Date: 12 Feb 02
From: Doug Caskey, executive director
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board
Phone: 720.304.3406
TO: All Colorado wineries

RE: Events and things

Although the parking lot tasting plan I mentioned in my last fax is not yet in effect, two liquor stores have called me asking to schedule a parking lot tasting (wine fest permit).
· Boulder Liquor Mart, March 28-30: contact Jack Stoakes (303.449.3374)
· Total Beverage in Thornton, May 31-June 1: contact Pat Thomas, Jr. (303) 280-3800

Diana Read of Cottonwood Cellars has expressed an interest in licensing the Total Beverage event, but we still need a firm commitment from a winery to license the Liquor Mart event over Easter weekend. The CWIDB will provide assistance with these events, but ultimately the arrangement needs to be between the licensing winery and the host liquor store.

If you have questions or need more information about these parking lot tastings, please call me. Let me know if you are want to pour your wine at either or both of these tastings.

Thank you for the great response to my last fax. I am very gratified by the support you expressed for the upcoming events: Estes Park Festival of Wine (May 17-19) and the Lafayette Wine Festival (June 21-22).
Arrangements for the Celebrate Colorado Artists festival in Denver over Memorial Day weekend (May 24-27) may be changing slightly, so that it will be easier for you to participate than before.

Instead of pulling a wine festival permit to do the tasting and sales of bottles at this festival, which attracts over 135,000 people to the Denver Pavilions, we are considering doing the wine tasting as well as sales by the glass and bottle under the CCoA special events permit. In that way, the wine will be in the heart of the food court area the organizers are planning, rather than sequestered in a separate area on the edge of the festival as required by the wine fest permit option. All wine sold by the glass or the bottle (opened for on-premise consumption only) will be paid for at wholesale prices to the winery. CCoA is selling souvenir wine glasses as the admission for wine tasting. They have agreed today to give a portion of those sales back to the wineries to offset your costs for tasting.
The other advantage to this licensing plan is that you will not have to provide staffing for your wine all the time your wine is poured. CCoA volunteers can legally pour your wine, and you can team up with other wineries to cover your products during times that you can’t attend the festival. Obviously, you will sell more of your wine if you are present, but that barrier to participation will not be a problem this time.
Participating wineries will need to get inventory to CCoA, invoicing that organization under their special events license at wholesale cost. At the end of the festival, you will need to pick up unused wine and credit CCoA for wine picked-up. Somehow we will need to keep track of product used for sampling.
We will have up to four prominent booths in the food court area for wineries, with room for 2-3 wineries in each. So far, 8 wineries have agreed to participate and three more are tentative. I can still use more participants. So call me if you have questions or want to make sure you have your booth space reserved for this festival.
 

Date: 13 Feb 02
From: Doug Caskey, executive director
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board
Phone: 720.304.3406
TO: All Colorado wineries

You guys are great! Thank you for the quick responses.

Ulla Merz of Bookcliff Vineyards in Boulder has agreed to license the parking lot event at Boulder Liquor Mart at the end of March. If you would like to participate in that wine festival permit, please call Ulla (303.499.7301) no later than February 28.

Diana Read of Cottonwood will license the Total Beverage event May 31-June 1. Please call her (970.323.6224) if you want to pour your wine at that event.

You can have another winery pour your wine at a wine festival licensed event such as these, but the inventory must come from your winery and be invoiced to the pouring winery at no cost.

Another issue was brought to my attention recently which I forgot to include in the previous fax. If you are planning to open an off-site warehouse for storage of casegoods, for instance, you need to file an application with Liquor Enforcement. You can download the appropriate form (DR 8442) off Liquor Enforcement’s web site at http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/revenue_dir/liquor_dir/pdfs/8442.pdf. There is a $50 filing fee for this application, but your off-site storage will not be legal without state approval.

For those of you who are interested, the CO Wine Industry Development Board is meeting next Thursday, February 21, 1-4 PM in the CO Dept. of Agriculture’s conference room (700 Kipling, Ste. 4000 in Lakewood: the northeast corner of 6th and Kipling, on the 4th floor of the middle brick building; photo ID is required for access).

If anyone who worked with Richard Bruno last year has not yet received your written report from him, please contact me immediately. I am processing his final payment and want to make sure that everything is finished.
Thanks!