Retailers accused of paying ‘lip service’ to the green issue
Sunday 25 October
I’ve just attended a debate, which asked whether the promotion of environment credentials is a marketing ploy. The room was half-full at best, which is a sad indication of the importance of the green issue in the UK wine industry. Or perhaps everyone had gone on half-term a day early? Compared to the full-house at the recent low alcohol forum, it was a poor showing – I didn’t spot one major retailer.
It appears many wine producers are going green for the right reasons but retailers were accused of using the green message to suit their own agendas – making a profit. Unfortunately the supermarkets weren’t there to defend themselves, but there were some damning comments.
Michael Cox, UK director for Wines of Chile, which is one of the main producing countries leading the sustainability drive along with South Africa and New Zealand, said, “Most multiple retailers will pay lip service to green initiatives.”
The main problem is consumers see wine as a natural product and that means the word sustainable or organic on a wine label has less meaning than organic on a bunch of carrots. It goes some way to explaining why sales of organic wine have not kept pace with the rest of the organic industry. Cox added, “Having a social conscience does not appear to sell more bottles. The consumer is not prepared to pay a premium for organic wine because they don’t understand the concept. ”
Retailers are clearly doing things to help the environment such as the plastic bag reuse scheme but a cynic would argue it is only because the authorities have ruled they must reduce their plastic bag use. Angela Mount implied retailers didn’t give a damn about saving the environment – it is all about saving money. If the changes didn’t save money, then they wouldn’t do them. She argued bulk shipping and lightweight bottles improved margins for retailers, adding “I don’t believe the green issue is driven by the consumer. It is often a convenient ploy to reduce costs.”
Peter Darbyshire, MD of UK importer and distributor PLB agreed, “The green solution is to move the point of packaging as close to the point of sale. It is moving to the UK but sadly driven by retailers’ price motivation rather than the green agenda.”
Baboons hit South African vineyards
Thursday 15 October
Most wine producing countries have pest problems – from spider mites to rabbits. But South Africa tops them all with baboons causing real issues for grape growers.
Now I’d never heard of this until yesterday but I think baboons are pretty cool (incidentally, why are their bottoms so red?) and don’t get much coverage in the wine press, and I couldn’t resist writing about them.
Baboons have been a real problem at Klein Constantia winery for some time. They eat the grapes and can often rip off the cane that’s going to provide next year’s fruit while they’re pulling bunches off.
There are now several kilometres of electric fencing around the 146-hectare property to protect the vines from the baboons. Adam Mason, winemaker at Klein Constantia says, “It’s expensive but the baboons are quite destructive and they are becoming less and less frightened of people.”
At Groot Constantia beaters are employed to scare the baboons away but as the baboons get braver and braver, you wonder how long that will continue.
Anyone got any other strange vineyard pest stories? Baboons would be hard to beat surely?
South Africa: the good, the bad and the uuughly
Tuesday 13 October
The biennial Wines of South Africa tasting has rolled into town for two days. Two days? Do we really need a two-day event? It was fairly quiet at the event on its first day with just a steady trickle of journos, importers and freeloaders. The top producers including Vergelegen and Jordan were buzzing but many winery reps looked a bit forlorn standing behind their tables.
I continue to have high hopes when I go to South African tastings and each time they are dashed. Perhaps I should be a little less optimistic next time.
There were some stars including Vergelegen’s flagship white – a 75% Semillon, 25% Sauvignon blend, aged in new French oak. The 2007 was almost Bordeaux-esque with light body, fresh acidity, plenty of nuttiness and citrus aromas. It’s a whacking 14% but you wouldn’t guess.
I also enjoyed Klein Constantia’s 2008 Chardonnay. Shame on me for having to ask where Constantia was (it’s on the narrow Cape Peninsula which projects southwards into the southern Atlantic ocean if you didn’t know either) but my South African geography is not up to scratch. While the wine has a rich mid palate with honey and white peach, it’s actually clean and fresh with a lovely linear finish – most likely thanks to the cooling influence of the Ocean breeze.
