A stepwise, logical (to Disney) process for ruining the wine seminars, especially for the future.
1) Decide that the culinary seminars are popular enough that $ could be charged for them.
2) Decide to charge for wine seminars too, and the same amount as culinary demos. Remember only the ice wine and champagne seminars and seminars hosted by top sommeliers that were full in the past. Ignore the fact that late in the day and at odd times, the wine seminars last year could not be filled even without charging.
3) Since Disney is now charging, it's not fair to ask winemakers to donate wine. Arrange to pay for it.
4) Since Disney is now buying wine, standardize to 3 smallest ever servings.
Cheapen the wine mat so it doesn't list the wine selections.
5) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off their premium wines to entice the public to fork out more $$ for better wine, Disney has no such motive. Just pick any 3 wines.
6) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off a range of products (we remember seminars with as many as 8 wines, and 4-5 was not unusual), Disney has no need to demo more wines.
7) Whereas once winemakers and sommeliers wished to show off their knowledge and teach the public, Disney feels only a need to provide a dumbed down, ordinary 3 wine tasting (remember from previous years when we got pippettes and carefully measured and mixed 3-4 wines trying to match the winemaker's results?)
8) Winemakers, seeing what Disney proposed to buy for their demo, seeing how that doesn't match their reasons to pay to come to Epcot, drop out in droves (compare the winemaker list of top wineries from past years to this year's winemakers. Note the absences.)
9) Pushed by the recession, change the 5 day package for winemakers and their families to come to Epcot into a 4 day package with more work over fewer hours and little time to be with the family. (This was verified with two winemakers we have known for a number of years.)
10) Drop the master sommelier's as presenters in wine seminars.
That's how individual decisions, each one logical on it's own, are adding up to "killing the golden goose" especially for next year. A number of wineries didn't know how bad it would be and came one more time. They didn't realize that the hardcore wine lovers who had filled their seminars week after week would be replaced by folks who are on vacation and who, as a lark, sign up for a wine seminar here and there, but aren't the folks who plan their own vacations around winery tours. Disney saw these folks as freeloaders who came back again and again, just for free wine. The wineries saw these folks as serious wine lovers who came back again and again and whom they could upsell better wines to.
No one is right or wrong. The hardcore serious wine lovers figured out in previous years how to more reliably get seats than the random folks on vacation. If you spent weeks at Epcot F&W, anyone could figure it out.
Disney saw a way to make some bucks and get rid of the criticism of the random vacationers that couldn't get seats. But Disney didn't count on so many empty seats and didn't see that these "dumbed down" wine seminars would turn away nearly 100% of the regulars....the folks the winemakers wanted to attract. Or, if Disney did foresee that, it didn't matter. They just wanted to fill seats at $5 or $8.
2011 will see nearly the end of the wine seminars. The best wineries will be gone (Disney may try to twist the arms of the companies that supply their restaurants. However, the wineries will cheap-out and send their local distributor to talk instead of the winemaker, the owner, or other person who can give a more interesting seminar).
The PFTS will continue to suffer as well because the good wineries will be participating less. Have you seen how the attendance has dropped off a cliff at PFTS compared to last year, even tho the price stayed the same? Were there 500 people at the last one? Have you also noticed how impossible it has been for a serious wine lover to get "value" at the PFTS with the wines now being served? Do you see a correlation?
So, there you have the individual steps that have all contributed to the change from enlightened, fascinating wine seminars to run-of-the-mill seminars, designed to fit the new audience of tourists. Could it be reversed? Certainly. Will it be reversed? Unlikely. Will it crash and burn? We'll have to see.
The poocher
1) Decide that the culinary seminars are popular enough that $ could be charged for them.
2) Decide to charge for wine seminars too, and the same amount as culinary demos. Remember only the ice wine and champagne seminars and seminars hosted by top sommeliers that were full in the past. Ignore the fact that late in the day and at odd times, the wine seminars last year could not be filled even without charging.
3) Since Disney is now charging, it's not fair to ask winemakers to donate wine. Arrange to pay for it.
4) Since Disney is now buying wine, standardize to 3 smallest ever servings.
Cheapen the wine mat so it doesn't list the wine selections.
5) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off their premium wines to entice the public to fork out more $$ for better wine, Disney has no such motive. Just pick any 3 wines.
6) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off a range of products (we remember seminars with as many as 8 wines, and 4-5 was not unusual), Disney has no need to demo more wines.
7) Whereas once winemakers and sommeliers wished to show off their knowledge and teach the public, Disney feels only a need to provide a dumbed down, ordinary 3 wine tasting (remember from previous years when we got pippettes and carefully measured and mixed 3-4 wines trying to match the winemaker's results?)
8) Winemakers, seeing what Disney proposed to buy for their demo, seeing how that doesn't match their reasons to pay to come to Epcot, drop out in droves (compare the winemaker list of top wineries from past years to this year's winemakers. Note the absences.)
9) Pushed by the recession, change the 5 day package for winemakers and their families to come to Epcot into a 4 day package with more work over fewer hours and little time to be with the family. (This was verified with two winemakers we have known for a number of years.)
10) Drop the master sommelier's as presenters in wine seminars.
That's how individual decisions, each one logical on it's own, are adding up to "killing the golden goose" especially for next year. A number of wineries didn't know how bad it would be and came one more time. They didn't realize that the hardcore wine lovers who had filled their seminars week after week would be replaced by folks who are on vacation and who, as a lark, sign up for a wine seminar here and there, but aren't the folks who plan their own vacations around winery tours. Disney saw these folks as freeloaders who came back again and again, just for free wine. The wineries saw these folks as serious wine lovers who came back again and again and whom they could upsell better wines to.
No one is right or wrong. The hardcore serious wine lovers figured out in previous years how to more reliably get seats than the random folks on vacation. If you spent weeks at Epcot F&W, anyone could figure it out.
Disney saw a way to make some bucks and get rid of the criticism of the random vacationers that couldn't get seats. But Disney didn't count on so many empty seats and didn't see that these "dumbed down" wine seminars would turn away nearly 100% of the regulars....the folks the winemakers wanted to attract. Or, if Disney did foresee that, it didn't matter. They just wanted to fill seats at $5 or $8.
2011 will see nearly the end of the wine seminars. The best wineries will be gone (Disney may try to twist the arms of the companies that supply their restaurants. However, the wineries will cheap-out and send their local distributor to talk instead of the winemaker, the owner, or other person who can give a more interesting seminar).
The PFTS will continue to suffer as well because the good wineries will be participating less. Have you seen how the attendance has dropped off a cliff at PFTS compared to last year, even tho the price stayed the same? Were there 500 people at the last one? Have you also noticed how impossible it has been for a serious wine lover to get "value" at the PFTS with the wines now being served? Do you see a correlation?
So, there you have the individual steps that have all contributed to the change from enlightened, fascinating wine seminars to run-of-the-mill seminars, designed to fit the new audience of tourists. Could it be reversed? Certainly. Will it be reversed? Unlikely. Will it crash and burn? We'll have to see.
The poocher
