TRAWNA – (GOSH Wine News Services) – With a stunning series of government revelations today, GOSH Wine News Services has learned the real reasons for the convoluted and sudden changes to the Cellared in Canada programs in Canada.
Our investigative wine reporter Brett Grimsby has been following this story for days now, and he files his report based on several interviews with Miffed Mole, the collective name for our sources who are familiar with the situation, and who spoke to him on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details while they were very close to the centre of discussions and while the matter under consideration had not yet been finalized nor announced to the public. While the decisions may or may not have been finalized internally, and while an announcement on the matter may or may not be imminent, possibly within the next week or two, that specific timeline is not really known.
What is known is this: the real reason for the upcoming changes to the Cellared in Canada wine programs is the sudden realization by the public that stretch water is added to the mix. The scandal-plagued Liberal government of Ontario, A Have-Not Province, wants no part of Cellared in Canada wines. It has enough on its hands with the eHealth debacle, H1N1 vaccine shortages, the Driver Examiner scandal, fundraising scandals, broken promises, $25 billion budget deficits, the Harmonized Sales Tax (also known as the Harm and Screw Tax), and assorted departmental malfeasances.
The Ontario Council of Wines will no longer lobby for Cellared in Canada wines – it will devote all of its energies into pushing the new "Cellared in Canada Proprietor's Reserve Wine" series. When asked to comment, a spokesperson for the OCW said: "Just wait and see – we'll come roaring back onto the marketplace. It's about time that we concentrated on the Reserve Levels. We've got many irons in the fire."
The self-destructive Association for Cellared in Canada Wines has now decided to take an aggressive role in becoming the new lobby group for CIC wines. Too much of its energy had already been taken up with contesting the vegetable-fruit wine components of Freggie™ with the Cellared in Canada Wine Group. Freggie™ is 70% fruit juice wine, and 30% vegetable juice wine, and 100% from Ontario. In making peace with the CICW Group, a new wine has been introduced – VegFru™, 70% vegetable juice wine and 30% fruit juice wine – again, all Ontario. The CICW Group will be responsible for marketing this wine.
Wine panels of various sommeliers and wine writers could not really tell the difference between the two wines, although it was noted by Dean Tudor, one of the marginal wine writers from the B Team, that one of the wines (the VegFru™) had a distinct tone of the mushroom forest floor.
But the real benefit of both Freggie™ and VegFru™ is that neither wine has any stretch water, and thus both are scandal-free. The Liberal government will readily endorse these wines, much to the delight of the Ontario Viniculture Association, and will probably make them available for sale at Farmers Markets in 2010. The LCBO, A Crown Corporation, had, as usual, no comment.
The soon-to-be-redundant "Cellared in Canada" wines will now be employed in fuelling the Olympic Torch (see our report of April 17, 2009 – GOSH Wine News Services was FIRST with this story), but only AFTER the stretch water component has been removed by dehydration.
As the Man said, "All day I paced the burning waste without a taste of water". More on this story as it develops…
