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LAS CRUCES - The popular Las Cruces Harvest Wine Festival. scheduled for Labor Day Weekend. offers a chance for the state's wine industry to reintroduce itself to consumers after a long hiatus.

Wine festivals have been canceled statewide since March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Chris Goblet, executive director of New Mexico Wine, said wholesales increased for the industry, but smaller wineries that self-distribute rely heavily on festivals. This means a large backstock of wines waiting for festivals to return.

Harvest Wine Festival attendees this year can anticipate samples of vintages from 2018, 2019 and 2020. The vintage of wines that should have been debuted during 2020 have largely not been released to the general public.

“It's going to be pretty eye-opening. People are going to taste a lot of new wines they haven't had access to,” Goblet said.

Fifteen wineries and roughly 30 arts and crafts and food vendors have already committed to the event at the Southern New Mexico State Fairgrounds. Goblet said he expects about 20 wineries to sign up, which would be similar to previous years. Applications are still being accepted.

About 12,000 people are expected to attend; previous attendance numbers have ranged from 12,000 to 15,000.

“A lot of wineries rely on this festival and a lot of customers love this event, so our wineries are kind of putting a lot of their attention on making sure that when we come back for (Labor) Day, it's what people remember,” Goblet said. “It doesn't feel like there's been a huge interruption or they're not getting the same experience. We're going to try to deliver true to our heritage.”

More: Vendors, organizers adapt after 3 major Labor Day weekend festivals canceled

Ticket pricing and details for the Labor Day festival in Las Cruces can be found online at nmwine.com/lascruces-harvest-wine-fest/. 

Comeback for the New Mexico wine industry

Goblet said six wine festivals have been skipped since the state enacted restrictions to curb to spread of COVID-19, including limits on mass gatherings. With vaccinations up and cases down, the state is reopening fully July 1.

Each wine festival lost cost the wine industry about $500,000 in revenue, Goblet said, and with other restrictions, the industry's economic loss was upward of $6 million to $7 million during the pandemic.

However, online sales and wine club memberships increased early on in the pandemic — a roughly 400% increase in April, May and June of last year, according to Goblet.

Bernd Maier of Amaro Winery said the closures and lack of festivals "devastated" them. One of their main sources of revenue is the festivals. He said revenue is down about 60%. He added that they did see a slight increase in online orders and wine club subscriptions, but not enough to make up for their large losses.

"We certainly have more inventory than we would like to have at this point, and we have a new harvest coming on in about six weeks," Maier said. "I'm not exactly sure how we're going to manage all of this."

Maier said Amaro Winery is scheduled to participate in both the Albuquerque and Las Cruces Harvest Wine Festivals — as they usually do. He said they are currently working on several new summer drinks to have available at the festival as well. They also have a pre-harvest wine tasting planned for July 31.

Also helping out the wine industry is the new alcohol beverage delivery permit, signed into law March 17 and going into effect July 1. These permits will allow winegrowers to deliver bottles directly to homes. Though not likely to become a fruitful revenue source right away, according to Goblet, it will give wineries and consumers more options going forward.

Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, lromero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.

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