Wine Institute’s Shrinking Representation Of California

This is one of a series of articles profiling the California Wine Institute.

Other articles in the series include:

• Wine Institute’s Shrinking Representation Of California
• Questions The Wine Institute Found Un-Tenor-able

Please check the “Featured” category at  Wine Industry Insight for other articles in the series.

---

 

One of the biggest questions the Wine Institute stonewalled us on was: Why does it represent only 19.61% of the state’s wineries? That is almost exactly half of what it represented in 1995.

According to the TTB, as of April 10, 2015 California had 4,150 bonded wineries. And a Wine Institute membership list indicates that, as of March 10, 2015, it had 814 of those wineries as members.

Small Winery Members Happy

Other than Jackson Family Wines which feuded with Gallo in the 1990s and still refuses to join the Wine Institute, most of the unrepresented wineries are smaller operations. Jess Jackson’s feud with Gallo opened up a “big versus family.”

Wine Industry Insight interviewed more than 20 small winery members of the Wine Institute and every one of them said they felt they got their money’s worth for membership.

Most often cited were their reliance on General Counsel Wendell Lee and on the WI’s Washington D.C. office when dealing with TTB issues.

What’s The Issue?

Without any Wine Institute participation in this series, there can be no clear answers, only speculation.