“The administrative burden hurts us much more than the weather”

After spring frosts in several regions and a very rainy summer, Quebec winegrowers ended the harvest on a positive note: the 2023 vintage will be good, even excellent in several areas.

The time for celebration was short-lived: Quebec is working on a bill that leaves them with a bitter taste. Very bitter.

Their heavy administrative burden had to be reduced, the result of several promises made over the last four years, but which will ultimately not be kept, say representatives of this industry.

“We are entrepreneurs, the administrative burden hurts us much more than the weather,” says winemaker Louis Denault. We get used to the weather, but the burden with this government is atrocious. It will kill entrepreneurship in Quebec. »

Louis Denault is president of the Quebec Wine Council. He worked closely with Quebec. “We have been consulted for four years through surveys, meetings, briefs,” he said.

Bill 17 (assented to on October 27) did not make the headlines. Her name : An Act to amend various provisions for the purposes of reducing the regulatory and administrative burden.

“The hours we spend in administration are completely crazy,” also says Charles-Henri de Coussergues, from Orpailleur, who kept an environmental inspector who had shown up at the vineyard, the day of our interview.

“In Quebec,” continues this veteran of the vineyard, “when you make alcohol or when you are a winemaker, you depend on quite a few ministries: from the Environment to that of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food , in addition to the Régie des alcools, the SAQ, Public Security, and the Ministry of Finance. It seems like they don’t talk to each other. »

The winegrowers are disappointed, surprised, angry, worried.

“No one in this government has a vision for the future for our industry,” says Sébastien Daoust, winemaker and owner of Les Baccantes. “We are drafting a bill that imposes new administrative mazes and in no way responds to the four years of demands we have had with them,” he continues.

“We should erase the entire picture of the way we see and approach alcohol as a whole from the government side,” says Félix Duranceau, co-owner for two years of Domaine du P’tit Bonheur in Cowansville. It’s 2023, we should perhaps review this way of doing things. We are businesses and represent an extremely important agritourism sector. »

The new winemaker confides that he was also struck by the administrative burden imposed on his sector.

“What we want to do is grow grapes, make wine and sell them,” he says. This is the heart of our work, but we often get caught up in administration. »

For health reasons, the winemaker has decided to put his business up for sale.

Archaic regulations

The politicians and ministers who meet the winegrowers nevertheless bring hope and promises.

“We wonder who is stopping this,” says Louis Denault, who confides that the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, has a real desire for the wine industry to develop.

Among the rules that complicate the lives of winegrowers, there is the one that requires their company to deliver its wine itself.

So, if Louis Denault leaves his vineyard on Île d’Orléans to take bottles to Montreal, he cannot offer to one of the five other winegrowers on the island to bring a crate, even if it is intended for the same business in Plateau-Mont-Royal. The neighboring winemaker must take his own vehicle and deliver his crate.

This rule was to be abolished at the end of last year, then at the beginning of the year. That’s still not the case.

Questioned on this subject, the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy indicated by email that, from its point of view, “discussions are continuing in order to translate this opening of the government into a new regulation which will meet the expectations of the majority of stakeholders in the sector, including winegrowers and government stakeholders.”

Another regulation limits the loan of equipment between businesses.

If a winemaker’s press breaks while he is pressing, he cannot rush his grapes to a nearby vineyard to finish the job. The same goes for the tanks.

At Bacchantes, the harvest was less abundant this year. Sébastien Daoust finds himself with three empty 4000 L tanks, which he would like to lend to a colleague. Impossible.

At Vignoble Sainte-Pétronille, Louis Denault equipped his business with a bottling line, a major investment. He only uses it two weeks a year, but the neighboring producer cannot bottle his wines with equipment from a company other than his own.

“The RACJ tells us that it is a question of traceability,” says Louis Denault, who does not agree with this argument given that the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ) tracks the number of grapes harvested, in each of the vineyards. Impossible to lose track on a bottling line or in a tank.

Wine entrepreneurs have no shortage of examples to explain how these types of regulations complicate their lives and slow down their growth.

“Are we going to have to file a complaint at the WTO against our own country because we are being bullied compared to others? asks Louis Denault. There is no other place in the world where you cannot subcontract. »

With these restrictions, it is difficult to be competitive, calculates Sébastien Daoust, who also teaches at HEC Montréal. But on the day of our interview, he had spent most of his time on the streets of Montreal making deliveries of his wine, which included hours walking in circles to find parking spaces.

However, winegrowers must be efficient, more than ever, with consumers who drink less and who are looking for good prices.

“In Quebec, we are lucky, the market is there,” says Félix Duranceau, from P’tit Bonheur. But we are already seeing the effect of the downturn in the economy directly on our sales. This is true in cider, in beer, for microdistilleries. Sales are down. »

According to him, a consumer who put a Quebec vintage at $30 in their basket last year will be tempted to opt for a less expensive French wine this year.

“We are fighting for the luxury piece that people no longer have! »

In the current context, Félix Duranceau believes that consumers do with wine as they do with beer: they return to safe values. And for wine, perhaps it’s a small white from the Loire that costs less than $20 at the SAQ or a South American wine purchased at the grocery store. To the detriment of local Vidal and Rieslings.