Daniel Lenko Estate Winery
Why
the great wines don’t always appear at the LCBO
© Michael Vaughan 2002
National
Post Weekly Wine & Spirits Columnist
National Post • Saturday, June
29, 2002
 There
are some exceptional wines being made in Ontario, which don’t seem to exist.
Small phantom-like wineries whose products rarely, if ever, appear on the LCBO
shelves. Today, in recognition of Canada Day, I will try to demystify this
disappearing act and explain why the great wines often don’t appear at the
LCBO.
I have chosen Daniel
Lenko Estate Winery because it was Daniel
Lenko 2000 Unoaked Chardonnay
($12.95) that won the National
Post Unoaked Chardonnay Award
in the Ontario Wine Award
competition at the Royal York last month. In fact, Lenko walked away with four
gold medals, more than any other Ontario winery. Indeed, even though it only
opened in 1999, three generations have worked the Lenko vineyards, which include
Canada’s oldest Chardonnay vines.
Unfortunately, their
gold medal winner is now sold out. To taste it, you will have to visit one of
the Toronto restaurants featuring it – i.e. Oyster Boy at
287 Queen Street West ($26 a bottle or $6 for a 4-ounce glass).
 At 34, Daniel Lenko
is a rebel with a cause: making great wine. Five of his wines have appeared in
Vintages over the past two years. No new cameos are planned. “It’s
just too expensive for me,” explains Lenko. When Lenko sells a wine in his
own store, the governmental fees, duties and taxes amount to approximately 22%
of the selling price. When the same wine is put in Vintages he receives a lot
less because the LCBO imposes a mark-up of 58% and wine levy of $1.12 per
bottle, both of which are deducted from the price paid to the winery.
Take
their gold medal winning Daniel
Lenko 2000 Old Vines Chardonnay American Oak,
which sells for $19.95. Here is a delicious, well structured white bursting with
vibrant, ripe pear purée flavours followed up by a persistent but elegant,
cedar-lime finish. When sold at the winery store, $15.74 goes into Lenko’s
pocket. Whereas, if that same $19.95 bottle sold at the LCBO, Lenko will only
receive $9.32 (this called is “base price” by the LCBO). In other words,
Lenko “losses” $6.42 for every bottle sold at the LCBO v. his winery store.
Also, he can’t fudge the base price and try to sell it to the LCBO for more
because winery and LCBO selling prices must be the same. Ergo - if Lenko can
sell all his wines through his store (only one single outlet is granted to each
winery), why should he bother with the LCBO?
Click
Here to see an example of the LCBO pricing breakdown for a $19.95 Ontario table
wine.
Obviously, Lenko’s
only incentive to use the LCBO is when he cannot sell everything through his
store. Alternatively, he might believe that by selling through the LCBO he will
create visibility, thereby promoting his operation. The “loss” of $6.42 per
bottle becomes a marketing expense. This is a serious problem given the small
quantities of wine produced. In the case of the above-mentioned Chard, only 290
cases were made - the largest of any single label!
Of the 16 wines
Lenko produced in 2000, all but one carries the VQA “guarantee of quality.”
The one that does not is the 2000
Raspberry Reserve and not
because it isn’t excellent. “I only
sell it at the winery because, as a fruit wine, it doesn’t qualify for VQA
status. The wine guys who run the VQA program have excluded fruit wines,” he
explains.
At one time, if
wineries sold their wines directly to restaurants they were only permitted to
keep the lower base price. “Why bother -
there was no incentive to make the sale,” explains Lenko. “Now,
as long as it has the VQA sticker, it’s equivalent to a winery store sale and
I get to keep the full markup. As my award-winning Raspberry Reserve is a non-VQA
product, I loose a lot if I try to sell it to licensees. That’s why you rarely
find fruit wines in restaurants.”
Indeed, a wine that
does not make the VQA cut represents a huge potential loss for the winery. “Personally,
I don’t think the consumer really cares all that much about the VQA label,”
confides Lenko. “Every last grape in our
winery comes from our own vineyards. We never use anyone else’s grapes –
that’s the secret of our success. That and having a great winemaker like Jim
Warren.”
“We’re
not members of the Wine Council of Ontario,”
Lenko adds. “It’s just not worth it to
us – we’re too small and would cost us $6,000 annually.” This means
that Lenko is not entitled to participate in any of the VQA-LCBO promotions. In
addition, you will not find Lenko’s winery on any Wine Council maps. “We’re
not keen on snagging bus loads of tourists, it’s not our style,” he
states.
Licensees and wine
aficionados are another matter. Having won many awards, his wines are highly
sought after by the cognoscenti. One Toronto collector, Peter Benjamin, owner of
Sterling Photo, waxes poetic about the wines. “Daniel’s mom, Helen Lenko, operates the store. She is one of a
kind,” he states. “I recently went
down and bought a whack of their Unoaked Chard (which is now sold out).”
The Lenko winery
store, indeed, operates out of the kitchen of their home on weekends. “It’s
almost too much,” says Helen Lenko, “you
know the people lined up at the kitchen door waiting to get in to taste of our
wines. We serve them along with some local kielbasa, cheese and homemade bread.
Sometimes ‘dad’ (her husband and father of their four children) will serve
some of his special jam. My famous apple pie doesn’t come out until the fall
– not in season now, you know!”
 Finding the Lenko
driveway has been made easier by the use of a sandwich board, which has ever
changing profundities. After one of his recent triumphs the sign read: “Best
red of Cuvée – my mom and 40 winemakers can’t be wrong”
referring to his 2000
Old Vines Merlot Reserve Or how about this:
“The
end is near – 15 cases of White Merlot
left” which one week later was
followed up by “The
end is here - zero cases of White
Merlot left”
Located just outside
of Beamsville, the winery isn’t too difficult to find – to see the map Click
Here. It is probably a
pretty good idea to call ahead (905-563-7756)
to make sure the wine you want to buy is still available – it is first come,
first served at the Lenkos. Subscribers can see the analysis of Lenko wines
assessed this week by Michael Vaughan Click
Here.
| If you are not a subscriber,
don’t miss the only full analysis of all Vintages products prior to
the release by Canada’s leading critic. Unlike other publications, you
get details on who is
the agent and how many bottles
were ordered. Moreover, it is the only guide based on duplicate tastings
– two bottles of every wine is assessed! Better yet, it is by a
single author – Vintage
releases are not evaluated by other less experienced writers.
As one subscriber puts it: “tasting
notes you can rely on!” With a renewal rate of 96% and a 12-year monthly
publishing record, nothing even comes close to it! Get the current July 2002 issue today by clicking
here. Or to see a free sample of last month’s June
2002 issue Click Here. |
The photo was taken with the new,
fits-in-your-shirt-pocket Fuji FinePix F601 Zoom Digital Camera in 3-mega pixel mode.
|
