Canadians Are Swooning for California Wine

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California wine sells itself,” says Anne Martin, head sommelier at the Maple Leaf Sports + Entertainment (MLSE) complex at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre (ACC). From high-roller hockey fans to rapper and Raptor fans, to devotees of Elton John and Nine Inch Nails, the ACC caters to a wide demographic. And California accounts for 57 per cent of all the wine sold at the multi-million dollar operation, which has several bars and restaurants, including the Real Sports Bar & Grill and E11even. “Ontario consumers have a real love affair with California,” says Martin. “Though people are drinking a bit more white this year, overall, J. Lohr is our biggest seller. It’s a comfort zone.”

J. Lohr is a real success story — according to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), it’s now California’s top seller in Ontario, and figures from Willow Park (the largest private alcohol retailer in Canada) show J. Lohr is number 1 in Alberta too. With a laser focus on bigger, cleaner, fresher and fruitier wines, the winery has tapped into what most Canadian consumers want.

Peggy Perry, VP of Marketing and Purchasing for Willow Park in Calgary, which does 50 per cent of its business with bars, restaurants and hotels, says J. Lohr is its biggest seller by dollar value — and, it’s not cheap, selling at $17 for the main brand wines (and more for its higher-tier wines).

It might come as a surprise to learn the top-selling California wine is priced in the mid- to high-teens, but while the U.S. gets gallons of cheap “jug wines” and the infamous “Two Buck Chuck” (a super low-priced line of California wines sold through Trader Joe’s supermarkets), the state’s profile in Canada is more upscale. “The average price for California wines in Canada is $13,” says Rick Slomka, Canadian director of the Burlington, Ont.-based California Wine Institute. “In fact, we are number 2 in average price per bottle after France.” But, when it comes to the California wine market as a whole, and the grapes of choice in Canada, Cabernet is the number-1 red, while Chardonnay is the number-1 white, although other styles are making impressive gains.

Trend talk

Willow Park’s Perry has seen sales of off-dry (sweeter) red and white California blends grow strongly in recent years, a trend that’s also big in Ontario and Quebec. “We’re getting a lot of interest from younger people,” she says. “They used to come [to wine] through Australia, but now they’re coming in through California. Ménage à Trois is a big seller, as is Apothic.” Cupcake is another aptly named off-dry blend that’s also doing well across the country.

Slomka confirms that off-dry red blends are on fire, thanks to the younger demographic. Case-in-point: since 2009, red blend sales (though not all off-dry) in Ontario have risen 408 per cent to nearly $34 million, according to the LCBO. Red blends are now the LCBO’s second-biggest category of California wine, compared to 2009 when it was the sixth-biggest category. In terms of the reds, the secret ingredient is a wine that many consider California’s specialty: Zinfandel. The grape makes a big fruity red and sales have been increasing in Ontario, according the LCBO, but it doesn’t yet have the mass appeal of Cab, so it seems vintners are using some of it in blends to good effect.

Zinfandel has long been more popular in the U.S. than in Canada, but Slomka notes that sales are rising and the quality continues to improve. One organization promoting the wine is ZAP — the Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, which organizes ‘ZAP tours’ in the U.S. “Toronto has had one, too,” says Slomka. “The goal is to educate people on the wide range of styles.”

Zinfandel aside, Moscato is also continuing to win attention. For years, the wine’s Muscat grape has been an Italian staple used to make Asti Spumante (sparkling white wine) as well as table wines. But, California wineries took notice and started producing Moscato when hip-hop artists such as Drake and Lil’ Kim rapped about it; Nicki Minaj is even part owner and head promoter of the Moscato and fruit juice blend brand Myx Fusions, which is slated to come to Canada this year. It’s quite a change from 2008, when the LCBO’s California Moscato sales were non-existent; by 2012 they’d reached nearly $1.5 million.

Of course, non-blended red California wines are performing well, too. MLSE’s Martin notes that 89 per cent of the California wine she sells is red.

Brad Royale, of Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts, which runs four restaurants in Calgary and five restaurants at mountain resort areas in Alberta and B.C., agrees. “California Chardonnay does well by the glass, but we sell far fewer bottles,” says the wine director who sells more bottles of California Cabernet and the increasingly popular Pinot Noir. “We’ve seen a steady rise in Pinot Noir sales, and some of the new areas like Sonoma Coast are producing fresher, leaner, less woody Pinots that are better food wines.”

