SLO County News BlogGolf, Wine, Real Estate, Business & Travel NewsSan Luis Obispo Vintners quit organizationFriday, March 24, 2006While the San Luis Obispo Vintners Association puts finishing touches on its downtown wine bar, Taste, officials are trying to patch things up with wineries that have quit the organization.In recent months, nine wineries have canceled their memberships. Fifteen remain active, said Becky Gray, the association's new executive director. Most departed because of organizational changes accompanying the shift to focus on Taste, an increase in minimum dues from $1,000 to $3,000, or philosophical differences over marketing. Since Taste has become the prime marketing tool of the organization, all members are required to participate in the wine bar. More than 70 wines are dispensed by an automated, computerized system called the Enomatic, a system made in Italy that cost more than $100,000. Gray and Niven say Taste is intended to educate visitors and residents about the wine region and encourage them to visit member wineries. Eventually, they say, tasting room tours will run from the wine bar in the Court Street shopping center. Gray said a Cal Poly study conducted two years ago said that fewer than 20 percent of visitors to downtown San Luis Obispo knew there were wineries nearby. But some former members feel Taste competes with individual tasting rooms at the vineyards. Others believe money spent on the wine bar could be better used on other types of marketing efforts. Read entire article at: Winemaker group's Taste: Complex, with a bitter note The Tribune, Raven J. Railey To see more of The Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to www.sanluisobispo.com. (c) 2005, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. Read More
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