My brain hurts after today’s seminars, which have focused on many technical issues relevant to vineyard managers and winemakers. I have to admit ‘applied geometrics’, and ‘spatial and temporal changes in fruit composition and juice in the vineyard’ had me pretty bamboozled.
Dr Richard Smart presented the results of a study into Pinot Noir at Tamar Valley winery, which was at times confusing, particularly when he started recommending a book about Antarctica that he’d just read, but we soon got back on track!
The main tenets of his seminar were that two bunches from the same vine can produce wines that are totally different in composition.
By vinifying each bunch separately the research found a wide range of different colours and tannin levels. It also revealed that exposure of bunches to UV light reduced botrytis infections and also increased colour and tannins.
Going as far as the berry level, shrivelled berries produced wine that was 40% higher in phenolics than its non-shrivelled equivalent and tannin increased 120% despite just a 10% increase in sugar levels. Weirdly, berry size had no impact on wine colour or phenolics, which goes against what I had always believed…
Smart concluded, “Bunch variability is the most important thing for Pinot Noir”.
So, it seems you can have one vineyard, one vine or even one bunch and the resulting wines are different beasts.
What does this mean for our notion of terroir and single vineyard wines when there is such enormous variability within those sites? I’m not sure my head hurts too much but it does raise some questions to contemplate.
In the meantime maybe I’ll go and read that Antarctica book. It might be a bit easier on the brain.
]]>Ok, so you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and your fruit does need to be good for starters - but a tasting at Frogmore Creek in Tasmania’s Coal River Valley today put the influence of the winemaker back in the limelight.
Winemaker Nick Glaetzer, of the renowned Glaetzer family, says, “Terroir is important but the winemaker can also play a role in making a wine more exciting.”
His team have been experimenting in the winery to see what they can do with its Pinot Noir fruit.
And with most vineyards in Tasmania still lacking old vines, winemaking techniques seem to be crucial to create more interesting wines. “I thought that because we were not getting the complexity from old vines we had to be something about it,” adds Glaetzer.
This experimentation breaks the current mould of winemakers telling us that their wines are made in the vineyard with minimal intervention.
Glaetzer showed us nine wines from the 2007 vintage. The Pinot Noir grapes were picked at the same time from the same block but were fermented differently. Kicking off with a ‘control’ wine, the flight included everything from a 100% carboic maceration ferment to a co-ferment with Chardonnay. Interestingly the Chardonnay addition seemed to make the wine more supple and velvety with a pronounced nutty character.
Curiously, there was an Amarone style wine that had been produced from riper grapes. Compared to the control wine it produced a richer style of wine, fuller in body with heaps of black cherry and raisin-like flavours not seen in the control wine. The tannins were more abundant too. It shared the fleshy mid palate of the control wine but little else. If I hadn’t been told it was the same wine, I would never have guessed.
The ninth wine was the final blend, which includes 25% of the Amarone style wine with the other components each representing 5-8%.
This process is followed every year with components of the 2011 Pinot blend including a splash of a Pinot Gris-Pinot Noir blend “which looks a bit baggy,” admits Nick, and a Gewurztraminer-Pinot Noir batch, displaying a weird combination of Pinot red fruit flavours alongside orange and exotic spice.
The tasting messed with my brain, combining some techniques and blends that my palate had never experienced. It is also interesting to see the many expressions of one terroir, and that the winemaker’s decisions from minimalist to interventionist do impact on that expression.
]]>Gibbston Valley wines, in particular, has grand plans for 2013. It already welcomes between 80-100,000 visitors through its doors each year, and now it has applied for 50 apartment style rooms to be built at Gibbston Valley. Just 2km down the road from the winery, its CEO, Greg Hunt, has designs for a spa, 18-hole links style golf course alongside the Kawarau river plus a vintners market.
Greg Hunt, Gibbston’s CEO, says, “We are hoping to start construction at the beginning of 2013.”
