Sunday, February 18, 2007
CULINARY TOURISM is hot, as is “wine tourism”, and New York is well positioned to take advantage of the newest consumer trends with the spanking new New York Wine & Culinary Center in Canandaigua, along with a dozen of the nation’s most successful and popular wine trails. On Wednesday, a first-ever national survey from the Travel Industry Association (TIA), in conjunction with Gourmet magazine and the International Culinary Tourism Association, was unveiled in New York City showing that within the past three years 17% of American travelers (or 27 million people) indulged in culinary tourism, with a potential of up to 60% in the near future. “Culinary tourism” includes cooking classes, memorable dining out, visiting farmers’ markets, gourmet food shopping, and food festivals; “wine tourism” includes participating in winery tours, visiting wine trails, sampling local wines, and attending wine festivals. “Food travelers” spend an average of $1,194 per trip, with the top states being California (14%), Florida (10%), and New York (7%), while “wine travelers” spend $973 per trip, with 23% of that (or $219) going to wine-specific activities, and the top destinations being California (31%--no surprise there), New York (10%), Missouri (5%--big surprise there, and good for them!), North Carolina (5%--ditto), Oregon (5%), Pennsylvania (5%--ditto again), Washington (4%), Virginia (4%), Florida (2%), Michigan ((2%), and Ohio (2%). What’s great is that that both culinary tourism and wine tourism provide direct and multiple benefits to the regions where they occur, with direct consumer spending at wineries, restaurants, culinary centers, and many other businesses that benefit from tourism, boosting the local tax bases in small towns and rural areas. This reflects the enormous “value added” benefit of the wine and food industries, and doesn’t even include things like airfares and rental cars. In addition, the study showed that many culinary and wine tourists are younger, more affluent and better educated than other tourists, seeking unique experiences and the benefits of a destination’s individual environmental and cultural elements. In other words, this is the “millennial” or “echo boomer” generation (my kids), a huge offspring population of us “baby boomers”, who are also big wine and food lovers. They (and we) are also partial to local foods and wine, providing a unique opportunity for wineries and artisanal food producers across the nation. Just in New York State, each year there are over 4 million visits to wineries generating over $312 million in wine-related expenditures. On a national level, there are over 27 million visits ringing up sales topping $3 billion. Ka-ching! Wine—liquid gold for the American economy.
ACCESS TO CAPITAL is a key issue for the grape and wine industry which we have begun to address in conjunction with Rural Opportunities Inc (ROI) and MKF Research LLC, the Napa Valley wine economics firm which conducted the New York and national economic impact studies. Ironically, the fastest growing industry in the agricultural and tourism sectors has a hard time getting loans for new businesses or expansion, with some successful wineries having to go to Wisconsin to get financing! A big part of the problem is that there’s a major disconnect between winery owners and the banking community, with insufficient understanding in both directions. To bridge this information gap, we have retained MKF to conduct a Wine Industry Benchmark Study which will create financial benchmarks for wineries and lenders to assess relative performance; identify key metrics for financial institutions that are specific to the wine industry; and develop templates for wineries to summarize and present financial information to financial institutions.
FOX RUN VINEYARDS recently won a Gold medal for its 2005 Riesling against some of the world’s finest at the Rieslings du Monde competition in Strasbourg, France near the Alsace region famous for elegant Riesling and Gewurztraminer. While New York’s 2005 vintage was small, the quality was superb, as evidenced by this wine and others. Happily, the 2006 harvest of vinifera grapes like Riesling was 150% larger than 2005, with the Finger Lakes accounting for 65% of New York’s total vinifera production. Fortunately, the 2006 Rieslings will be bottled during the next few months because Finger Lakes producers have been facing a frustrating problem: skyrocketing demand, tiny supply. That’s certainly a nicer problem than having a glut with no demand, but achieving balance is still the key. In the near future, Riesling producers will meet at the New York Wine & Culinary Center to discuss this issue, along with possible ways to “brand” Finger Lakes Riesling as successfully as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or Oregon Pinot Noir.
CORNELLUNIVERSITY, with its world-class research capabilities, has been a major catalyst for the New York grape and wine industry’s “quality revolution”, and that 50-year partnership will be toasted on Thursday, March 15 at a gala dinner in New York City. “Cornell Celebrates New York Wines” will take place at The Lighthouse at Pier 61, hosted by Cornell Dean Susan Henry and NYWGF Chairman Pete Salsonstall, with John Dyson of Millbrook Vineyards as Master of Ceremonies. The evening includes a fabulous selection of New York wines accompanying a gourmet dinner, with both silent and live auctions. Proceeds will benefit Cornell’s Enology and Viticulture Programs, which in turn benefit our industry. Anyone interested in donating auction items should contact Jean Miller (jmt19@cornell.edu, 607-255-7652), and online registration is available at http://www.cals.cornell.edu/wines.
DRINK WINE AND LIVE LONGER is the large headline on the cover of the February 12 FORTUNE magazine, accompanied by a photo of red wine being poured into a glass. The cover story primarily features a Cambridge entrepreneur seeking to make an anti-aging miracle drug from resveratrol, the naturally occurring substance in red wine. But that begs the question: Why take a pill when you can have a glass of wine? A glass a day keeps the doctor away.
A Votre Santé To Your Health
“Culinary tourism has reached the tipping point as a niche and an industry…Every community should be looking for ways to promote its unique food and wine experiences.”
--Erik Wolf, President, International Culinary Tourism Association
Jim Trezise
JimTrezise@nywgf.org, email
http://www.newyorkwines.org/, web