Good afternoon,
A national story on Delaware’s wine industry might not have been written a couple of years ago.
After all, the state has only a handful of wineries. So instead of the popular wine trails, the state tourism office had to combine wineries, breweries, and distilleries in its Delaware On Tap map.
But with the election of Joe Biden as president, the focus on travel, food, and drink in the First State has been intense. Dozens of web, newspaper, and magazine pieces have followed.
One of the latest, a Wine Enthusiast magazine/website story, described the state’s industry as at “a precipice.”
The precipice description is a little odd in Delaware, a state where the highest point is short of 450 feet above sea level, and the only precipice may be the blue rock outcropping at Alopocas Run State Park near Wilmington.
A better term might be “crossroads.”
As the article noted, the state is ripe for growth. In addition, a portion of Delaware has climate conditions similar to those in France’s legendary Bordeaux wine-growing region.
The wine industry is growing but not at the pace we have seen in other parts of the country.
A number of factors are to blame, including encroachment of residential development south of the C&D Canal and a lack of entrepreneurs willing to invest in a difficult but often rewarding business.
One of the biggest headwinds is the reluctance of legislators and a succession of governors to push the state into ranks of more than 40 others that allow shipments and provide a lifeline for new entrants.
Some of the blame rests with the state’s three-tier distribution system that limits choice when it comes to small domestic wine producers.
The system makes things worse with its unbending opposition to shipping to and from the state – even though any lost sales would amount to a rounding error on total receipts.
To its credit, the state has made some efforts to encourage farmers and would-be winemakers to set up shop here, but the critical mass to move things forward is lacking.
That’s no reason to give up. The benefits of an expanded wine industry would be many for agriculture and tourism. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
