 Ottawa Wine and Food Show
TRADE SHOW OR FRAT PARTY?
The annual Ottawa Wine and Food Show has come and gone for the 22nd year, and once again exhibitors and wine lovers alike are left with a bitter taste in their mouths. And it’s not just from the Tangerine Tequila shooters. The show, as far as the wine and drinks part goes, has gotten itself into a vicious circle that has resulted in an ever-strengthening commitment to mediocrity.
The main problem is that the three-day event at the Congress Centre has turned into the biggest pick-up joint in the country, with wall-to-wall 20-somethings all out to get completely hammered. The main room is so congested that you can’t move or get to the booths for a sample. The atmosphere feels vaguely unsafe, and one has visions of some drunken young thing falling into a food booth flambé, setting her hair extensions on fire and starting an inferno that would take out a sizeable percentage of Ottawa’s hip crowd.
Pity the hapless exhibitors in this appalling mess. After paying through the nose to participate, they simply want to introduce their wine and maybe have a minute or so to talk about it. However, in this atmosphere talk is impossible, and trying something new is not a priority. One exhibitor attempted to explain a sample for a young woman who interrupted with “Oh, I know. I drink this wine all the time.”
Why go to a wine show to taste wine that you always drink? It’s stupid and it underlines the main problem of the event: it has become a drinking show and not a tasting show. When this is the case, exhibitors don’t bring anything interesting and the vast majority of wines presented are from the LCBO’s general list and under $20. Real wine lovers will stay away, and consequently so will the winery principals (winemakers, winery owners), with the exception of Ontario wineries, where principals can attend relatively easily compared to their overseas counterparts.
Let’s compare this to Canada’s best wine show, the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, where every pouring must have either a winemaker, owner or marketing director on hand. This is also part of the criteria for getting into the show as an exhibitor. Each booth includes two commercial wines, two that are premium-priced and/or difficult to find, and an “under-the-table” wine—something unavailable at the liquor store. This last one was something we used to see in Ottawa before the show’s decline into a giant frat party.
The Vancouver festival also posts tasting etiquette signs—something that would be a welcome addition in Ottawa. When tasting, basic etiquette is to get your sample and then move away from the table so somebody else can get in. Spittoons are provided at every booth and spitting is encouraged. Also, don’t taste and say “yuck!”—the guy who made the wine might be standing right in front of you. Oh yes, and vomiting is also very bad form at a wine tasting. The ladies’ washroom at the Ottawa show is a nightmare at closing time, and if nature calls you are well-advised to wait until you get home.
Many people think the root of the problem is the ticket format. Participants pay $15 for up to a nine-hour day and then buy tasting tickets for 50 cents each. At first glance, this seems like a pretty cheap night out, and young Ottawans are drawn to the show like bees to honey. The heavy-drinking crowd is not nearly so much in evidence at wine shows like the California Wine Fair, where you pay a larger sum, say $60, and then go and taste for free. It’s ironic, because the majority of these kids in Ottawa are probably paying at least that much and more at the wine and food show after adding up all those tasting tickets (along with the unused ones they find in their pockets the next morning).
This pay-one-price format is also used in Vancouver, where the cost is $85 for a three-hour tasting. It’s a great system for weeding out the drinkers and targeting those seriously interested in wine. Another cornerstone of the Vancouver Festival is the trade tasting—something the Ottawa show desperately needs. Exhibitors would love to have the chance to sample their wares to restaurateurs and hoteliers--people who buy wines by the case--rather than to one drunken consumer at a time.
Perhaps one impediment to getting trade tastings at the Ottawa show is that they are normally free to the trade - something not likely to sit well with organizers. Their prime concern is the bottom line, with increasing demands made on exhibitors as years go by. While tasting ticket sales help cover the cost of wines for exhibitors, a large portion of that money goes back to the organizers. This year, exhibitors were not allowed to give any samples without collecting tickets. This “no freebies” rule seems blatantly unfair, given that the exhibitors are pouring their own wine. If a particular restaurant manager comes along and an exhibitor wants to offer a free taste, whose business is it but their own? The answer seems clear: if you give it away for free, the organizers can’t collect their cut of the tasting ticket price.
It’s the wine exhibitors who are definitely getting the shortest end of the stick. When the three-day madness finally ends, most wine exhibitors feel exhausted and used, and the “money on the dresser” is a paltry compensation. With the Congress Centre closing for renovations and the show moving to Lansdowne next year, many exhibitors may take this opportunity to quietly slip away. It will certainly not be as nice a venue, even in the exhibition halls.
Or perhaps they’ll hold it in the Cattle Castle, and drinkers can just belly up to a trough. Sounds about right.
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