The Connecticut Wine Trail for years has served as a key marketing tool for the state’s wine industry, helping drive interest and promotion to many of the state’s vineyards.
But not all wineries are on board with it.
In fact, seven of the 32 wineries licensed and operating in Connecticut have chosen to remain off the trail, creating some confusion within the industry.
“Most people we see in our tasting room say, ‘You’re not on the wine trail.’ They don’t realize that it’s a private organization that includes a good portion, but certainly not all of the wineries in the state,” said James Frey, owner of Walker Road Winery in Woodbury.
Tourists and others who are introduced to Connecticut’s wineries through the CT Wine Trail website, CTWine.com, will only see 28 wineries — possibly missing seven others, including Frey’s. That limits exposure for wineries like Walker Road, but that’s a risk Frey and other vineyard owners say they are willing to take.
For Frey, the decision to not join the CT Wine Trail, which is run by a private nonprofit called the Connecticut Vineyard and Wine Association, is mostly about money.
“It’s a $2,400 membership fee,” Frey said. “I don’t see the benefit to us. We’re fairly small.”
Adding to the confusion, industry experts say, is that the state has its own wine trail-like program called the Connecticut Farm Wine Development Council Passport Program, which does include all 32 licensed wineries. The program uses a physical passport-like booklet that’s distributed at wineries throughout the state. Winery connoisseurs are encouraged to get a passport stamp at each vineyard they visit. If they visit a minimum of 16 Connecticut wineries, they can enter a drawing for prizes, including a trip to wine country in Spain.
Coventry’s Cassidy Hill Vineyard has also opted not to join the CT Wine Trail because of costs. Instead, the vineyard relies on its own marketing, as well as promotion through the passport program, said owner Robert Chipkin.
But Chipkin, like Frey, says there’s confusion between the CT Wine Trail’s and state’s efforts to promote the industry.
“I’m a big advocate for not equating the CT Wine Trail with CT Farm Wine Development Council, but even the state of Connecticut many times gets it wrong,” Chipkin said.
Two promotional programs converge
The origin of the two programs dates back to 1988. That’s when the Connecticut Vineyard and Wine Association started the CT Wine Trail. In 2004, the nonprofit started a passport program for its members.
Four years later, the state was awarded a federal grant to support Connecticut wineries and took over the passport program, which was required to include all licensed wineries in the state, said Jaime Smith, a marketing and inspection representative for the state Department of Agriculture and point person for the state’s wine industry. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Vineyard and Wine Association continued with its wine trail, including only its members, which is where the discrepancy was born.
The CVWA reported $76,720 in revenues for the fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, 2012. About $54,875 came from membership dues, according to the organization’s most recent financial report to the Internal Revenue Service.
The state has a slightly smaller budget, receiving $47,500 in funding through the Connecticut Community Investment Act to support the Connecticut Farm Wine Development Council.
In addition to the passport, the council also oversees other marketing efforts, including a social media campaign run by Rocky Hill ad agency the Pita Group and an expanded exhibit stage at the Big E in September.
For her part, Smith sees the two programs as complementary.
“I think we really feed off each other,” she said, noting that many people find information about the state’s wineries through the CT Wine Trail website thanks to its strong Google search results and slick design.
Then, once they visit a winery, they usually pick up on the state’s passport program and get introduced to all the wineries in the state, including those not on the trail.
Besides the website, the Connecticut Vineyard and Winery Association also sponsors two wine festivals during the year — one in Goshen in July and the other at the Durham Fair in September, said George Motel, the trade group’s president and owner of Sunset Meadow Vineyards in Goshen.
“These events give the wineries a great way to reach customers outside of their tasting rooms,” he said.
Locally sourced wine controversy
Another issue Connecticut’s wine industry is grappling with is the steady disagreement over the use, or lack thereof, of locally sourced grapes. Some vineyards have taken umbrage with wineries that market their wines as local when they get a majority of their grapes from out of state.
The state winery council agreed earlier this year to label farms a “Designated CT Grown Farm Winery,” if 51 percent or more of the grapes they use to produce wine are grown in Connecticut. The designation is now part of the 2014 passport program.
The new designation sparked controversy, especially among smaller wineries, who say the designation gives larger, more established vineyards a competitive advantage.
Despite the occasional ruffled feathers, however, the winery business in Connecticut has been growing steadily over the last 25 years, and brought in $38 million in annual revenues according to a 2010 report from the University of Connecticut.
And Smith at the Department of Agriculture sees more growth on the horizon; she knows of three wineries that are quietly “getting their tasting rooms ready” for the public.
“I do see much more growth,” she said.