Slomka confirms Pinot Noir sales continue to grow strongly in the U.S. and Canada. In fact, LCBO figures show Pinot Noir sales rising by more than 250 per cent since 2008. “California is the epitome of the New World style, it’s bigger, fresher and fruitier than its French — and indeed Ontario — counterparts,” says Slomka. Pinot Noir is fussy to grow and needs more care than many other grapes. In cooler climate areas such as Burgundy, Germany, Ontario and B.C., it can produce sublime, delicate and complex wines, but it can also produce thin, sour and unpleasant wines. California’s richer, riper Pinots are more reliable and, in many ways, more in line with popular tastes.

The sparkling wines from the state are popular, too, even though they are a small part of California’s output. Indeed, top Champagne producers have set up operations in Napa: Taittinger runs Domaine Carneros, Moët Hennessy has Domaine Chandon and Mumm has Mumm Napa. Roederer Estate has had a winery in Mendocino for more than 30 years. Gloria Ferrer of Spain’s Freixenet also has a Napa winery. According to Slomka, California delivers “phenomenal quality at half the price of Champagne.” And, when it’s the very same companies making the wines, it’s an even more compelling buy. Leading local producers include Schramsberg, Laetitia and Iron Horse. They all follow the “method traditionelle” winemaking technique used by Champagne makers, mostly using Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. There are also lower-priced producers such as Barefoot making affordable sparkling wines, including the popular Moscato Spumante. Meanwhile, in the oenophile bubble occupied by readers of Wine Spectator and Decanter, there’s great interest in some of California’s emerging sub-regions — the American Viticultural Area (AVA) designations that apply the European approach of geographic designations as markers of both quality and style. In California, the Central Coast, including Paso Robles and Santa Barbara, and northern areas such as Sonoma Coast, Carneros, Rutherford, Russian River and the Anderson Valley have been winning attention. But this is all lost on the typical diner, even a wine-loving one: “I don’t really see people asking about specific regions other than maybe Napa,” notes Royale. He thinks it’s worth keeping up on the sub-regions and training staff, because “people may not know what it means for a wine to be from a specific sub-region, but they want [me] to know.”

Many customers also want to sample the California wines from the top of the market that cost hundreds of dollars for a single bottle. For years, this thin but lucrative slice of the market was dominated by France and Italy, but the picture is changing. “We now have better movement in the $200 to $600 range, from Napa Cabs than from either Bordeaux or Burgundy,” Royale says. The ACC’s Martin confirms California is the clear leader in the “trophy wine” category where wines cost more than $100 per bottle. “French wine just doesn’t have the cachet it used to have, especially with the younger crowd,” she says.

Get ahead of the game

The trends are clear, but restaurant owners could get ahead of the curve by introducing more California whites to their wine lists. Here’s why: the number of California whites sold in retail amounts to 27 per cent of total sales Canada-wide, according to the California Wine Institute, while several Toronto sommeliers say their California white sales only reach approximately 10 per cent of total sales. “Reds still take the lion’s share of our California sales,” confirms Gint Prunskus, sommelier at Epic restaurant at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto.

At cool and pricey West in Vancouver, however, sommelier Owen Knowlton says whites now represent approximately one-third of his California wine sales, “quite possibly” because of the cuisine, which includes a lot of seafood and lighter West Coast-inspired food. “California Sauv Blancs and Chardonnays do well, and I love the Marsanne and Roussanne,” says the sommelier. “If a customer wants an oaked wine, I will steer them towards California, because that’s now where you find some of the best oaked wines. In Chardonnays, California producers have eased up on the amount of oak, they’re picking grapes a little earlier [for crisper acidity], and they’ve pulled back on the malolactic fermentation [which softens acidity]. They’re just better food wines now.”

Willow Park’s Perry, who counts on California for approximately one-third of the company’s wine sales, sums up the appeal of California wines: “California sells itself,” she says. “With its user-friendly names, your server isn’t stuck selling something he can’t pronounce, and the taste profile fits. Consumers demand a certain standard and consistency. California delivers the value proposition really well.” l

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