He reveals they have already received the consent for a resort but the economic crash put paid to their initial plans but next year is the year to resurrect this grand design.
He would not reveal, however, how much this would cost!
]]>I hadn’t even had a drink when I agreed to get Riesling stamped on my leg on Saturday night by a virtual stranger. His name is Paul Greico. And he’s the bearded force behind the ‘Summer of Riesling’ concept that is now going global.
It all started in his New York wine bar, Terroir, in 2008. “I thought if I’m ever going to get my customers to drink Riesling, I can’t give them a choice so my wine list started out with 30 Rieslings and nothing else. So, you were either going to drink Riesling or walk out the door and we did have people walking out the door.”
As both a Riesling and a Tottenham Hotspurs fan, Greico appears to like the unlikely. “It’s my challenge to fight the good fight for the underdog,” he says.
Greico is clearly passionate about this grape variety, and apologises that his language might get a little colourful as he drinks more Riesling and becomes more animated: “After 7 o’clock I swear a lot,” he warns.
In the US, the Summer of Riesling concept has spread widely with 220 restaurants around the US participating in summer 2011. They each poured three Rieslings during the 94 days of summer.
Now it has moved to New Zealand and Australia but there is no specific aim and is anti-marketing. “This is a sommelier driven gig. It is not professional. This is a groundswell of activity and wherever it goes it fucking goes.”[Time check – 9.30pm]
“We are trying to take it to Canada and the EU.”
The International Riesling Scale has been introduced for producers to indicate how dry or sweet their product is, but sweetness remains one of the stumbling blocks for consumers.
“We have to talk about the S word when we talk about Riesling, and it scares the crap out of people.”
Instead, in the words of Beavis and Butthead, says Greico, we should be talking about whether Riesling is cool or it sucks.
It better be cool or I’ve gone and got a really lame tattoo on my calf. Now that would suck.
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But it’s back to the grindstone now with deadlines aplenty and studying starts apace with June’s MW exams not as far away as I’d like.
And June will come quickly for the CEO of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, Stephen Strachan, who will step down from his role after eight years at the helm.
He has overseen the inception of the Wine Restructuring Action Agenda (WRRA), the creation of the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) rebate, and set up the Future Leaders’ programme during his tenure.
Strachan points to the creation of the WET rebate as one of his proudest during his reign at the Federation. It is designed to aid small Australian producers to claim an annual tax rebate of 29% up to a maximum of AU $500,000.
However it is currently causing controversy. In September, Pernod Ricard-owned Premium Wine Brands and Treasury Wine Estates called for the Australian federal government to reform the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) rebate, claiming it is sustaining the country’s glut.
Strachan admits, “It does need some reform. The rebate is not intended for bulk wine but growers have been producing surplus grapes and converting it to wine to sell through certain retail outlets at discounted prices. In these cases, the WET rebate is keeping the producers in the market and hitting the pace of reform.”
While Strachan will leave behind an industry “with big issues” he also believes Australia is on its way to building a sustainable wine industry – albeit slowly. It is taking longer than hoped but restructuring of the industry is going on amid a global financial crisis and an Australian currency boom. Their timing was clearly off.
]]>The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) has passed a resolution recognising the role of natural cork closures in reducing greenhouse gases.
The cork sector has been banging the green drum for some time. In 2007, the WWF (the wildlife guys not the wrestlers) called on the wine industry to back cork to save the 2.7 million hectares of cork oak forests located in the Mediterranean basin. It said the survival of these cork forest rested largely upon the market for cork stoppers, which accounts for 30% of the volume harvested but 70% of the total cork market value.
It championed cork’s cause highlighting 100,000 people rely on cork oak forests for their survival, as do 13,000 plant species and the entire European population of common cranes and many other birds and animals. Cork bashers were less than impressed by what they saw as a desperate attempt to win us over with green wash.
