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Virginia Wineries Association Newsletter
www.vawine.org    January 2012 
Association Offices:
701 E. Franklin Street, Suite 809 
Richmond, VA 23219
 
804-592-3196 Phone
804-644-8762 Fax
 
Table of Contents
Award Nominations
February Membership Meeting
2012 Vintage Virginia
Spotlight Preferred Partner
President's Report
2012 Governor's Cup Competition
Wine Expo Gala
Compliance Corner
Wine Grape Information
Wineries Unlimited

Save the date

Mark your Calendar  

Wines & Vines Day at the Capitol 

   February 9, 2012  

Virginia Wineries Association Governor's Cup Gala  

   February 23, 2012 

VWA Membership Meeting   

   February 24, 2012 

Virginia Wine Expo  

   February 24-26,  2012 

Wineries Unlimited  

   March 27 - 29, 2012  

Vintage Virginia 

   June 2 -3, 2012  

Virginia Wine Month  

   October 2012  

VWA Annual Membership Meeting   

   November 12, 2012 

   

Visit our Calendar of Events for a full listing for the year.
VWA Award Nominations
survey

Annually, the VWA presents three awards during the Virginia Wine Expo. These awards are: the Gordon Murchie Lifetime Achievement Award, Legislator of the Year, and Wine Person of the Year.  

 

We are seeking nominations for these awards from the membership. Once we receive nominations, the VWA Board will make a final vote. For the 2011 Legislator of the Year, the Virginia Wine Council has submitted two nominations for the 2011 Legislator of the Year, however we are also taking your recommendations. 

 

1) Del. Scott Garrett - Carried 2011 Winery & Vineyard Expansion Tax Credit, carrying 2012 tax credit updates and Governor's Executive Amendment to the budget for an extra $250,000 for the tax credit beginning in 2014. 

2) Senator Jeff McWaters - Carried the corkage legislation last year, very supportive of the industry.

 

Click here to submit your nominations. Nominations must be submitted by February 3rd.    

February Membership Meeting

Join us for the VWA Membership Meeting on Friday, February 24th during the Virginia Wine Expo. The meeting will be held at the Convention Center in one of the Seminar Rooms at 2 PM. The room will be announced once it has been confirmed. 
Click here for the tentative agenda.   

2012  

Vintage Virginia  

 

Applications are now being accepted for the 2012 Vintage Virginia Wine Festival. Applications and registration fees must be received by February 28, 2012 to be able to participate. Click here for the application.  

 

The Top 5 Tasting Tent was such a success last year, it will be at this year's Vintage Virginia on both days. If you are interested in participating, click here for the application.  

 

As a reminder, Gold Level members only are eligible to participate in Vintage Virginia. Click here for a membership application. 

 

For questions about participating in Vintage Virginia, contact Lindsay Newsome  

 Preferred Partner Spotlight 

 

 

Breiner & Breiner, L.L.C. specializes in intellectual property law. They serve all of Virginia and, as a Preferred Partner, offer VWA's Silver and Gold members a 10% discount on legal fees excluding litigation.

 

Breiner & Breiner, L.L.C. 

Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights
115 North Henry Street
P.O. Box 320160
Alexandria, VA 22320

703-684-6885  

President's Report

The past few months have been a whirlwind of activity and I want to say thank you to everyone for your help and support with the numerous ongoing projects.  I just received a brief update from Jay Youmans that the first round of the Governor's Cup Competition is complete! Everything in Round One moved along very smoothly and the excitement and energy is great going into the final round which starts in Richmond on Sunday. The top 12 winning wines will be announced at the Governor's Cup Gala on Thursday, Feb 23rd to kick off the Virginia Wine Expo. Also, please mark your calendar to attend our membership meeting on Friday, Feb 24th. The meeting will be in one of the seminar rooms adjacent to the Main Expo Room. So, if you tend to get distracted with the festival set up, then program the alarm on your phone now for the 2:00 meeting.

 

The legislative session has started so be sure to look out for the Virginia Wine Council emails regarding legislative updates. I want to take this opportunity to ask our members to be a part of the Legislative Committee and get involved and please keep us informed of any legislative concerns. And, if you haven't already, don't forget to sign up for Wineries Unlimited.

 

If you are looking for a New Year's resolution, then think about getting involved and serving on one of our many committees! We welcome your participation. 

