Tomato wine craze sweeps Canada

Thought wine could only be made from grapes? Think again. Quebec-based farmer Pascal Miche is enjoying thriving sales of his tomato wine in Canada, crafted from a secret family recipes. As reported on db.com, the former butcher has sold over 65,000 bottles of tomato wine since launching it onto the Canadian market two years ago.

Miche makes the wine from 6,200 tomato plants on his "vineyard" in Charlevoix, 400km northeast of Montreal. "I wanted to finish what my great-grandfather had started in Belgium in the ’30s,” he told AFP. Miche immigrated to Quebec from Belgium seven years ago and started planting red, yellow and black tomatoes in Charlevoix in 2009.

The crop set to ripen by mid-August will be his third harvest, with the journey from field to bottle taking around nine months. Before making his first batch, Miche tested 16 varieties of tomatoes in order to find six that grew well in Quebec's cool climate. He can legally call his product "wine" in North America, but will have to rename it if he starts exporting it to France, where only alcoholic beverages made from fermented grape juice can be called wine.

Selecting his tomatoes with the same care as a winemaker does grapes, to make the “wine”, the tomatoes undergo the same process of crushing, soaking, fermenting and pressing. The result is Omerto Sec, a clear, dry, 18% abv wine, and Omerto Moelleux, a sweeter wine that has been compared to Pineau des Charentes, both of which are named after Miche’s great-grandfather Omer.

According to Miche, there is no trace of tomato in the wine, not even in the taste. Elen Garon, sommelier at hotel restaurant La Ferme a Baie-Saint-Paul, describes the ”honey sweet” Omerto Moelleux as having: “a hint of fruit” and “zesty aspects,” and believes it will match well with desserts and spicy food.

The wines, which sell for around CA$25 a 200ml bottle, are currently only availabe in select shops and restaurants in Quebec and Manitoba. Keen to take the wine overseas, Miche is seeking distribution in the US, France, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.

“Digital Darwinism” for wineries who shun Twitter

Wineries who put off using social media will experience “digital Darwinism”, a leading digital expert has warned. “Social media is one of the most powerful customer interaction channels in the world, more relevant than anything seen in human history,” Paul Mabray of winery social media index Vintank told the drinks business. “Those who choose to keep waiting will see their customers migrating to the use of these channels and will experience digital Darwinism,” he added, describing the wine industry as “the last to have not succeeded online.”

Ryan Opaz of wine marketing agency Vrazon believes it's fundamental for wineries to have a presence on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. “You can’t survive without it, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. If you don’t embrace it, you’re back in the Stone Age,” he said.  A recent survey on social media in the French and US wine industries carried out by digital marketing agency ABLE found that 94% of the US wineries surveyed were on Facebook, compared to 53% of French wineries. It also found 73% of US wineries had a Twitter account, compared to just 41% of French wineries.

According to wine communicator Robert McIntosh, medium-sized wineries set to gain the most from social media. “For a medium-sized winey seeking a sales boost, social media can be a great way of getting noticed by an agent or distributor and securing a listing,” he said. But despite their popularity, McIntosh believes new sites will eventually replace Facebook and Twitter. “In the next year or two we’ll see a shift in the way people use social media – the obsession with the number of followers you have on Twitter and “likes” you accrue on Facebook will be replaced by sites focusing on small but meaningful networks of no more than 100 people,” he said.

Rather damningly, Robert Joseph, founder of international consumer research site DoILikeIt?.com, believes winery websites are “some of the worst on the internet”. The majority, he feels, show no understanding of what consumers want. “Most people want to buy a benefit and are asking themselves: ‘Is this wine going to make me look savvy in front of my friends?’ They want reassurance,” he said.

While wineries and merchants may not be getting the design of their websites right, online wine sales are set for considerable growth in the following year. Simon McMurtrie, ceo of Direct Wines, recently revealed that 50% of the company’s UK sales, and 75% of its Hong Kong sales are now online – figures predicted to rise in 2013. 

“Wine is no different than toilet paper”

One of the most powerful wine buyers in the world, Annette Alvarez-Peters of Costco, has slammed wine as “just a beverage” and “no different than toilet paper.” As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, speaking in a CNBC news report this week, the director of wine buying for the world’s largest wine retailer said: "Is wine more special than clothing? Is it more special than televisions? I don't think so."


When CNBC presenter Carl Quintanilla offered that wine was different to toilet paper because it’s personal, Alvarez-Peters replied: “People can look at it that way, but at the end of the day it's just a beverage, you either like it or you don’t.” Alvarez-Peters is in charge of over US$1bn in wine sales per year, including fine wines like Château Mouton Rothshild and Château Pétrus.

She is also in charge of setting prices on wines that affect most of America’s small wine retailers, as well as heading a team of 17 international and domestic wine buyers. Before taking on the role of director of wine buying, Alvarez-Peters worked as a buyer in Costco's electronics division. She had no wine and spirits knowledge.

“I’m an employee of Costco that happens to oversee the wine category,” she told Quintanilla. Last year, Alvarez-Peters was voted the sixth most powerful person in the wine world in Decanter magazines biennial power list. Costco is the largest US importer of French fine wines, none of which are marked up more than 15%. Alvarez-Peters keeps the Costco wine selection down to just 200 lines at any one time.

Costco is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the US, the sixth largest retailer in the US, and the seventh largest retailer in the world. This week, the retail giant will be jostling with Woolworths and Coles in Australia to offer the lowest price for Penfolds Grange 2007, set to go on sale on Thursday. One of the most anticipated launches of the year in Australia, the RRP for Grange 2007 is AU$625, but it is thought that the big three will offer it for significantly less.