Now, the OIV has recognised the positive impact of cork stoppers in the calculation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It said, “Cork closures represent a specificity of the wine sector and its use has an important impact in the sustainable conservation of forest. Because of this important role, carbon balance of corks may be taken into account when applying the EP (Enterprise Protocol).
“When accounting the GHG emissions related to natural cork closures, the cork production system should be considered from a holistic approach. The final figures of the GHG emissions due to the cork production should consider the managed forest it comes from and its carbon sink effect.”
Cork is a natural product and yes, trees are good for the ecosystem but we must not be blinded by environmental matters - performance of a closure must take first place. While the incidence of TCA has been falling in since the implementation of the International Code of Cork Stopper Manufacturers (ICCSM), there is still the carbon cost of tainted bottles - produced, bottled and shipped across the world only to be poured down the sink by a disappointed customer. It is estimated 5% of wines bottled under natural cork suffer from TCA.
Let’s not forget that other closures aren’t without their problems: The 2010 International Wine Challenge found 5.6% of entries were faulty: oxidation accounted for 28% of these problems, sulphides 26.7%, while cork taint was down at 20%, and brettanomyces a horse manure-like splash behind with 12.8%.
While cork may have gained the environmental moral high ground this time, the debate will continue to run and run…
]]>While the rest of the wine world has turned to lightweight bottles, plastic (a.k.a PET) bottles, and tetrapaks, Kiwis had been stuck in the twentieth with heavy bottles. The lightest bottle available in New Zealand was 450g yet the Aussies were already down at 330g, reducing energy use by 20% and water by 12%.
At the time, Mike Needham, national sales manager for glass bottle manufacturer O-I, admitted it was expensive technology to install, and New Zealand was a relatively small producer of wine. “I don’t think people will go down to 350g or 300g. We have found very few people that are interested. The industry has not been as demanding here as in Australia,” he said.
Yet there was interest from producers. And this week, Nelson organic producer Richmond Plains has bottled its first wine in a 325 gram bottle.
Lars Jensen, owner of Richmond Plains, says, “It has been a big challenge to find suitable lightweight bottles in New Zealand. The lightest bottles we have been able to use previously were 40% heavier. So these really do make a big difference to the environment and across our business.”
The bottles are 20 mm shorter which means it is possible to stack more cases onto a pallet and fit more into a container. Taking fewer resources to produce and transport, reducing fossil fuels consumption significantly. They are also much lighter for trade and customers to handle with a case weighing 1.5 kg less at just 13kg.
Jensen adds, “Maximising the use of our resources and minimising our impact on the environment is a global issue so we’re very excited to be leading the way by using such lightweight bottles.”
I hope that others will follow their lead.
Unfortunately, consumers often feel they are getting better value for money and a better wine if it is packaged in a heavy bottle.
However, a WRAP study found bottle weight differences of up to 40% (for an empty container) and 20% (for a full container) were not noticed among a significant number of those surveyed, so perhaps if the proportions of the bottle mimic those of a heavier equivalent there will be little impact in perceived values.
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The green flute has a symbol on the front representing the rolling hills of the Eden Valley and the region’s name is also embossed. It gives the region’s wines much better on-shelf presence and gives confused consumers a better idea what to expect if they’ve tried an Eden Valley Riesling before.
While it’s early days for the bottle, the region’s two biggest producers, Yalumba and Peter Lehmann, have not come on board for the first release. The price per bottle - some quote 90 cents, others more, others less - is perhaps a little high, particularly in the current economic climate when producers are looking to cut costs. However, a special mould had to be created to produce the bottles hence the high cost. What’s more, the Eden Valley is not a mass producer so the economy of scale is certainly not there to bring costs down.
Yalumba’s Louisa Rose, explains their decision. “The issue for us is that it’s quite expensive and our brands are much bigger than most. It’s a commercial decision at the moment but I think it’s a great idea.”
