Wine group’s budget slashed

Canandaigua, N.Y. — Funding for the New York Wine and Grape Foundation will be cut to under $1 million under the budget approved last Sunday by the governor and state Legislature.

Initially, Gov. David Paterson proposed eliminating the funding for the foundation altogether. Last year, the state provided $2.8 million of its $3.8 million budget. The remaining $1 million was provided by industry donors.

The foundation’s president, Jim Trezise, said at the time that it would not survive the governor’s proposed cut. Now that the budget has been passed and the foundation has been allocated $951,000, Trezise feels confident his agency will remain viable, despite losing funding for all of its marketing programs.

Trezise listed the programs that will be cut:

• Promotion of the health benefits of Concord grape juice.

• Regional branding that allows each wine region to create its own promotional strategy.

• Marketing New York state wines in New York City.

• Marketing at Epcot Center in Florida.

• “New York Wine Month” statewide promotion.

• Public television series on the state’s wine industry.

• Quality-focused research “above and beyond our core program.”

“We can survive and still do important work for the industry,” said Trezise, “but unfortunately all these good and exciting programs will be cut.”

Trezise will have to search out an additional $1 million from private sector donors.
Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette, said the state did not give enough.

They “stripped the institute of any marketing ability,” he said. “The institute may still exist, but it’s a skeleton. It has no muscle. It has no ability to go out and market the products.”

In addition to funding grape research at Cornell University and aggressively marketing wine and grape products, the foundation helped get the New York Wine and Culinary Center in Canandaigua on its feet. During its first two years, the culinary center received funds from the foundation to “develop some of our wine programs,” according to Alexa Gifford, the center’s executive director.

In the culinary center’s second year, the foundation provided $500,000 for marketing. Those funds ceased during the third year of operations.

The state created the foundation, which now makes its home at the wine and culinary center, in 1985.

“Certainly, the wine industry has contributed to the economic development” of the state, said Gifford. “Anything that would hamper that is certainly unfortunate.”

According to a 2005 economic-impact study by wine economist Barbara Insel, the state’s grape and wine industry generates more than $3.4 billion annually. The state Farm Bureau says the number is closer to $6 billion. Though it’s unclear exactly how much comes from the state’s fastest-growing industry in the agriculture and tourism sector, it is significant.

The wine and grape foundation employs one part-time and five full-time workers. No one will be laid off, said Trezise.