Grassroots campaign to support local wines is back in business later this week
Lenn Thompson, of The Cork Report, has picked this Friday to relaunch #openlocalwine as a way to help cultivate more interest in local producers.
Lenn Thompson co-founded #openlocalwine, a grassroots, digital event/campaign, back in 2020 with the goal of keeping wineries and their products on people’s radar at the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
There have been three of them so far, with the next one scheduled for later this week, on Friday, July 3.
As he noted in an email, “The first two were during peak COVID when tasting rooms were closed or slowly reopening. There was one more post-COVID when I was thinking it would make sense as an annual event, but it wasn’t nearly as popular so I kind of retired the idea — I mean, it was really just meant to help wineries.”
Thompson, a prolific blogger with an excellent palate who churns out reviews largely of East Coast wines through his Substack entitled The Cork Report, said he decided recently to resurrect the idea after, as he described in his post announcing the next one, “an overnight freeze across a wide swath of Eastern wine country (you can read more about it here and here) decimated the upcoming 2026 grape vintage. Some wineries don’t expect to have grapes to harvest this fall at all.”
He added in an email, “That spring frost and freeze is exactly why I brought it back. “As you know, a lot of wineries up and down the Eastern Seaboard were impacted. Even if the event isn’t as big as it was (and frankly, needed to be) back during COVID closures, any little bit helps these wineries. Plus, it’s fun to have an excuse to celebrate local wine, isn’t it?”
Even before the freeze, wineries were facing some difficult challenges, he wrote in his post.
Heading into 2026, I wouldn’t say that local wineries were thriving,” he wrote. “Rising costs of fuel, labor, and other goods have and are putting a lot of pressure of wineries — all while day-to-day life is more expensive for their customers, who know have a little less money to spend on wine. Still, things were generally looking up for most local wineries.”
Until that freeze event on April 21, which came a week after some places saw summerlike temps.
So here’s how #openlocalwine 2026 will work, per the blog post.
If you’re a winery that would like to share a special offer for the event, please fill out this form, promote the event, host a special event in your tasting room, and tell your story of the 2026 vintage to date!
If you’re a wine lover who would like to take part in #openlocalwine 2026 all you need to do is:
Get a bottle of local wine (or cider) and open it Friday, July 3.
Enjoy it with a nice meal—either home-cooked or takeout from your favorite local restaurant.
Post picture(s) of the wine or wines online – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter – using hashtag #openlocalwine.
Raise a glass to the winemaker who made it.
Drink it and enjoy it with your family.
Please also make sure that you @ mention the winery/winemaker as well as The Cork Report on Facebook and/or Instagram (@lennthompson, and @the_cork_report on Instagram).
That will help me see and then share your posts with the larger #openlocalwine community.
Remember, ALL ARE WELCOME. I always want this event to be open to as many people as possible. That’s why I keep it easy to do and invite people from every corner of wine country to participate!
As for Thompson, he’ll said that he’ll spend much of Friday on #openlocalwine sharing and posting to social media. Later that day, his goal is a “quiet evening at home, hopefully out on the deck with my wife, maybe some friends, and some good bottles of local wine,” he said.
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