And Ian Hongell, winemaker at Peter Lehmann, adds “We are not using the Eden Valley bottle because we have our own proprietary bottle.”
Yet, if the biggest producers came on board, they would have the economy of scale, and the project would have more clout.
One of the area’s most renowned producers, Henschke, has bottled its 2011 Julius Riesling in the proprietary bottle but Stephen Henschke admits, “Not enough are using it but I think more people will be influenced to start.”
I certainly hope more producers do come on board. It is a small region that is technically part of the Barossa zone and there is very little awareness of the area.
Thus far the Clare Valley has achieved a higher profile status for its Rieslings but with greater unity and widespread adoption of this bottle, there is an opportunity for the area to become known as the premium Australian Riesling region. It should take a leaf out of Central Otago’s book, which has become known as the leading new world Pinot Noir producer through its collaborative marketing efforts.
There is a real opportunity for the region: Eden Valley Rieslings offers fresh wines that are clean and modern, and would suit the current consumers’ appetite for vibrant, unoaked styles. With moderate alcohol levels (12-12.5%), lemon, lime and lavender aromatics, they would appeal to a wide audience.
Yet it is relatively unknown: as part of the Barossa, it often gets overshadowed by its bigger brother. The proprietary bottle is a good start to increase its recognition, but it shouldn’t stop there.
*Packaging manufacturer Amcor produces the proprietary bottles. I have contacted them, asking for details on production costs, price per bottle and units sold thus far but they have not responded to my calls.
]]>Now we have a question, how do we get more people, particularly young people, drinking wine. Clearly, we need to have a bit more fun, and stop taking ourselves so seriously as @NicoJamesBCN and @gormanmcadams posted.
Which brings me to wine tastings. I’ve just attended a cocktail competition, where the average age of contestants didn’t even reach the mid 20s. These bartenders are passionate about booze but they also love to have a good time, turning up in fancy dress just because they could. There were oompa-loompahs, pandas and pirates aplenty. We could learn a thing or two from them. I’m not advocating we all dress up as characters out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory instead of starched shirts but it does help you to have a bloody good time.
Wine tastings and competitions are unimaginative, particuarly large consumer events with tables around the edge of the room and the winemaker stood at the table telling us about what fruits we should be tasting. It’s the same old format every time. No wonder it puts young and old off.
In another tweet from the lovely Robert Joseph, he said: ‘We’re in the same hole as classical music. We have to make ourselves more attractive’ adding, ‘The problem is ours not the consumers’. We’re obsessed with them needing education.’ He has a point. What if people just want to drink the stuff and be damned with the preaching?
Wine writers, me included on occasions, also have to lighten up. Writing should primarily be entertaining, and informative second. Don’t fill the page with sleep-inducing facts. We need a page-turning Bill Bryson of wine to make us laugh. There’s so much to do but we need to put our heads together to come up with a light bulb moment.
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Those of us who work in the trade might think the world revolves around wine but for most normal people, it’s just a drink.
Lulie Halstead, director of Wine Intelligence, which published these findings, told delegates at Wine Future, “Consumers have little interest and commitment to wine.
“They enjoy it but it’s not the be all and end all of their lives,” she added.
And while we’re all tweeting and facebooking ourselves to death, it appears that in many markets regular wine drinkers aren’t much interested in social media for recommendations and commentary.
Social media is relevant to just 13% of regular wine drinkers in the UK, 21% in the USA and 13% in France. However, 62% of regular wine drinkers in China’s tier 1 cities (Beijing, Shanghai and so on) find social media relevant.
So, outside of China, who are we tweeting and blogging to? Ourselves. There’s nowt wrong with that but reaching the consumer might be harder than we first thought. But then again, ten years ago social media was all but nonexistent so it appears that we are at the start of a marathon of interaction.
