Dear Members and Friends,
I do hope that you are all well and keeping safe from the coronavirus.
I am very conscious of the fact that practically all branch events that would have taken place around the world over the past couple of months have been cancelled and it will be some time before most branches are able to put on a full program again. A few enterprising branches are holding “virtual events” in various ways but, for most members, it must seem as if the Society itself is temporarily on hold, but this is not in fact the case. For those of us involved in managing the Society at the regional and international level, the opposite is true.
We always work from home. Our staff work from their homes – Andrea Warren in Buckinghamshire; Joe Temple in Toronto; and Rose Clemson in New Jersey. Our committees routinely hold their meetings through conference calls or by GoToMeeting. Whilst it may seem counter-intuitive, our work is being performed in what for us is the usual way and, apart from the work of the festivals and events committees, it is not really being driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Festival Program
Inevitably, this year’s festival program has fallen victim to the pandemic but, as things stand today, I am optimistic that the Society will have a full festival program in 2021. The largest and most expensive event in 2020 would have been the Paris & Bordeaux Wine Festival, comprising three days in Paris commencing on 16th April followed by a week in Bordeaux. 120 members were registered to attend and almost US$1.2 million of their money was at risk. Thanks to the untiring efforts of the Americas F&E Committee and the professionalism of our local agents, Bordeaux Saveurs Voyages, we were able to sign a new contract last week which will enable this festival to take place at the same time next year (April 15-24, 2021). A high proportion of the registrants have rolled over their bookings for next year and those who wanted to cancel are being repaid in full. The result is that the Paris & Bordeaux Wine Festival 2021 is not fully booked and will be re-advertised to the worldwide membership in mid-September.
The Americas Great Weekend due to be held in San Antonio, Texas at the end of October 2020 would ordinarily have been advertised this month. You can expect that it will be cancelled and re-scheduled for the same time next year, but negotiations with the hotel and other service providers are still on-going. A good deal of work was done in February this year in respect of a five-day festival originally intended to be held in the Willamette Valley, Oregon in May 2021. This festival will now take place at the same time in 2022.
Asia Pacific’s festival organizers have had a particularly difficult time recently. The Great Weekend originally intended to be held in Hong Kong in November 2020 was cancelled because of the political unrest. It was transferred to Hangzhou and Shanghai and then had to be cancelled again because of the coronavirus pandemic. A smaller gathering then planned to be held in Singapore, originally in March 2020, but it was then postponed to June 2020 and finally pushed out to June 2021. This festival will now take place in Singapore on June 17-20, 2021. IWFS Asia Pacific’s 2020 AGM will now be held in November in Perth, where it will be hosted by the Western Australia Branch.
The Europe Africa F&E Committee has been more fortunate with the timing of its festivals. The Madeira Festival (November 2-8, 2020) is sold out and none of the registrants have asked to cancel. Assuming that the current travel and other restrictions are lifted in time, it is hoped that it will be possible for this festival to proceed as planned. In the present economic environment it is obviously very difficult to work on new festival arrangements because the service providers are either closed or have a skeleton staff working from home, but it is presently anticipated that the organization of the festivals due to take place in the wine regions of Piedmont (April 12-17, 2021) and Alsace (June 7-12, 2021) will be completed in time for them to be advertised to the world wide membership in 2020.
Intellectual Property
The IP Committee recently achieved a notable success in China. Our original trademark registration was the subject of a spurious challenge based upon non-use. It was unsurprising, at least for me, that we lost our case before a local tribunal. Rather than spend money on an appeal, we accepted the result and filed a new, slightly modified application. This was recently approved and so the IWFS logo is once more protected by a trademark registration in China where we have four branches with a total of 74 members.
Website
The Website Committee has been working on a significant number of enhancements to IWFS.Org, which will be delivered throughout 2021. Many of these enhancements were suggested by the membership and are designed to improve functionality for the branches and members. Examples of these include (i) the ability to switch the website to non-English languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and German; (ii) the ability to create an automatic waiting list when a branch event reaches it maximum capacity; and (iii) a ‘Description for Publication’ text box which allows the branch to write a description of its event for publication in the magazines. As the enhancements become fully functional, Branch Contacts will receive notifications and directions on how to use the new features.
