12Jan2006. I was on the ol' TEEvee again yesterday afternoon. CBS affiliate WBNS10TV got my ugly mug on tape. The topic was House Bill 306 which is proposed legislation that would change the wine industry in Ohio.

Being aptly named David, I was the little retailer pitted against the billion-dollar multi-state distributor(Goliath) and their out-of state lobbyists and lawyers. Hope I came off coherently. Big complicated issue and not many sound bites issued from my lips.

HB306 is sponsored by Rep. Wm. Seitz. It is a bold attempt by Glazer's Distributors of Ohio to change pricing structures and remove the franchise law. All of the other wholesalers doing business in Ohio are against the bill. All of them.

What that means in everyday language is that wholesale pricing to retailers would drop, hurting our gross profits and reducing the small retailer's ability to continue to provide service levels that are currently much higher than the 'big box' stores. Also, the only retail and restaurant proponents of the bill are large multi-unit and often multi-state operations. Winking Lizard and World Market seem to have problems with Ohio laws that don't bother either Giant Eagle, Kroger or the small independents.

Odd news: the House Committee that heard the bill on 1/10 is chaired by Chuck Calvert, R-Medina. I grew up in a house down the street from him and he knows my mom, so I had to say hello... The Calverts used to have this cute little Lhasa or ShiTzu or something about 30 years ago...

Didja ever notice edamame? What is it with that stuff? All fuzzy and green. Food you gotta peel like peanuts at the ballpark. Why, when I was a kid, we didn't call it edamame, we called it soy beans, and you pretty much fed it to the cows. Or the vegetarians...

OK, really, on a less funny note, lots of disasters have been occuring of late. Hurricanes keeping breweries in the Gulf from operating, and last week(Oct 12th) there was a big warehouse fire in Vallejo, California.

South of Napa, Vallejo sits on San Francisco Bay and is a convenient shipping site for wine. A large storage facility, built into an old Navy munitions storage facility, caught fire. Estimates say that 90+ wineries lost wines in the blaze, including many small labels. Wineries including Von Strasser, Thackerey, and Caldwell lost everything but the '05s that are still in barrel. Saintsbury was one winery that lost their library of older vintages. In their case they lost everyhing. Twenty five years of wines, including larger format bottles used for special events like winemaker dinners.

These smaller producers won't have any income for a year or two. That's huge. Some wineries will close and some will have to let employees go, depending on who was insured for what. Katrina damage keeping people away from home for a year or more and fire damage taking away people's livelihood for a year or more.

Wine grapes, like any crop, can be subject to the ravages of weather, and extended storage before release makes them taste better, but it is a gamble. So next time you wonder why a bottle's at the price it is, think about how many people make a living from that winery, and how much risk can be involveed with something before it ever gets to a retailer.

Try to savor all of those bottles and don't get hung up on keeping that vertical in your cellar intact year after year. Sometimes life gets in the way. 10/19/05