]]>The official statistics show wine is on the up: in the first eight months of this year, the value of wine imported reached HK$6.6 billion (US$850 million), representing a 65% increase year-on-year
However, after spending a short period in Hong Kong, it seems that wine lists in many Cantonese restaurants are still basic, glassware leaves something to be desired and, white wine was served warm on a couple of occasions.
I was also surprised to see that BYO is a big deal in Hong Kong.
In a bid to better understand the Hong Kong wine market, Debra Meiburg MW has published a Guide to the Hong Kong Wine Trade, based on a survey of all the SAR’s importers. “37% of the market is direct sales that’s unique to our market. These are mostly being taken into restaurants because we have a big BYO scene,” said Meiburg. “If your wine is on a retaurant list it may never sell”, she added.
However, there is still plenty of potential for growth, with very few importers focusing on Chinese restaurants: “We have heard complaints that there’s too much competition in Hong Kong but they are all chasing the same market. No-one is chasing the Chinese market. The market is not saturated.
“Everyone is entertaining their clients in western restaurants. We have fine Cantonese cuisine that is being ignored.”
]]>Did things improve after the car crash first day?
Well, it didn’t get any worse. And there were some interesting insights worthy of a news story from Prosecco estimating it will quintuple in size by 2035 to one billion bottles plus some revealing statistics: Wine Intelligence’s Lulie Halstead revealed social media was relevant to just 13% of regular wine drinkers in the UK but 62% in China. Food for thought
On the last afternoon, I did a tour of the conference, getting folks’ opinions. The main benefit of the conference? Networking. How often do you get Jancis Robinson, Robert Parker and co. in the same room? It was a great opportunity to reconnect with contacts and old friends and meet new ones.
I am also much more knowledgeable about the Asian markets thanks to Jeannie Cho Lee, sommelier Yang Lu from the Peninsula, Shanghai and Don St Pierre Jnr of ASC.
The conference finished with a final debate on the ‘future of wine’ with an illustrious panel. Yet it failed to deliver any excitement. The conference should have gone out with a bang with the high profile names on stage but instead ended with a fizzle, with many shuffling out before the conclusion.
If there is to be a future for Wine Future (and there’s plans for Brazil 2013), exhibitors and other delegates have to speak out about the issues they had, not just confide that they agreed with what I said in my blog in a private moment (although thanks for the support)!
I want more debate, smaller break off seminars and less time allowing the biggest players in the industry to tell us about their company. What do you want?
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In an interview with Campo following the disappointing first day of Wine Future, there appears to have been some soul-searching in a bid to improve the rest of the summit.
If you read yesterday’s blog (if not, it’s below), I was less than impressed with the content of the discussions. Too much self-promotion and not enough fresh insight.
I have had a lot of response to the blog from delegates agreeing with my blog (although Tim Atkin MW did point out he doesn’t like being called old media: “I’ve got an award-winning website,” he said. Sorry, Tim!)
Campo said, “We send every speaker a list of questions we wanted them to answer” but he admitted many had gone off topic, talked too much about their brands and there had be more debate between speakers and audience, and this had been one of the failings of the last summit.
“In Wine Future 2009 the main things our questionnaires showed us that one, there were too many people talking their brands. And two, very few time for Q&A,” he said.
One speaker today did not talk about his brand very much – and it was one of the highlights. However, Campo revealed that gentleman had considered reworking his talk to include some infomation on his brand after hearing all the company guff yesterday. I’m glad he didn’t.
Campo added, “The only speaker that was a success in 2009 was Gary Vaynerchuk and that was not because of what he said but how he said it.”
“One of the problems the industry has is we have great minds but terrible speakers.”
So, we’re only part way through day two and things have picked up a little. But many speakers have been allowed to go on and time for questions has run out. Many people have been encouraged to write down questions but the speakers run over and then slope off without one question being asked. We have to go backstage if we want to ask the questions.
There have been some interesting nuggets of information (and there’s still plenty to go today) but there has continued to be a lot of ‘I’ll just tell you a little bit about my brand’. Please don’t; do your best instead.
