Taking time out to talk and share big ideas at MUST Wine Summit
By Richard Siddle
As you read this you will be coming to the end of, no doubt, a busy, hectic week in whatever part of the wine industry you work in. One thing’s for sure whatever you might have achieved there will be an even longer list of all the things you have not had chance, or the time to do. All those emails, all those “To Do” lists you wrote on your last long haul flight that you have yet to get round to doing.
Which is what makes events like this week’s MUST Fermenting Wine Summit in Portugal so important. The time, the opportunity, to stop, to listen, to take notes, and open your mind to analysing what is going on in the world of wine that we all live in,
Or as conference co-organiser and wine journalist, Rui Falcao, said it was the chance to “share ideas” and “visions” and be part of a collective “think-tank” to discuss the threats, challenges and opportunities facing the global wine industry. It might have been setting its bar a little high by claiming its ultimate goal was to “change the world” but fair dos for giving it a go and having the vision and ambition to even try.
What makes the MUST Fermenting Summit stand out from other wine conferences is how it is organised. It is set up to make you stop and think. It is not an excuse to attract a host of wine sponsors, all of whom then clutter the conference programme with underwhelming presentations that can often just be not so well disguised advertisements for their respective companies.
No, this is the nearest thing the wine industry gets to the famous TED talks that none of us can afford to go to. A summit that invites a limited number of speakers, made up from leading figures from both inside and outside the wine industry, and then gives them the time and space to explore grown up debates and presentations. Usually over an hour, with dedicated time for a Q&A session, to encourage wider debate outside the conference hall.
There are no rushed 20 minutes panel debates that end up being like the wine conference equivalent of fast food. Great on paper, but no substance and nothing to remember.
This week’s summit was prepared to take on the big topics that are affecting both sides of the wine industry; production and viticulture; and sales, distribution and marketing.
On the one hand what leading wine producers, Miguel Torres and Gaia Gaja, are doing in their vineyards and their properties to meet the challenges of climate change and sustainability. On the other Emetry’s Paul Mabray on how high tech companies are looking to transform how wine is promoted and sold; or Meininger’s Felicity Carter analysing the relationship between men and wine.
Issues that might not be part of our individual job descriptions, but are all part of our collective need to address the challenges the global wine industry faces.
Grown up debate
It was certainly a week for grown up conversations. Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW, for example, the respected Spanish wine consultant, said we can’t talk about wine in isolation to what is going on in the world. Particularly how trade wars are now dominating so much of the political landscape and what impact that is having on wine.
“Fine wine,” he said is “100% dependent on trade, and 99% of that is dependent on international trade. That is the biggest threat to wine.”
Within that context the wine industry can’t continue to mostly work in isolation. With producers, regions and countries only looking after their own interests and not what they could achieve if they worked together. “That’s wine’s biggest disadvantage,” he said. “I see it in France, iItaly, Spain and Portugal. Too many wineries working on their own. A producer from Rioja hates being next to another (Spanish) producer.”
US wine critic, Eric Asimov, analysed winemaking across the Old and New Worlds and whilst the former first influenced the latter, there is now far more of a blurring between the two with shared learnings and a better understanding of the best way to make wine in different regions around the world. Learnings that in some instances have meant going back to more Old World traditions and rejecting some of the advances in technology that help deliver more consistent wine. But it is that healthy conflict of ideas that is helping to push producers to know their grapes and soils better.
“We need to recognise the differences between traditions and making shortcuts,” claimed Asimov. He said the “men in lab coats are still with us” but they are now focused on “helping to make good wine”.
Being sustainable
UK journalist, Adam Lechmere, editor of Club Oenologique, kicked off the conference with a clarion call to the wine industry to take the lead on sustainable tourism, which again needs the industry to work closer together. Yes, wine tourism is still a largely untapped opportunity for so many leading wine regions, but there was also a great opportunity for wine producers to take the lead and ensure it promotes tourism that benefits and not “destroys” local communities and economies.
“If done well it can be a big benefit for local environment, economy and society. Tourism that does not tick those boxes should not be allowed,” he claimed.
He called on wine regions to carry out a Natural Capital Accounting analysis of the impact of tourism in their area. To assess what benefits and threats tourism might bring.
Biodiversity first Birda and Bees
Gaia Gaja explained how over the last 10 to 15 years the acclaimed Italian producer had changed the way it worked to put biodiversity at the heart of what it does. It has meant rather than take a vine first approach to winemaking, it has turned everything on its head to look at soils and vegetation and biodiversity first. What steps and measures does it need to take bring life and create life in the vineyards’ soils, grasses and flowers. Those are the benchmarks it now uses to judge how healthy a particular vineyard is, not the level of nitrogen, potassium or sulphur there might be to help the vines.
The biodiversity first approach meant it was now not taking measures to go in and try and protect and save its vines, but rather look at what needs to be done to help vines look after themselves, to become more resistant and stronger to cope with the changes in climate.
“For vines to survive they need to be surrounded by an area that gives them a chance to survive,” she said. “The more connected the vines are to their local environment the more chance they have.”
Before it took this approach it might find four or five different types of grass in an average vineyard, now it is finding 10 or 12.
It has also changed the way it plans its vines for the future. “Thirty years go ago when we started our nursery we did so based on what vines looked healthy in our vineyards. Ten years ago we reconsidered this thinking more about biodiversity,” she explained.
Instead it looked for vines that have been hit by disease and monitored those over a 10 year period. “Normally they are the vines you take out, but instead we looked to see how they behaved over 10 years. Some died, but some found a way to survive. They learnt how to become resilient.” Those are the vines it now uses to grow the vines it wants in its nursery. Those are the vines that are going to be able to cope with the unpredictable changes we are seeing in the environment.
It was a theme also picked on by Eric Asimov. He said the issue of climate change was now so paramount that it was inconceivable when making fine wine to not take into consideration your impact on the planet. He certainly welcomed producers in Bordeaux becoming far more open to the idea of following organic practices.
“Climate change causes us to think about things in a different way,” he said. “It’s not just about what is going to help soil health and the quality of grapes, but also our carbon footprint. We need to find ways that benefit agriculture and the planet.”
“Biodynamics,” he added” “is just one form of that. But then he questioned whether producers can really be truly biodynamic when they are effectively operating in a “mono culture” and can’t control what their neighbouring producers and growers are doing.
Production vs marketing
It’s always difficult in these kind of wine events to get the balance right between the production/making side of wine and the promoting, marketing and selling it. But you can’t have one without the other.
Felicity Carter’s analysis of the differences and similarities between how men and women buy and enjoy wine covered a lot of ground, but none more interesting than the fact some of the world’s top wine brand companies, Casella and Treasury Wine Estates, believe all wine purchases ultimately come down to an occasion. What wine is most suitable to buy for any particular drinking occasion. So that might be Prosecco on Wednesday or Champagne on Saturday.
As we drink more we start to understand what style of wine is most suitable or which drinking occasion. Whatever gender you are. So, according to Carter, it’s not about scores, or prestige per se, it’s about making sure your wine is relevant to particular drinking occasions. That’s how the big brands players create and target their wines.
This is just the summary of day one of this three day event. But hopefully gives a flavour of the depth of content that this breakthrough event covers and whets your appetite to want to attend what is quickly becoming the MUST wine conference of the year.
* You can keep up with the debate on at MUST on Twitter at @richardsiddle, @mustfermentingideas and #winesummit2019.