The Dominion - Jessica Allen

Wonder Wine?

hillarybain — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:23:58 +0000

Who decides what wine stocks the shelves of the LCBO

Last week at a Toronto restaurant, you had a memorable bottle of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano—so memorable that you wrote down the name, and have now decided it will go perfectly with the meal you are planning for a dinner party. You make your way to one of the 25 Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) retail stores in Toronto to find a bottle. The first shop you hit has a bottle of Carmenere from Chile; the next has a Hungarian Pinot Gris; all of them have Blue Nun white wine from Germany…but none have your Vino Nobile, not even the gigantic outlet on Summerhill. You decide to go for your fall-back, no-fail standard—a decently-priced South African Shiraz—only to discover the LCBO no longer carries it. Plan C has you resigned to finally grabbing the Californian Pinot Noir that you bought last week because of a glossy promotion in the LCBO’s Food and Drink magazine. Considering the time you have squandered scouring the city, you might be wondering how exactly the LCBO decides what the province’s oenophiles drink, and why you never found that bottle of Vino Nobile.

It’s complicated. With the Ontario liquor board having the distinction of being the largest single buyer of beverage alcohol in the world, one can imagine how winemakers the world over dream of courting it with their elixirs. The journey from foreign vineyard to Ontario vintner is an elaborate affair that is decidedly market-driven, one that involves private agents, LCBO buyers and LCBO tasters. As The National Post’s wine and spirits columnist Michael Vaughan laments, “agents and producers alike stand in line hoping to receive the blessing of [the LCBO]—all too reminiscent of groveling orphans begging for more gruel please, sir. ”

Chris Layton, Media Relations Coordinator for the LCBO, explains that “The LCBO functions like any other major retail buyer; we figure out what the customer wants through extensive consumer research.” LCBO buyers need to stay on top of trends (think Pinot Noir after 2004’s sleeper-hit film Sideways) and are hired for their expertise in sales, not wine. Fortunately, their corporate palettes are not involved in the tasting of the products, which require the sophisticated noses of the board’s expert panel—the majority of whom have accredited wine knowledge and have already worked as in-store LCBO product consultants.

Unfortunately, the LCBO’s market-driven selection process means you probably won’t see your stand-by Shiraz sold in Ontario again. While you may have been delighted with the robust character you got for such a reasonable price, too few consumers shared your enthusiasm to secure its continued shelf life. In its current Vintages Product Needs Letter, the LCBO explains that 75 per cent of a new wine’s stock has to be sold within the first two months, and 100 per cent within the first three, for it to survive. Not only is this frustrating for wine drinkers with obscure or unpopular preferences, it’s even worse for the agents, who have to pay a 20 per cent rebate if a wine they bring in doesn't sell out in the allotted two months.

In order to safeguard against such penalties, wine agents refer religiously to the LCBO’s “Product Buying Plan.” Based on consumer research and marketing trends, the plan outlines the wines buyers are likely to accept. It is heavy on phrases like “contemporary packaging and approachable brand image,” whereas specific varietals are only mentioned twice: Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir for the U.S., and “no Chardonnays are required at this time,” for Chile. With these factors in mind, over 500 independent Ontario wine agents traverse the globe looking for products that might interest the LCBO. These oenophiles—and most of them do indeed love what they sell—find the suppliers and facilitate the sale of the wine to the LCBO, who then sells it to the customer.

For a wine to be sold in Ontario, an agent has to submit an extensive application, including a marketing plan and a product sample, which an LCBO buyer then assesses, passing the sample on for the Grading Panel to taste. At this point, some forty expert tasters gather in the Organoleptic Evaluation Room on the 3rd floor of the old Toronto LCBO warehouse near Queen’s Quay. The room’s white walls ensure that the colour of the wine can be properly assessed. Testing blind, tasters look for defects in the products and determine whether the wines taste the way they are billed. Once the wine passes this test, the agent is required to submit an even more detailed “LCBO Product Profile and Marketing Plan.” The product then heads to the laboratory where chemical analyses are performed, and the packaging (including the label), selling units, and shipping cartons are reviewed. Only at this point do buyers issue a purchase order specifying the terms and conditions of the purchase. When the wine arrives from the supplier, it is held in the warehouse until a second lab test is completed and the final price is determined.