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It is Wine Future Hong Kong 2011. And thus far I feel like I’m back at the disappointing Wine Future 2009. Did we learn anything on day one? Well, I had hoped so but like 2009, my expectations – and others’ – weren’t met.
The first panel, ‘Wine economics and wine investments’ aimed to address ‘the current state of the world economy and how it effects different sectors of the wine industry, how currency exchange rates impact exports, how wine auctions function, and which successes can act as barometers for the future.’ Sounds good, I thought.
Well, after four ten minute speeches by Jose Manuel Ortega Gil Fournier, Christie’s head China Simon Tam, John Kapon, CEO of Acker Merrill Condit and James Miles of liv-ex, I am none the wiser.
We were looking for fresh insights and in depth wine information. We know French wines dominate the investment market and that the liv-ex index has risen significantly in the past 10 years. Tell us something new – and interesting. Surely it would have been better to have had some economists from Rabobank or consultants giving us impartial information?
On to ‘the new world approach’ panel which sought to explain the most important challenges that new world countries are facing in today’s marketplace as well as analyze several new world wine regions’ successes and their strategies forward’. Those invited to speak – Chile’s Cristian Lopez, Wines of South Africa’s Su Birch and Wine of Argentina’s Alberto Arizu took the stand.
All delegates are now experts on South African wines’ sustainability programme, integrity seal, growth in wine tourism, and its wine trade show in 2012; we know about Argentina’s passion for tango and football; and apparently Chile has ‘unique climate conditions’ for growing grapes. What about the most important challenges facing new world countries today? Come on guys, that’s what we want to know about.
Most of the delegates in the room are pretty savvy about wine, working in the industry every day and, we are here to learn. The Austrian wine brand owner sitting next to me, complained ‘I’m so disappointed, it’s a waste of time.’ The only thing she has taken of benefit from today’s seminars is a photo with Francis Ford Coppola. One for the album. Unfortunately her notebook is still empty.
Luckily there were some rays of light. The ‘new media, new consumer’ panel actually looked at the new media, the new consumer and considered the future…what are consumers buying and where are they buying from – will they start going from liking a wine on facebook to buying it? Voucher offers to your smartphone and so on. Ironically, it was all old media types on the panel talking about new media rather than new media experts. And only the UK and US were represented, which doesn’t really represent the world, does it?
Onwards and upwards, let’s hope tomorrow brings some useful insight. Tomorrow will certainly bring the future.
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And at the Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Fair, the German Wine Institute was keen to show how important Pinot Noir has become.
Known as Spatburgunder, Germany has more hectares of Pinot Noir planted than New Zealand and Australia combined. It is also the third biggest producer of Pinot Noir after France and the USA, with 11,800 ha, Yet it has not enjoyed the same attention as new world Pinot, as most of it doesn’t leave Germany. Clearly they like to keep it all for themselves.
Red grape plantings have been rising since 1980, from just 11% of all plantings to 36% today. But we haven’t heard much about it until now.
“We just talked about Riesling and that did work but we came to a point where we had to broaden that. It’s important not to be a one-trick pony,” said the German Wine Institute’s Steffen Schindler.
While Baden is the leading region for Pinot Noir production with more plantings than Australia, it has failed to market its wines effectively beyond German borders. Having tasted a small selection today, it’s clear that Baden’s Spatburgunders offer an old world savoury style of Pinot with slightly riper fruit than you’d find in Burgundy, giving an appealing generosity. If they are affordably priced, they would be a big success in the UK and beyond. They just have to get out there and strike while the iron’s hot.
My pick:
Weingut Bercher Burkheim Pinot Noir 2008
A broody, pale Pinot Noir with classic old world savoury characters. The fruit is a little more generous than you’d expect from a Burgundy Pinot Noir and offers fine grained, drawn out tannins.
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