Wine tours: Safety in colors

By AMANDA FOLTS/afolts@fltimes.com
Sunday, February 21, 2010 12:11 AM CST

A  yellow card means your wine touring group is on notice. A red card means you’re done for the day.

In light of the assault of a local winery owner Valentine’s Day weekend, members of the local wine industry gave some input on how they handle tour groups.

Paul Thomas, executive director of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, said the Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga lake wine trails, in cooperation with the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, produced a Web site, “Safe Group Wine Tours,” which lays out the policies of the wineries with recommendations to customers.

Part of that is the yellow card/red card system.

If members of a group are acting out at one winery, the group can be given a yellow card. If they act out at another, they can be hit with a red card, which means they can’t go to anymore wineries that day.

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Thomas said the transportation companies offer an invaluable service, allowing people to safely and responsibly visit the wine trails without worrying about driving.

But there are some groups that go out solely to get intoxicated, hiring a limo and drinking between wineries like it’s a “pub crawl,” he said.

Though the assault by two Pennsylvania brothers of one of the owners of Three Brothers Winery last Saturday was “a particularly egregious example,” Thomas said a lot of other bad behaviors can come out of wine tours as well.

To put a positive spin on things, Thomas said companies try to remind people who are asking about wine tours that when they get to the point of intoxication by drinking between wineries, they lose their ability to judge the wines. They also tell those who arrange the tour that it’s their responsibility to keep on top of people who get rowdy in their group.

“You try and ask the people to kind of self-monitor their own group and proactively manage it,” Thomas said.

He noted that an overwhelming majority of customers are nice, calm and mature.

“It’s not just that we want to keep people away who can’t purport themselves in a mature fashion, it’s that we want to make sure we have a safe, enjoyable, positive experience for the overwhelming majority of the customers that do come that are mature and responsible and are there to enjoy the wine and learn about the wine,” he said.

As for the transportation companies, Thomas said the wine trails hope to get active cooperation from them, but at least one local company has been uncooperative.

He wouldn’t name the company, but he said that the company transporting the group that included the two Pennsylvania brothers was arguably the main company that triggered the Web site laying out the wine tour guidelines.

“This company, that at this time shall remain nameless, evidently doesn’t get it, and I believe should not be in the business of bringing people to wineries, and if I had my way I will help enforce that reality,” he said.

He wanted to stress that visiting the wine trails is fun and wineries want people to come out and enjoy themselves. He also noted that he doesn’t want people to think the trail associations are coming down on transportation companies.

“It is equally important that we preserve the quality of the experience for the responsible customers that we have by trying to minimize … boneheads corrupting our wonderful wineries with their existence,” he said.

Jim Havalack, owner of Quality Wine Tours, said that when someone books a wine tour with his company, employees try to find out what the objective is, whether it’s just to visit six or seven wineries or to go to as many wineries as possible.

“Our policy is to try to shy away from that kind of group because that really keeps us from running into any problems,” he said.

Referencing the Safe Group Wine Tours guidelines, Havalack said it’s his goal to never have a group that gets a yellow or red card. So far, none of his groups have.

If his company does have a group that is drinking too much, Havalack said, the driver tries a number of suggestions, such as encouraging them to stay at the current winery and not going to another, taking a slower route or recommending a restaurant.

Quality Wine Tours has a policy of not allowing people to drink in their vehicles during a wine tour, even in the limos where it’s legal because there is a divider between the riders and the driver. He explains to people that they’ll be drinking a lot of wine and that they don’t need to drink between wineries.

In the summertime, if someone wants to open a bottle they just bought at a winery, Havalack suggests stopping and getting out of the vehicle.

Havalack says it’s the transportation company that needs to take responsibility for its wine tour customers.

“I think it is their responsibility because, again, we’re the ones bringing them to the wineries. We can’t expect to bring them in the winery and let them make the judgments,” he said.

Derek Wilber, president and winemaker at White Springs Winery in Geneva, said his winery doesn’t see a lot of visitors who are too intoxicated. But he added that state law says wineries can’t serve someone who is visibly intoxicated anyway.

He said a system is in place of forewarning wineries further down the trail of people who are being rude or disruptive. He said they also ask groups of a certain size to make reservations because he wants to make sure they have a good time and that the staff is ready, though noting that they wouldn’t necessarily turn away groups that don’t call ahead.

Brad Phillips, marketing director for Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, said his winery has a strict bus reservation policy and said groups are required to have a leader or chaperone who provides personal information to the winery. Hazlitt also has a person at the door, especially during the busy season, who makes a judgment call when buses or limos arrive, regardless of a reservation, of whether the occupants are intoxicated.

Wine tour expectations

The code of behavior set forth by both the Wine Trails of the Finger Lakes and regional transportation companies.

The wineries and transportation companies expect:

• Good and respectful behavior
• Common courtesy to all
• Appropriate noise control
• Respect for other customers and the winery staff and facilities.

The wineries and transportation companies will not tolerate any illegal or anti-social behavior including, but not limited to:

• Intoxication
• Theft
• Underage drinking/fake IDs
• The use of illegal drugs
• Indecent exposure
• Excessive profanity
• Public urination
• Violation of open container laws
• Littering

Any illegal, anti-social or intoxicated behavior can result automatically in a group being issued a RED CARD at the discretion of the winery with a YELLOW CARD being issued for less serious infractions.