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The Insurance Committee’s high season has just come to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. As you probably all know, the Society’s three area companies, the branches and all the individual members have the benefit of worldwide public liability insurance. This is achieved through three interlocking policies. There was no difficulty renewing the policy applicable to all the branches outside of the Americas, but renewal of the policy which relates to the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico is always much more difficult. It is a lengthy process which begins at branch level. Every branch in the Americas has to complete a Branch Event and Financial Return, which means that the branch treasurers must have their financial statements for the 2019 fiscal year completed by March 31, 2020. Their work was done on time. It revealed that 595 branch events were held in the Americas last year at a total cost of about US$3.2 million excluding membership dues paid to IWFS Americas. Following an unusually difficult negotiation with the insurer, the policy has been renewed this week, albeit with a substantial premium increase.
Vintage Card
The Wines Committee’s work is proceeding in the usual way. The Committee is supported by a team of 32 professional consultants who are in the process of submitting their 2019 (northern hemisphere) and 2020 (southern hemisphere) vintage reports for all the major wine producing regions of the world. The Committee’s annual meeting at the beginning of June will take a full day, during which it will review the vintage reports and make final decisions about the ratings which will appear in the 2021 edition of the Vintage Card and App. This meeting always takes place in London but the Committee might have to break with tradition this year and hold it via GoToMeeting. Anyway, you can be sure that the new Vintage Card will be published on time.
Publications
The editors of all our other publications have always worked from their homes. Hard copy editions of Food & Wine and Wine, Food & Friends are being published and distributed to members in Europe Africa and the Americas in the usual way, although you can expect to see a change in the content, with fewer reports of branch events and more articles commissioned from professional writers. The next monograph is entitled The Essential Guide to Modern Madeira and it is being written by Richard Mayson, who entertained and educated members of the Society so well on last year’s Douro Valley Cruise. As the title proclaims, this will not be a history book. Whilst Richard is the leading expert on Madeira wine and has been writing about the subject for many years, this monograph will be based upon his re-visitation of the vineyards and up-to-date, in-depth discussions with all the producers and winemakers. Unfortunately, his planned visit to the Island had to be cancelled because of the current travel restrictions with the result that publication of this monograph has been postponed until the first quarter of next year.
However, an entirely new publication went to the printers this week. The Guide to Enjoying Fine Wine 2020 is different from our regular publications in that it was not originally commissioned by the Society. It is written by Stuart Leaf and Joseph D’Ambrosio who are both active members of the Hudson Valley Branch, located in New York State, but they originally wrote it for the benefit of the members of The University Club of New York. When I read the Guide, I immediately felt that their candid, concise and opinionated approach was a fresh take on understanding and enjoying fine wine which would appeal to the Society’s worldwide membership. It should be available for distribution to you all within the next month or so.
André Simon Lecture
I want to tell you about our plan for the André Simon Lecture which should have been presented by Jane Anson two weeks ago on the last day of the Paris & Bordeaux Wine Festival. She is Bordeaux correspondent and columnist for Decanter magazine. Her lecture will be recorded on video and put on the website so that you will all be able to see Jane and listen to her speak. If this presentation is well received, we plan to put on some more presentations in this way during the rest of the year. Those of you who have booked for the Paris & Bordeaux Wine Festival 2021 will receive a copy of her new book, Inside Bordeaux, publication of which is now being launched next month.
Branch activity
None of our members will have escaped the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has adversely affected all our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. I know that many members have businesses which are being adversely affected. We should not forget that the pandemic has also had a devasting impact upon the restaurant industry which is our most essential service provider. As a means of supporting the industry, I ask you to consider following the example of our Chicago Branch which is holding regular virtual dinners with restaurants which have been long-time friends of the branch. The dinners are being organized, advertised to the members and paid for in the usual way. The chef provides a four-course take-out dinner. The wines committee sends pairing suggestions for members to select wines from their own cellars. Pick-up times are fixed on a staggered basis. After dinner, a Zoom conference call is set up at which members discuss the dinner, their wine selections and what is happening in their world. In this way, the members of Chicago Branch are not merely keeping connected with each other, but they are also providing an essential economic lifeline to the restaurants which have supported them in the past. Where it is logistically possible, I hope that other branches might consider following this example.
Keep safe and best regards,
Andrew J. Jones,
Chairman
International Council