Coronavirus (COVID-19) Member Update

We hope you have been receiving our regular COVID-19 updates and have found them of value. Here’s a brief update on additional activities by each department to provide assistance to our members.

• The Federal Relations team is actively engaged in advocating for relief for members and providing information on the disaster assistance and tax provisions included in the CARES Act and the Small Business Administration Assistance Programs.
• The Sacramento Office is focused on ensuring that winery operations can continue under the statewide and local “shelter in place” orders and providing guidance on regulatory relief.
• The State Relations team has been tracking and collating information on all of the state actions related to restaurant, bar and store closures and ABC advisories and guidance documents from each state.
• The Legal department has answered hundreds of questions from members, working closely with the legal-subcommittee on resolving critical legal and regulatory issues, and providing the wine industry with resources such as webinars with experts on Business Interruption Insurance & Employment Law, Occupational Health & Safety, and a sample letter for employers to distribute to essential employees who continue to come to work.
• The Environmental Committee has created a COVID-19 Working Group to deal with environmental as well as health and safety aspects of the crisis.
• The Communications department has been working with the entire team issuing regular member updates, developing information on economic impact for advocacy, adapting PR and social media activities to highlight California regions, wineries and wines including special wine offers and discounts.
• The International Marketing team has quickly developed a series of online trade education and social media content featuring winemakers, sommeliers, and California wine regions to replace canceled wine events and trade visits.

A number of Wine Institute events have been rescheduled or cancelled:

• Wine Institute’s annual Washington Meeting scheduled for April 28 – 30 has been canceled. The program will continue next year April 20 – 22, 2021 (final date pending release of Congressional calendar).
• The 2020 U.S. Sustainable Winegrowing Summit East on Long Island has been postponed until April 20-21, 2021.
• Wine Institute’s annual marketing communications workshop, Wine MarCom 2020, originally scheduled for April 24, has been postponed until Nov. 6, 2020.
• The International Wine Technical Summit originally scheduled to take place in Napa on June 2-3, 2020, has been canceled. We will continue the work with international regulatory officials during the year and reschedule in 2021.
• Wine Institute’s 86th Annual Membership & Board of Directors Meeting is scheduled for June 7-9, 2020. We are considering options for hosting this meeting remotely if it is determined to be unsafe to host in-person.
• California Wine Export Program events have been canceled through the end of June, including ProWein, Canada’s California Wine Fairs and upcoming visits to California by leading sommeliers and buyers.

We will continue to share regular updates as news develops, but don’t forget to bookmark our COVID-19 resource page, and if you have any questions, the entire Wine Institute team is ready and available to provide support, information and guidance.