Rob: While growing, Oklahoma's wine industry
is still just a drop in the barrel.
Across the nation, there are nearly five thousand wineries with close to
half of all those in California.
Earlier, I visited with the author of legislation trying to help grape
growers grow in our state house ag committee chair, Don Armes.
The legislation that's going to be introduced, how important do you think
it's going to be to the wine industry here in Oklahoma?
Don Armes: Well, I think the wine industry in Oklahoma is kind of in its
infancy as far as an industry.
I see it as a potential for agritourism.
I think a lot of people that put in a vineyard may look at things like
tourism, coming out picking grapes, or you know, being around the
vineyard, the kind of the vineyard thing that goes on in California can go
on, on a smaller scale and maybe eventually a large scale here in Oklahoma, I
think if we give those folks a leg up.
There's a lot of issues that surround that, you know, distribution of a
liquor product, whether you look at, wine's a specialty product.
It's not just going out and slamming beers,
like some kids might think, or whatever.
It's a specialty item.
It's a luxury product.
And so those issues that have distribution problems or people that have
problems distributing alcohol, I think we have to address how we can
address those concerns and still allow this fledgling wine industry to grow,
because it's got some potential, I think.
Rob: In the hearing you held in southwestern Oklahoma, you were real
straight with some of the wine producers that this was going to be, for lack
of a better word, a tough row to hoe.
Armes: Absolutely, absolutely.
Rob: Is it just money?
Armes: No, I don't think it's really as much money, as it is, I think the real
problem that I see is how do you track the sale of that bottle?
And I learned a little bit as I visited with one of the wholesalers who are
some of the people that are kind of opposed to this.
The wholesalers don't hate the wine industry.
The wholesalers just really have a kind of a market that they've
developed, a distribution process, and we're asking to kind of stray from that
established path to allow these Oklahoma wineries to do their thing.
And I want them to be able to produce wine and grow grapes and things like
that, because again, I see it as a tremendous agritourism opportunity.
Some of them are going to be better than others; it doesn't matter.
Ten guys can open a shoe store; you know, five of them may work,
five of them may not.
So there will be some wines that will progress and be good,
and people will buy them.
And I'm not a wine guy, I don't know how to tell you which one is good or not.
But I am an agriculture guy, and I see the potential from the
agritourism standpoint, as I said earlier.
I really think that's a big part of it.
I think if we can figure out how to help them go, and still address the
concerns of, you know the liquor laws and things like that.
I mean, it is a tough row to hoe.
That's probably as easy a way as you can say that.
It's just tough to figure out how to stray from that path, the accepted path of
distribution of liquor in Oklahoma and help these
guys get where they're going.
Rob: Can you foresee a way that we can do that where people will be able to
sell wine outside of just the wineries?
Armes: Well, I think that's what we're attempting to do here is
explore that option.
How do we get there?
I mean, and I'm still not sure.
I'm still not exactly sure, at this point, how we get there.
I think one potential possibility would be for guys to be able to go out
and sell their own product.
I mean in other words, be the salesman.
You may cut out part of that process.
Maybe we don't cut the wholesaler out, necessarily, but maybe cut
out the broker or whoever goes out and actually.
I said, like I talked to one of the wholesalers today, I said, you don't
hawk it, you just truck it.
He said, exactly.
And so, there's a guy out there in this distribution process, there's a guy
hawking the wares, basically selling the product; and then the guy
that trucks it is the wholesaler, he's the guy that hauls it.
So in agriculture term, you know, we'd say one guy's out there, you know,
selling the cattle, or lining up the deal,
and the trucker comes in later.
You know, that's kind of what I think we're trying to figure out how to do is
help the guy that's growing five acres of grapes, and you know how
ever many cases of wine that would be, help him get his product out there
and in the public, and able to be consumed by the public, get it in
restaurants, get it wherever he needs to get it.
But in the process of doing that,
the wholesalers are getting nervous.
And it's not the small wineries of Oklahoma they're worried about.
They're worried about the big ones out of state that will come in, around, and
do all those kind of things.
So, it's a tough issue; it really is.
I don't know that we'll be able to fix it all this year; I hope we can;
I really want to.