Small Wineries Beat Giants, Kill Marketing Panel

California’s small, premium wineries won a major victory over industry giants Thursday by voting the California Wine Commission out of existence. The commission is the major marketing tool of the state’s $6-billion wine industry.

The members’ vote was 125-111 against retaining the commission for five more years. In a separate vote, wineries representing 88.5% of the grape tonnage crushed in 1989 voted to keep the commission. But a majority vote was needed in both ballots to keep the commission going.

Bill MacIver of Matanzas Creek Winery, who helped spearhead a massive mail campaign against the commission, said commissioners previously were elected by a formula that allowed the state’s largest wineries to dominate the commission.” He said that, under his plan, “half of the commissioners would be elected on the basis of one winery, one vote.”

One of the small wineries’ major complaints was that $7 million of the commission budget last year went to the Wine Institute, a private trade organization. “And the small wineries didn’t have a voice in how the money was being spent or in Wine Institute,” said one vintner.