups that are in the South OC area for business gatherings at the four major high end hotels. We’ve had four of our next six events cancel because the hosting event has been cancelled… and the company that organizes them says it’s getting more cancellations every day.

It’s only anecdotal info but I just had a colleague cancel a group Napa trip in a few weeks because of it.

We met this morning as a whole winery staff. We have decided, at least for today and tomorrow, to continue our by appointment only tastings. We are amending the structure a bit. We will not offer a charcuterie and cheese plate for the time being. We are cutting our tasting times from 3/day to 2/day to allow for extra cleaning between visits. We will not combine any groups regardless of size so will staff and schedule accordingly. Everyone will wear gloves to handle glassware, etc. used by guests.

Again, this is covering basically today and tomorrow and we will see how that goes. We will adjust accordingly should it be deemed necessary. I do think that there is a very strong likelihood that a state/nationwide mandate that effectively closes restaurants and bars (and tasting rooms) is coming at some point in the future. Not being political about this, just looking at what is happening in the world and think those measures will eventually end up on our doorstep at some point.

I don’t think the Wine Experience will be held. And HdR has just been cancelled.

In the last day or so NY banned gatherings of over 500 people and California banned gatherings of over 250 people and Washington banned gatherings of over 250 people in the Seattle area. I was at a pretty large tasting yesterday and it occurred to me that having a lot of people in close proximity to each other spitting into buckets was not something that seemed like a good idea. I would imagine that a lot of wine tastings are going to be cancelled. Too bad because I was looking forward to the Family Winemakers.

Public transportation will also be affected but interestingly, automobile traffic also seems lighter than usual. I don’t know if that’s the actual case or not but it would make sense if people are increasingly working from home and avoiding travel that would be exclusively for pleasure. If that’s what’s happening, seems like wine country may be in for yet another hit.

I’ve been hunkered down at home with a project this week, and haven’t been out much,. but everyone says that the streets and subways and buses are strangely empty in NYC this week.

I already posted this in the Ridge Monte Bello thread. The March MB Component Event (last weekend of the month) has been cancelled.