Thugs of the Wine Industry Response to Tom Wark

Not sure if this is troll or a real person with no clue.

Good for Tom Wark, well-done sir.

After I reread that original letter, this was exactly the thought that came to my mind, Mark.
And we obviously were not the only ones:

Tom

I’ve received a bevy of letters like this over the years. Almost without exception the letters are from gmail or yahoo address and are anonymous. This is hardly the worst one. I have no idea who wrote it. But I can say that it’s similar to others I’ve often received, though without the threats.

I have to say I appreciated the subtlety of the arguments and Hemingwayesque prose. Poetry, man, poetry!

It’s good to know that the future of the three tier system is in the hands of people such as this.

I struggle to comprehend what the letter was trying to accomplish.

Your response was quite restrained, Tom. Kudos to you.

The Three Tier System guarantees wineries, breweries and distillers don’t cheat the public.

This line would be particularly notable if it weren’t for the one that followed it…

It guarantees shitty products don’t get distributed.

This is where you start to wonder if this guy is just a troll.

Oh plus 1000

The only thugs in the booze business are contemptible idiots like yourself who think they understand things. The Three Tier System guarantees wineries, breweries and distillers don’t cheat the public. It guarantees shitty products don’t get distributed. It guarantees taxes get paid. Only distributors can do this.

My favorite reply in that. Apparently only certain people are capable of paying taxes, breweries and distillers aim to cheat the public on a daily basis and distributors never distribute shitty products.

I have very high respect for Tom Wark’s efforts campaigning against the insanity of this country’s 3-tier distribution of alcoholic beverages!

The greatest frustrations in my time as a wine buyer for a gourmet food, wine, and liquor shop were directly related to the cut-throat tactics of giant distribution corporations. I had to “play ball” way too many times to secure a few bottles of a desired wine. “Ransoming”, cajoling, borderline bribery, etc, were just the tip of the iceberg of distributors’ practices.

Some distribution sales reps were banned from our store after slipping cases of unwanted (re: unordered) products into our weekly deliveries in a desperate attempt to meet sales quotas. The managers who pressured their underlings (the reps calling on off-premise accounts like ours) were typically responsible for these strategies. It was easy to blame Tom, Dick, or Harry for crooked sales practices, especially since a new face could be assigned to our store afterwards to begin the facade all over again!

In a state that has incredibly limited access to smaller wineries’ products, I noticed that it was almost always the smaller distribution companies that offered consumers a peek at the amazing goods from quality-centered, passionate winemakers. If not for these tiny participants in the 3-tier-distribution structure, I would never see a bottle in a retail store or restaurant that was born outside of a facility resembling an oil refinery! As more and more distributors get gobbled up by the bigger fish, I fear that we will see fewer selections available to pair with one’s Wednesday evening supper.

If interstate commerce of liquor was managed by the government - free of the influence of an ever shrinking number of booze distribution conglomerations - I believe that the true benefits of capitalism’s “competitive market” would be more readily apparent to wine lovers. Quality is not the benchmark for success in the current arrangement.

Fascinating that this is an argument for state controlled distribution systems? I can tell you that a lot of the highly allocated stuff gets siphoned off in the Pennsylvania State Liquor system to insiders who have govmt connections. Just try to get a few bottles of DRC (yes they get quite generous allocations) as a regular punter. Having a relative who works for the system is the usual “in” or a good friend who is a clerk. The only real solution, like everything else in a capitalist system, is breaking up big monopolies and having more competition. Maybe that is what you are getting at?

Dennis,

I have no love for the three-tier system. I hope that drastic changes can be made in allowing individuals to purchase directly from out-of-state sources. I was simply relating personal experiences.

I wasn’t sure if the guy was trying to be sarcastic or not. I guess you could read it either way.

He did have a good point however, regarding smaller producers. It’s really hard to sell the wines from small producers if they don’t have some kind of buzz. Maybe if people were allowed to sell to places like this forum, but walking down the street and showing the wines of a small producer to people who have to sell to walk-in customers is a bitch of a job. If you’re good, you can finally develop relationships with resellers who trust you and who are willing to take a chance on something that doesn’t have a lot of market presence yet, but the big distributors are not usually inclined to put their efforts into that.

If you’re a big distributor, your cost structure is unlikely to let you encourage sales reps to spend time selling two or three cases at a time. Your salaries, overhead storage, cost of goods, etc., push you towards big volume sales to supermarkets and big box stores.

Which of course, is why the guy’s argument fails. If the big guys won’t pick up the small producers, why not let them find alternatives? The big guys won’t lose Gallo or KJ products.

You know, it can get really ludicrous what lengths the distributors will go to protect their turf.
Back in 2007 or 2008 they lobbied and got the VA Assembly to pass a law that all Virginia wineries were required to sell their wine through distributors knowing full well that no distributors would pick them up. So what happened, The state had their Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services create the Virginia Winery Distribution Company (VWDC). https://vwdc.org/. Prior to this the wineries could sell direct to retailers and restaurants. In Pennsylvania we could also sell and distribute but in our case we actually used Southern for a few years.
Note that both of these issues apply to only in state sales. Once outside we all have to go through distributors.

They won’t lose Gallo or KJ, but they will lose sales. They figure (and probably rightly) that it’s a zero sum game. If someone buys a small producer’s wine they don’t handle, that’s money out of their pocket. Which is all they care about.

For the record, let’s not throw around KJ quite so cavelierly, given that they do own a few quality boutique labels, and seem to be doing an excellent job with them so far.

Excellent point, Greg!

This, I believe is one of the key issues with the status quo.

The logical conclusion of that train(-wreck) of argument is a state run distribution including retail, like the LCBO.
Oh, it was a joke?

With any system, the devil is in the detail of the competitive landscape. In many ways it doesn’t depend which distribution model is chosen, from a national state run monopoly, to a complete free-for-all. The legislation must be focused on ensuring no-one is gaming the system, or being given a competitive advantage that forces competitors out of the system.

Alcohol is complicated by consideration given to softened prohibition attitudes, such that governments may wish to be seen as practicing responsibility, whilst recognising it’s a great source of income that can be milked in the same way many milk gambling (c.f. Australian bars with ‘pokey’ rooms off to the side). The former can be an excuse to protect the latter.

I am shocked at youse guys. I thought it was a totally convincing argument. I am going to sign up today and know that I too can become part of something good and holy. Keeping the public’s wines unshitty is a really worthwhile cause, and I will start by outlawing anything with a cute animal name.