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The first Wine Press, back in September 2005 |
A retrospective of 18 months in wine
Our wine column has now been going for 18 months so what have we learned and what general picture can we offer?
RATHER than giving a single answer to this question, we’ll give you two. The first, this week, is optimistic. The second, in a later column, will be pessimistic. Whether the glass is half full or half empty is your decision.
When we started out, we wanted to discover why it’s so difficult to get a reasonable wine in a supermarket. We also believed in a relatively clear-cut distinction between traditional, principally European, and modern ‘new world’ wines from the Americas, Australasia and Africa.
We believed there was a difference between the combination of climate, geology and experience, (‘terroir’ as the French call it) and more technolically driven new world wines.
Technology was used specifically to overcome the perceived limitations imposed by terroir.
If neither traditional nor new world are helpful terms, is it now preferable to speak of a convergence between the two?
Only to some extent. The emergence of a global wine market is neither as simple nor as clear-cut as might at first seem. The nature of wine and the wide range of tastes making it unique limit the scope for this.
Wine expert Jancis Robinson points out that even the biggest drinks company, Diageo, is not one of the world’s top hundred, ie it is not a General Motors or Glaxo Smith Kline. The share of global wine production crossing international borders, below 15 per cent for many years, had reached twice that level by the mid 2000s.
The share of new world wines (excluding sparkling wine) rose from three per cent to 25 per cent in the 20 years to 2004 (Oxford Companion to Wine 2006, page 316).
Moreover, ownership does not necessarily imply uniformity in the same way as soft drinks or fast food.
Diversity is wine’s greatest virtue and its most attractive feature to its consumers. The nature of the product means that demand is consumer led.
It is possible, nonetheless, to speak of a convergence. Robinson speaks of three types of wine to predict future trends.
Firstly, there are terroir-driven super-premium wines, secondly affordable blends and thirdly cheap basic bulk wine. The third, she suggests, will “continue its demise”, leaving the other two to carve up the market between them.
However, not all good wine is super-premium. Some independent producers make excellent wines outside this category. And bulk wine is more than mere branding.
Just as French wine-makers are investing in more technology and the lower yields necessary for higher quality wines, new world producers are now increasingly taking notice of the French concept of terroir.
This creates scope for unprecedented experiment. A ‘world terroir’ is impossible. But a range of terroirs in new world wine-producing countries is an exciting prospect.
The same is true of those described, for want of greater precision, as ‘traditional’ European wine makers. They have learned that technology enables them to produce consistent wines, the single characteristic missing from terroir-led production.
The target may be the lower or middle sectors of the market, but probably not the top end, which is firmly entrenched (see the prices of the top 2006 French clarets).
This means change from below, led by smaller producers prepared to accept the risk of experiment. These are up against larger organisations, which by their very nature, are averse to risk, though not to change.
The age of global new world supremacy, to be sealed by Tony Laithwaite’s “flying wine makers” has disappeared.
In Portugal, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Hungary and Turkey, to name but a few, young small-scale producers are trying to define their wines in new ways. All those we’ve met are trying to balance what they describe as “tradition” with good modern production techniques.
We’ve no doubt that many of them will produce very similar wines, but the best will create something really special. The task of wine writers will be to re-draw the map of wine making according to these changes.
Welcome to the new ‘New World’. Or should it be the ‘Old New World’ or the ‘New Old World’? |
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