 

Thank you, Mitzi 

2012 Governor's Cup Competition

The newly enhanced Governor's Cup competition was a great success! There were 419 wines entered from 97 wineries.  The winner of the Governor's Cup will be announced at the Virginia Wineries Association's Governor's Cup Gala on Thursday, February 23rd. we hope you will join us - see below for more details.
Virginia Wineries Association's
Governor's Cup Gala


As a part of the newly enhanced Governor's Cup competition, the Governor's Cup presentation will be during the Governor's Cup Gala. The Gala will be 6-9 p.m. on Thursday, February 23rd. The Gala is the premier gathering of the Virginia wine industry. Those invited and expected to attend this fully catered event include the Governor, First Lady, the Secretary of Agriculture, members of the Virginia Wineries Association and the Virginia Vineyards Association, highly-qualified members of the trade - restauranteurs and retailers, members of the Virginia General Assembly and the press. In addition to delicious food, attendees will enjoy tasting award-winning Virginia wines, many of which won medals in the Governor's Cup competition.

Click here to register online. For a registration form you can complete and fax in, click here.

Wineries whose wine are part of the Governor's Cup Case will be pouring. If you are interested in pouring during the Gala, please send us an email. This opportunity will be on a first come, first serve basis. We look forward to your participation.  

The Compliance Corner
by Mary Beth Williams   

 

There has been lots of talk about the potential for direct shipping into NJ and PA, and it looks like both of those will happen in the near term.  Knowledge of what is really allowed under these permits lets you make educated decisions on how best to expand your business into new markets.    

 

NJ - Last Tuesday, Gov. Christie signed wine direct shipping legislation into law. It will become effective on 5/1, but it's not clear whether that is when shipping can start (like in MD) or whether that is when ABC will start working on the application and process for permitting. Wineries who produce less than 250,000 gallons annually are eligible for the license. The law will allow 12 cases from any licensed winery per NJ consumer per year. However, the fee for this license is $938 annually, which is cost prohibitive for many wineries. The upside is that the license you'll get is actually an "Out of State Winery License", which, in addition to the direct shipping privileges noted above, also allows the holder to establish up to 16 sales rooms (for on-and off premises sales) in NJ, even though the wine is not made there. There will be an additional privilege available on a sliding fee basis based on production that would allow self-distribution to retail outlets, provided that the wine is delivered by the winery, not a common carrier.  So, if you have strong NJ ties, this may be worth considering.

 

PA - PA direct shipping will happen this session, but there are almost a half dozen potential scenarios for the specifics of it.  In the meantime, however, I wanted to share with you a couple of ways that you can move your product to citizens of the Keystone State.  There is a direct shippers permit in existence today, but it only allows products not available through PLCB stores to be shipped to an ABC store, not to a consumer's address, for pickup. As I mentioned at the VWA meeting, you can avoid this permitting process and costs by having a PA customer go to any of the state stores and request your wine via "Special Liquor Order (SLO)", assuming your products are not already available through the PLCB.  The nice thing about doing it this way, aside from avoiding the fees, is that this type of order can be placed either by individual consumers for personal use or by licensed retail outlets for resale.

 

Finally, you may have heard that a CA winery recently set up a tasting room in PA, selling their CA wines through the use of a Limited Winery Permit. This type of permit is available to in state and out of state wineries and has an annual $385 fee associated with it.  But for that fee, you can sell your wine to consumers at PA tasting rooms (which may be used jointly with other licensees), you can sell your product directly to hotels, restaurants, and clubs without going through the PLCB, and you can ship wine directly to consumers at their home addresses for orders placed by phone or web.   A nice perk of doing direct shipments this way is that these sales are not subject to the 18% liquor tax imposed by sales done through all other available routes.   

 

Mary Beth Williams is the President of Williams Compliance, a compliance services provider based in Hanover County, Virginia.  For more information, contact Mary Beth at [email protected] or (804) 445-2924.    

 

WINE GRAPE INFORMATION FOR

PENNSYLVANIA AND THE REGION

 

From Penn State Cooperative Extension


Table of Contents

 

1. Report from Long Island and Ag Forum: Grower meetings, Sustainable Viticulture, and Grape Diseases (botrytis and sour rot) - attachment 

2. New Grape Grower Workshop and Pruning workshops - registration and information   

3. Updated 2012 Events Calendar

4. PWMRP - referendum passes, 5 more years

5. 2012 NY-PA Pest Management Guidelines for Grapes is available

 

Mark L. Chien

Viticulture Educator

Penn State Cooperative Extension

College of Agricultural Sciences

1383 Arcadia Road

Lancaster, PA  17601

Tel: 717.394.6851

E: [email protected] 

Web: http://pawinegrape.com/     

Wineries Unlimited  

Wineries Unlimited is returning to Virginia for its 2012 Trade Show & Conference. The conference is March 27-29, 2012 and the Trade Show is March 28-29, 2012. Wineries Unlimited will be in Richmond at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

 

For more information and to register, click here.