California Wines & Wineries

Craft Wine Association: The Significance and Meaning

Posted on October 2, 2018

This organization is heading by one dynamic woman, Founder & CEO, Carole Lawson. Carole’s goal is straightforward and is rooted in a passion to expose excellent small family run wineries to the public. She is focused on both wines and wineries which produce less than 5,000 cases per year. There are some prerequisites that must be made and can be found at their website. The Craft Wine organization desires to make known excellent family wines and wineries to the greater public. In today’s market with more and more acquisitions by the “large conglomerates” in the wine industry, the small artisan and boutique wineries are finding it difficult to get attention by consumers or distributors to showcase their wines. It is similar to what has transpired with the small and family run farms in America. (https://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/america-becoming-a-land-without-farmers/).

Here are the basic tenants of the Craft Wine Association for Certification:
1. An identifiable winemaker. While a custom-crush or Alternating Proprietorship facility may be leveraged in the production of Certified Craft Wines. A Certified Craft Wine will have a winemaker leading production from the process of grape selection through fermentation. This is not just a crush employee, but a winemaker deeply involved with the winery.
2. Small lot productions of wine of fewer than 5,000 cases that rely solely on pre-prescribed protocols of a third party, or without that winemaker/winery connection, do not qualify for the Certified Craft Wine designation.
3. Grapes must come from an identifiable vineyard or identifiable vineyards. Wineries whose entire annual production is under 5,000 cases per year also qualify for the designation of Certified Craft Winery at no additional cost.

The Craft Wine Association also has “other designations” for those making larger quantities and that can be found at https://www.craftwine.org/. The key is to make the Craft Wine logo and the wines as easy to decipher as craft beers and as ubiquitous. Key is to be easily identified as a Craft Wine or Winery offering quality products, which are hard for the consumer to find, enjoy and appreciate Carole’s goal is to get this logo on all the small run wineries throughout the United States, be it on their bottles, on the wineries logo and press material.

At this last weekend’s Farm to Fork Event in Sacramento (https://sacramento.downtowngrid.com/events/2018-farm-to-fork-legends-of-wine/), where approximately 85,000 to 100,000 people attended, the Craft Wine Association held their first Craft Wine Pavilion. This allowed about eight of their members to pour and talk to those attending. The event was a tremendous success and the owner and winemaker members of the Certified Craft Winery Association who attended, were able to schedule visits to their wineries by interested consumers.

Since only “officially launching” in the beginning of 2018, Carole has enrolled 21 wineries and 10 of those are in California! Smaller wine communities like Calaveras AVA has embraced this recognition with open arms. Calaveras Winegrape Alliance has even scheduled a “Calaveras Craft Wine Trail” for Saturday, October 27th. Included at this event will be: vineyard and winery tours, exclusive tastings, the discovery of small batch/high quality wines, opportunities to receive discounts on purchases, meeting the winemakers and staff and lots more. Contact them online at https://calaveraswines.org/calaveras-craft-wine-trail/?utm_source=cawinesandwineries&utm_campaign=craft%20wine%20report for tickets.

So as their phrase statement reads “Rooted in Passion, Shared by the Glass”, The Craft Wine Association Certification is about to explode. Keep an eye out for this logo and some phenomenal wines being produced by their small family run wineries.

Slainte,

https://californiawinesandwineries.com
https://www.craftwine.org