Suarez Talks Farm Bureau 2012 Priorities

Ed – As a small winery owner I
must say the Farm Bureau does side with the wineries and has always
supported the small independent business’s around the state. With a few
exceptions most of the liquor stores in NY do not support the New York
Wineries like they support the French, Italian, Australian, and
California brands. Just look at all of your sections with all the yellow
tail floor stacks. Where are the Finger Lakes floor stacks? If you understand the multiplier effect you know For every
dollar spent on a local wine you return $10 to the community and for
every dollar spent on a wine from another country you return only 67
cents. Hundreds of our local New York farmers sell to those big box
stores you so like to trash. Ed you need to get your facts straight.

Scott- as one of the people
who (proudly) helped Fox Run build a market in WNY, considers you a
personal friend and has attempted to buy local farm products in grocery
stores- I suggest I am the one with my facts straight. I invite you to
visit my store before you comment on it- I’ve visited your winery-
remember our photo together made the cover of our store catalog and was
distributed to thousands of WNYers? Many wineries recognize this
initiative would be devastating- (Ironically) Suarez brought up wine
coolers- remember when they were sold at local independent wine stores
and they were made with local grapes? They went to box stores and are
now made from malt (even Suarez admits that).

The real issue is there are now less than 2,500 liquor stores left in NY to sell over 8,000 different kinds of NY wines.  They don’t have enough room to represent us anymore.  Consumers want to buy our wine, they can’t find it. We want to sell our wine, but not enough stores have room for us. 

That’s all we are asking for.