While Layton insists the relationship between the wine agents and the LCBO is positive, the agents would certainly be happier sans the extensive paperwork, the emphasis on strong marketing plans, and “the draconian LCBO rules” that prevent them from selling less than a case to any entity. Moreover, because of the volume that the LCBO requires to stock its some 600 outlets, small winemakers, both international and local, resent being excluded from the agents’ search. On the other hand, anybody old enough to remember an LCBO retail outlet in the sixties might be inclined to agree with The Globe and Mail’s Eric Reguly who called it “the country’s most improved retailer.” Established in 1927 after prohibition was repealed, the first shops were intentionally foreboding; after all, they were not in the business of selling alcohol, but controlling its sale and consumption. Like filling a prescription at the pharmacy, the customer would write down his or her selection from a scant product list and a staff member would fetch it. The first self-service store opened in 1969, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that stores were renovated and brightened up and every employee began to receive mandatory product-knowledge training. Most exciting for wine enthusiasts was the introduction in 1985 of Vintages, a separate fine-wine section of the retail outlet, to satisfy the growing demands of a more sophisticated Ontario wine-drinking public.

Even though Vintages releases about 2,800 new products a year, poor product range persists as the principle complaint about Ontario’s liquor board. In the most recent edition of Toronto’s CityBites magazine, writer Stephen Tempkin compares the selection of a number of French wines available at the LCBO with Quebec’s government-run SAQ (Société des Alcools du Quebec). In each of the 11 cases, the SAQ, which also supplies dépanneurs and grocery stores, had more variety. Tempkin reasons that “the greater number of competing retailers in any given market, the better the overall selection is likely to be.” Take Alberta—the only province that has opted for privatizing the sale and distribution of alcohol in Canada. The total selection of liquor there increased by 72 per cent between 1993—when the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission went private—and 1995. However, Dr. Trevor Harrison, a sociology professor and the research director of the Parkland Institute (an Alberta think tank), insists that the selection for consumers has actually declined because most private stores carry standard brands, not rare or exotic wines that only satisfy niche markets. In Alberta, there may be hundreds of German white wines available in different locations—at varying price points. In Ontario, Blue Nun will be available in every city at $9.15 a bottle. Layton is also quick to remind that given the LCBO’s prominent position as the largest purchaser of beverage alcohol in the world, prestigious wine producers come to the Board, whereas they might not approach a smaller retailer. “Over the years, [Vintages] has established good relations with high-end suppliers of good reputation.”

Despite its much-bemoaned selection, the LCBO tries to ensure that Ontario wine buffs have options. If you can’t find an LCBO wine at your local store, it can be shipped to any outlet you wish, free of charge. Moreover, the entire stock is computerized, so you can check ahead of time to see if they even carry the wine you want (www.lcbo.com). If they do not, private ordering is an option, although most people would prefer waiting in line at the passport office than involve themselves in the paperwork and time required (up to six months). Your best bet for superior selection, and a way to bypass the bureaucracy, is something of which few consumers are aware: anyone can purchase directly from one of the over 500 wine agents in the province who are eager to sell you their wine-finds, often including boutique-style gems. Josh Parnt of wineonline.ca notes that “most articles discussing the inherent flaws of the LCBO seem to ignore this very fact.” You might even luck out and discover that your Shiraz has an Ontario representative. Though the process requires that you order a one-case minimum (12 bottles), you can usually mix and match bottles, and cases can often be delivered at no charge to your doorstep. And if you still desperately want that bottle of Vino Nobile, ask the restaurant owner and just maybe he’ll be kind enough to tell you which agency supplied him.

More wine for thought:

A resource for those who want to make their own wine
Canadian wine stats
Wine information and education
Canadian wine industry
List of Ontario wine agents

LCBO

Revival House

hillarybain — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:20:12 +0000

The many lives of Toronto rep cinemas

If it had happened in a movie, it would have felt contrived. Like some second-rate screen metaphor, the marquee of the Revue, Toronto’s oldest movie theatre, came crashing to the ground on February 18, 2007 — a theatrical climax to the real-life recent death-spiral of repertory cinema in Toronto. It started in the city’s north end with the closing of the Capitol (1998), the York (2001) and the Eglinton (2002), all subsequently converted into corporate event theatres by an “entertainment consortium” of four Toronto investors. Next came the literal collapse of festival favourite the Uptown in 2003. And in July 2006, the trend moved south with the closing of four of downtown Toronto’s best-known rep theatres, all owned by Festival Cinemas, including the Revue.

