The SAQ heard me !!!

[Luc Gauthier]

The SAQ is softening Its marketing policies .
- Removal of the automatic 25% increase on premium wines

- Price is no longer the only criteria when choosing which wines will make It on the shelves .
Noteriety , rarety and quality ( Is It time for the smaller Quintas and SQVP's to appear ? )
- They are giving outlet managers more latitude .
If a manager receives many requests for Portuguese wines , he can now fill his shelves accordingly .

1st , the excellent website improvements
2nd , the SAQ softens Its grip
What's next , this is too much to handle .
My brain waves are begining to wander .
Quick , somebody decant some Port .
Did I say

[Alan C.]

Great News!

I've never understood how they could have survived so long, being so uncompetitive and restrictive in such a highly developed and modern Country.

Alan

[Roy Hersh]

For all of this change to take place at once -- did somebody actually have to die?

[Frederick Blais]

I think there was 3 VP in the last 2 years... just to show you how often they did change their minds.

In the end, they change a few key jobs definition so 2 passionnate with wine ended up getting wine ordering jobs. Prior to that, the one ordering wines/port for Portugal did never taste wine. He was only doing a job to get money.

One change that they want to implement is that they can buy and bring to their market instantly wines that had special critics, marks or international fame. Normally every wines must go into a lengthy process before getting to the shelves. this will give the SAQ more power over the agency that are working so hard to get quality and truly great wines that are not having international recognition because of some tasters preferences. Think about Beaujolais and Chinon, two amazing wine region but not getting recognition because the wines are lacking concentration and extration mainly. The diversity of these wines could be reduced because of the new regulations and a few others already in place.

SAQ is still so complicated to understand and as good as these moves can look on the surface, in the end this is to make more money with more "commercial" wines faster.

[Luc Gauthier]

Returning to Earth for a moment , I can't help but join Freds thaughts .
The SAQ still brings in a tremendous amount of cash for the government .
Lets not fool ourselves into thinking that these changes will precipitate major price drops for premium wines .
All these changes take place at the start of 2009 .
It will be interesting to see how the 2005 VP's will be affected .

[Frederick Blais]

The SAQ is softening Its marketing policies .
- Removal of the automatic 25% increase on premium wines

Luc just to clarify this point. The SAQ did not increase the wines by 25% each time they wanted to include it in the "speciality" section.

For a wine to qualify for this category, it had to be above the average price of the regular wines from the same category to be include as a speciality. Sometimes when a wine was a few dollars short and the quality was great, they could boost a little bit the price, but it is not true for most of the speciality wines.

[Luc Gauthier]

Txs for clearing that point .

[Moses Botbol]

I hope the SAQ duty free increases their selection and betters their pricing.

[Luc Gauthier]

You an' me both . . .

BTW , what is the Port that you are enjoying in the picture ?
Is It an aged tawny ?

[Moses Botbol]

You an' me both . . .

BTW , what is the Port that you are enjoying in the picture ?
Is It an aged tawny ?

Croft Vintage, which one, I do not know. Stayed tuned on FTLOP for the epic Croft vertical we had in Boston.