SACRAMENTO, Calif. — One of the largest wine industry trade shows in the world began Tuesday in Sacramento. But a key feature of the festivities will be largely missing: wine tasting.
Because of COVID-19 concerns, organizers of The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium — Sacramento's largest convention — have scrapped Tuesday's opening night wine reception at The Sheraton Grand. Gone, too, are the regional U.S. wine tastings on Wednesday and a Thursday wine lunch, both in the exhibit hall at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center.
That leaves just one opportunity for wine tasting: a sit-down lunch event Tuesday at the downtown convention center. And even then it will be just two varieties.
Holding the three stand-up wine-tasting events would cause people to pack together — a social distancing no-no with COVID-19 raging across the land, said John Aguirre, president of the California Association of WineGrape Growers, one of the two sponsors of the conference.
"That's one of the frustrating accommodations that needs to be made with COVID," he said. "Hopefully 2023 is a different story."
Aguirre said the decision to cancel the wine-tasting events was made about a week ago.
The Tuesday luncheon will feature just the two wines, a striking contrast to the hundreds of wines that were available for tastings in the exhibit hall in the past. .
The 2020 regional wine tastings at the conference featured vino from 16 different wine regions throughout the United States, including eight from California. Many of the wines come from lesser-known wine regions attempting to promote their product such as Amador County near Sacramento, New Mexico and New York.
"I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to holler," said John Martini, a representative of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation.
He said the cancellation was a reality of COVID, and the yearly opportunity to showcase New York wines to thousands of convention goers will be a lost opportunity.
Normally, Martini said he would offer samples from 20 different wineries, including his own Anthony Road Winery in Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.
"It expands people's horizons about New York wine," he said of the tastings. "And that's what you want to do."
Wine tastings aren't the only thing that will be lacking this year.
The overall convention will go on, but attendance is also expected to be down. Organizers of the conference expect 9,000 attendees this year for the three-day event that ends Thursday. That's far from the nearly 14,0000 in 2020 before COVID-19 struck.
Despite the lower attendance, area hotels and motels say they are still selling out their rooms as they had during pre-pandemic shows. Restaurant owners say they expect strong attendance at evening wine dinners, though business may be slightly off from past years.
Last year the conference, which is also sponsored by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture, was held virtually.
This year, protocols have been put in place in accordance with California law for attendees. Attendees must show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test before entering. Masks must be worn except when eating and drinking.
Aguirre said he understands that not everyone may be comfortable attending the show, but there will be no virtual option.
"I think the virtual thing works reasonably well when you want to just convey information," he said. "But if you want to actually see equipment, talk to people and just experience the serendipity of meeting someone unexpected, that's hard to do online."
As part of its efforts to increase attendees, conference organizers hired Epistemix, a modeling firm that analyzes COVID data and safety protocols, to calculate the risk of attending the trade show.
The firm maintains attendees are eight times less likely to be exposed to COVID-19 than in a local Sacramento area grocery store or doing daily activities.
"The trade show can create a more controlled environment," said John Cortier, CEO of Epistemix.
The firm estimates that there should be one to two COVID-19 cases per 10,000 attendees, a factor that Epistemix says is 95% reliable and beyond the high-risk threshold set by the Centers for Disease Control.
It's unclear how many attendees will be non-vaccinated. If the convention was held in San Francisco or Los Angeles, where stricter local rules are in effect, only those vaccinated could enter the trade show.
Cortier said safety projections at the Sacramento convention are also based on the calculation that attendees are carrying valid vaccine cards.
"The worst-case scenario," he said, "would probably be something like, everybody lies about their vaccinations and shows up, and it's a big superspreader event, but I don't think that's a likely or probable outcome."
Safety concerns or not, trade show organizers had no problems filling up all 600 spots for exhibitors during the two-days the exhibit hall is scheduled to be open on Wednesday and Thursday.
Organizers say its the largest number of exhibitors ever, noting a recent convention center expansion allowed 10% more exhibitors than before..
Exhibitors include water treatment companies, wine bottling companies, tank companies, insurance providers and wine equipment manufacturers.
Hotel operators say the conference business is welcome again after last year's virtual conference kept everyone away.
Doug Warren, who runs three Marriott-branded hotels in the Sacramento area, said all his rooms are sold out for the wine show, but the sell-outs only happened in the last several days instead of early January, the practice at wine trade shows before COVID.
He said he believes guests are making sure they are healthy because hotels such as his have a cancellation penalty two weeks in advance of the trade show.
"There is a lot of pent-up demand," said Warren, regional director of operations for the Welcome Group, "but people are booking at the last-minute to be sure they can go."
