Round Four – Part Two:
Once again, we have defeated the Big Box stores and prevented their Big Money lobbyists from inserting their job-killing plan to legalize the sale of wine wherever beer is sold into the 2012-13 State budget. That is good news for sure, but frankly that was the easy part of this year's fight. After all, we had worked hard to secure the support of Governor Cuomo and made sure our friends in the Legislature held firm. Now the real question is what will we do with our victory? Will we go back to the days before this fight when we all went our separate ways? Will we walk away from our hard-earned, and very important, partnership with New York wines? The answer must be a resounding NO. We must continue to work together to lift our entire industry, retailers and wineries alike.
We have launched a new promotion called Spring Break – New York Style. This in-store campaign will run from March 20th, the first day of spring, to June 20 when summer begins. We need every retailer to participate in this effort if we are going to be a success. Here is our press release announcing the plan.
As always, there is a lot to do. Put up posters, promote NY wines in your ads, display New York wines in prominent places in your stores, offer discounts if you can on cases of NY wines, and get wineries into your store for a tasting. If you need a poster, just send us an email and you will have it quickly. If you need help getting a winery into our store for a tasting, let us know that by email as well. We will arrange for wineries from any region you request to conduct a tasting in your store.
Our promotions have made a real difference, with wholesalers who carry New York wines telling us that sales were up about 7 percent in 2011 over the prior year. That is good progress for sure, and we can all be proud of playing a part in that success. Let's all work hard to make this new promotion a great success. That will help us as we work with the Governor and Legislature to support a real "I Love NY Wine" style promotion. Imagine a TV campaign that promotes NY wines, and pushes educated customers into our stores – that is the long-term answer to selling more NY wine and will be the end of the wine in grocery stores debate for many years.
As always, we also want to be sure to thank the Governor and our legislators for adopting a new budget that rejects the Big Box stores' attempt to destroy our businesses. So please, click here to send a letter to the Governor, and send a letter to your legislator here. Everyone appreciates it when someone says thank you, especially when they are fighting to protect our businesses and our families. And then get to work on our latest promotion!
