Inheritance Valley Winery

 Inheritance Valley Winery, likely the smallest wineries along the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, has closed its doors to the public.  I noticed the sign missing last week and the website confirms it.  Wines still available at other locations along the Wine Trail but not at the winery itself.  I saw very little traffic there during the years it was open and imagine they have decided to focus on the business end of the operation, rather than try to handle both manufacturing and retailing.

Wine Tourism Impact

A blog reader pointed me towards this study on southern Illinois wine tourism published the fall of 2010, co-authored by Nicole Davis, the daughter of CCTB director Debbie Moore. 

There are a few interesting things in the paper. First is something that was left out.  I'm rather surprised to see no research on how wine tourists heard about the area, as that would give indications as to where local wineries, B&Bs and the CCTB could best spend advertising dollars to reach this comparatively high income group.

Secondly, out of town visitors split their time roughly equally between stays in hotels and bed and breakfasts while a surprisingly large number of local wine fanciers opt to book rooms in B&Bs or camp, skipping hotel lodging completely.  I'm not surprised that they are foregoing hotels, but rather at the large number that choose to stay in a B&B, rather than go home after visiting the winery.

Wine and Beer Sales

Short interviews with Francis Murphy of the Neighborhood Co-op and Darla Lubelt of Kroger on the effects of allowing grocery stores to sell beer and wine.  It's interesting to compare Kroger and Schunucks beer an wine areas as Kroger has not jumped into the area with the same enthusiasm as Schnucks did.  Within days after getting the license, Schnucks had cleared out the are that used to be their video department and stocked it. Then a month or so after that, cleared out 2 full grocery aisles and converted them to beer and wine, along with reseting most of the counters throughout the rest of the store.

Meanwhile, Kroger still only has the half of one aisle that it devoted to beer and wine, with no refrigeration set up for beer yet.

Downtown as Tourist Destination

The more I look at downtown Carbondale, the less I see it as a viable place as a tourist destination (Not that I've heard much talk about trying to position it as such).  Save for the area right around the square, the rest of the central business district is flat, the result of decades of replacing multistory buildings with single story ones or even worse, nothing.  There's little photogenic about the downtown area once you move off the square and even the square itself doesn't project a vibe of "Come, linger here. Stroll around and admire my quaint buildings, my charming shops, my landscaping."

Downtown Carbondale works fine as a central business district, even an entertainment district, but it's just not attractive enough to pull tourists into the area and keep them there.  If the town wants to go this route, and I'm not sure it should, it needs a ten or fifteen year plan in order to get there.

What I would like to see happen, and that could happen within a shorter time frame, is re-position Carbondale as the Gateway to the Illinois Wine Country or the Entrance to the Shawnee.  Either (or both) could happen,with focus from the community, within 3 to 4 years,without the major re-development it would take to make Carbondale itself the destination.

Beer Sales

Got curious about the effects of the increased number of beer and wine outlets on Carbondale sales so asked a friend who works for one of the local distributors.  According to them, overall beer and wine sales are up significantly since the change in the ordinance.  Sales are down some at the already existing liquor stores, but not as much as they had expected.  In addition, Carbondale is now pulling in a large amount of business that used to go to Murphysboro and Marion, especially Marion since Marion still does not allow beer and wine sales in supermarkets and discount stores.