Members of the press are accused of not giving the country’s reds a fair chance but from what I tasted today, I’m still unconvinced by the general standard. There were too many wines with green, herbaceous notes, high alcohol (14.5% is not uncommon) and that savoury character, which reminds me of Stilton cheese. There are some stand outs (for example Iona, The Foundry, Jordan) but I’ve come away disappointed again. No doubt I’ll be back at the next South Africa tasting keen to be disproved.
South African whites and beef butties
Friday 3 July
I’m focusing on South African Sauvignon Blancs and Chenins in my blog today after a comprehensive tasting organised by Wines of South Africa yesterday.
There’s been a lot of hype re South African Sauvignon lately, so expectations were high. The style is definitely not European as it has often has pungent gooseberry and grassy fruit, and the alcohol levels are too high to be from the Loire. But it’s quite different to New Zealand too: it doesn’t have that tropicality or pyrazine character of Marlborough (here comes the science, drop down to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know! Pyrazines are flavour compounds with a green capsicum/canned asparagus or leafy character and are commonly found in Cab Sauv and Sauv Blanc. The character, in Jancis’ words, ‘drops markedly during ripening, as does the herbaceous character, and more so with increased sun exposure…concentrations are higher for grapes grown in cooler climates’).
The style was varied in quality and character with Jordan’s in Stellenbosch even making an oaked SB. Why you’d want to put Sauvignon Blanc in oak I don’t know, but the Jordan’s are decent winemakers so there must be a good reason (I will email to ask and let you know…). Typically the gooseberry and grassy character came through on the better wines with some apple sauce too. Mmmm, apple sauce. If I had to make a couple of criticisms, it would be that on a number of wines, the acid was too high – almost abrasive – giving my teeth a real bruising. A few had excessive alcohol levels too. I don’t want a 14%+ Sauvignon Blanc thank you. Screwcaps were out in force and I have to admit there were struck match/rotten egg aromas on some of the wines (more science: hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans with those egg aromas tend to form under screwcap’s anaerobic conditions).
Generally the standard was quite good. I doled out quite a lot of bronze and silver marks but the only gold-medal worthy wine was the 2008 Cederberg Sauvignon Blanc (£12.15, sawinesonline) which also took a regional trophy at the Decanter World Wine Awards this year. It had a lovely concentrated core of grassy and spicy gooseberry fruit with mouthwatering acidity and, unlike some of its fellow Sauvignon Blancs, the alcohol was beautifully integrated.
Chenin Blanc
This was another mixed bag from unoaked light styles to full-on oak dominant. Chenin Blanc generally has racy acidity and a Chardonnay-like weight and texture in the mouth, and this came through on many wines. Those retailing around the £6-7 mark were rather dull and a bit dilute. Once you get above £10, quality inevitably gets better. These higher quality wines had quite a lot of toasty and nutty oak on them as well as peach and apple skin fruit, slightly warm alcohol, and tight acid on the finish. They also showed good concentration of fruit and a long finish.
I couldn’t find a gold winner in the pack but there were plenty of silvers: 2008 Cederberg (£10.90, sawinesonline), 2008 Beaumont Hope Marguerite (£11.99, Forth Wines), 2007 Jordan (£8.99, sawinesonline; Noel Young Wines), 2007 Bellingham’s The Bernard Series (£9.99, Majestic) and, probably my top wine was 2007 Simonsig Chenin Avec Chene Blanc (£11.99, sawinesonline).
The reds
Pinotage and Shiraz was also shown but by that time fatigue and hunger had kicked in, and the beef butties at the tasting ended up being more appealing!
I’m not a tasting muppet after all…
Judging update from my last post: we got our results back from our judging day with the AWRI today. And I’m happy to report there were only three out of 30 people at the tasting that were more reliable than me at the day – and with more than six MWs in the room – I’ll take that and run. (Reliability, in the words of the AWRI is a measure of scoring consistency, or the ability of a judge to reproduce results on different occasions. A value close to +1 indicates good consistency, a score close to 0 indicates a random scoring pattern, and a score close to –1 indicates that the score given on one occasion was the opposite of that given on another. I got 0.60).