Yet the crowd of locals that gathered the following day to pocket souvenir bulbs provided an equally potent symbol for an encouraging twist to the story of rep cinema in Toronto. It turns out that the recent spate of closings has had positive repercussions. Since June 2006, the Save the Revue committee has been galvanizing the High Park-Roncesvalles community and it’s just one example of several initiatives that have been popping up around the city to perpetuate alternative, independent cinema. Through projects that focus on community-based support, localized initiatives, alternative programming and a belief in Canadian filmmakers and audiences, Torontonians are turning water into wine and making the most of the closures, determined as they are to keep alive vintage movie houses and the appreciation for classic, indie films they promote.

Repertory cinemas, also known as “revival,” “art-house” or “second-run” cinemas, are generally older, single-screen, independently-run movie theatres that provide alternatives to the fare offered by corporate, multi-screen and, more recently, “megaplex” theatres, which predominantly specialize in first-run, blockbuster, Hollywood movies.
Indeed, strength of programming is traditionally what has kept rep theatres going. Cinematheque Ontario, situated in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, is an institution of Toronto alternative cinema because of its “carefully curated retrospectives” specializing in vintage and foreign films. Regular speakers also do much to provide an historical and artistic context, and thus boost appreciation for more challenging films. Scott Gilbert and Bre Walt, who recently reopened the Poor Alex, expect that a similar commitment to programming will turn this former cabaret theatre, located in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, into a successful documentary film house. The plan for the “student-owned and operated worker co-op” is to have a program that focuses exclusively on documentaries dealing with political, social and environmental issues.

But at a time when a whopping 73per cent of North Americans prefer watching movies at home over going out to the cinema (according to a 2005 poll conducted by the Associated Press), meaty programming alone is not necessarily enough to keep a rep cinema open. Theatre D Digital, a post-film production company dedicated to promoting Canadian cinema, is leading the way when it comes to giving rep theatres a new lease of life by recognizing the creative ways they can be used to give a vital boost to Canadian cinema. In 2002, they bought — and saved — the Regent, a 1920’s theatre on Mount Pleasant Road, converting it into post-production space for Canadian filmmakers. They have added state-of-the-art digital audio and high-definition video projection to a classic cinema space while keeping the original 45-foot screen. As a result, not only is the company preserving the Regent’s heritage and physical space, it’s also invigorating the filmmakers who, as Theatre D co-founder Dan Peel told the Toronto Star, “love working with the happy ghosts.” And they didn’t stop there. In June 2006, the company added the 68-year-old Royal, a former Festival Cinemas theatre in the heart of Little Italy, to their post-production roster. Another Art Deco gem, the Royal reopened in December 2006 after extensive renovations and now provides local filmmakers with facilities for everything from editing and sound mixing, to public screenings. Best of all, both the Regent and the Royal have reopened as rep cinemas at night, with a focus on home-grown features.

For Terry Burrell, such neighbourhood cinemas are not only the places to go to see interesting movies, but also familiar faces. Since June 8, 2006, Burrell and the other members of the Revue Film Society have been getting hundreds of people to sign petitions and donate money through their Save the Revue campaign. The community has responded with gusto, producing more than $30,000 and negotiations are currently underway between the Revue’s owners and a nostalgic, Liverpool-born local who plans to lease the space to the society upon purchase of the theatre. Burrell’s vision for the reopened Revue is as: “a community space on par with Roncesvalles Village’s best community centres, public schools and churches.”

While the fate of the Revue remains in limbo, the only alternative for west-end cinephiles is the Queensway. Run by Cineplex Odeon, it’s an exemplar of the modern “megaplex” cinema. Visible from the highway, accessible via two service roads, the theatre has a sprawling parking lot and houses 18 screens. Arcades, movie merchandizing and fast-food signs blitz moviegoers with flashing lights as soon as they enter the monumental foyer. Though a single megaplex like this one can seat some 5,000 people, it is oddly a place both of anonymity and security — the endless distractions allow for mental escape and the coliseum-style seating works to isolate individuals from any sort of shared experience.

The alternative focus on a communal experience sets rep theatres apart. And it could be what ultimately determines their fate. Scott Gilbert, who has recently opened the Poor Alex as a community centre during the day, says the doc film house has little hope of surviving without local support.

Movements like Save the Revue attest to our desire for the sense of community that these small neighbourhood theatres offer. So does the analogous outcry heard in cities across Canada when such theatres close. The response that erupted after the July 2006 closing of Montreal’s famous English-language Cinéma-du-Parc, since reopened, is one well-publicized example. Perhaps the situation in Canada’s moneyed-Calgary represents another trend in alternative theatre. The western boomtown is home to what looks like the Cadillac of Canadian art-house cinemas: the Uptown, another recently renovated Art Deco-style treasure.

The Revue Cinema

Megaplex Theatre