Uh, Where's the Wine Festival?
On our way up to the North Georgia mountains for a wine festival, we passed by a cabin rental business named “Hatfield’s.” What came to mind as I drove by was the well-known story of the feuding families of West Virginia and Kentucky, the Hatfield’s and McCoys. It is appropriate on this day for it to be a metaphor for wineries in this area who have separated themselves into two cliques. So much, in fact, that there are two wine festivals happening the same weekend: The Georgia Fine Wine Festival, hosted at Blackstock Vineyards, and the Georgia Wine Country Festival, hosted at Three Sisters Vineyards. Say, what? A one day ticket to Blackstock is $35, while only $20 to attend the festival at Three Sisters. The difference is most likely due to the fact Blackstock’s festival is larger and hosting more wineries and other local businesses. This has got to be confusing to wine lovers and festival goers in Atlanta, who trek more than 60 miles to visit. If you want to try wines from, say, Yonah Mountain Vineyards and Montaluce Winery & Estate, you will have to attend 2 different festivals and pay twice. Conversely, if I only choose to attend one festival I will be missing out on half the wineries in the area. This cannot be a good thing for the North Georgia winery community nor their businesses.
I reached out to a few of the wineries for comment, but could only obtain a few general statements about the lines being drawn between the Winegrowers Association of Georiga, which is exclusive to just vinifera growers, and the Georgia Wine Country, which is inclusive for all wineries in the area. The separation of the two cliques goes back to some old dispute between Three Sisters and a few of the other wineries, namely Frogtown, Wolf Mountain and Blackstock. Sounds like the egos need to be checked at the door.
For wine-producing states outside the Big 4 (California, Washington, Oregon and New York), owning a winery is already a struggle fighting against the stigma of assumed lower quality based on location. In the Southeast, additional obstacles include the history of sweet fruit-based wines as well as foxy muscadine. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is still a market in this region for these types of wines and several wineries in North Georgia are successfully making them. However, many of the newer wineries are trying to make a name for themselves, and North Georgia, by making higher quality dry wines from vitis vinifera grapes. It seems to me, working together as community and one unit would help accelerate awareness in the local and surrounding regions about some of the great wines being made by many of these wineries.
For those of you attending the Wine Blogger’s Conference in Walla Walla, I will have a couple of GA wines for you to taste. So, be sure to say Hi when you see me.
Cheers!
Almost every winery has it’s own wine festival. The Georgia Wine Country Festival is Three Sisters’ signature June festival now celebrating it’s ninth (9th) year. The other event at Blackstock was in it’s third year. We agree it is counter productive. Why would someone hold a festival on the same weekend as our established event? And by the way, all Georgia wineries are invited to Three Sisters event (vinifera to muscadine) at no charge. Wine is wine.
The fact is, while many of us are members of the Georgia Wine Council, Winegrowers Association of Georgia and the GA Muscadine Association…not all are affiliated. It is important to people who scratch their heads to understand that these associations are three different “private” non-profits organizations with no ties to state government. They all have different goals and missions. What our Georgia industry needs is a STATE run Georgia Wine Commission that is not controlled by any megalomaniacs to represent ALL wineries. States like California, NY, Virginia and other regions have commissions that level the field and do not promote personal agendas.
We at Three Sisters say…visit ALL Georgia wineries and enjoy!
It really is a shame. Georgia wine too small to spend all our time battling. I hope there will be a non-partisan marketing organization like Georgia Organics to take up the cause. We certainly don’t need more gov’t involvement. Georgia wine better served for now to align itself with the locavore movement. Will gain much more traction until the industry gains mass.
Doug and MVineyards, thanks for the comments and additional information about the different associations. Saying we need a State-run commission seems a little bit of a cop out to me, but yes, someone needs to step up and bring Georgia wine together. Having two festivals that are 1.8 miles aways from each other and calling themselves “Georgia Wine Festivals” just doesn’t make sense.
A GA Wine Commission makes total sense. Accountability is the issue. Also, just like NC, VA, California and dozens of other states…a portion of our alcohol excise taxes can be annually set aside for signage, university research, education and promotion. Right now, zero $ of those taxes are being used for the good of GA. Look at VA and 1.3+ million they just established for the good of the industry. Why shouldn’t a portion our excise taxes be used? You will never be able to advance this agri-tourism industry without state help. It is reasonable to ask for this.
So far as Three Sisters’ signature “Georgia Wine County Festival” …We will present it again next and every June. Come to our 10th (tenth) annual in 2011!
“Oh your festival is the same weekend? Weeeeeiiiirrrrd, we didn’t KNOW”