The heroes of the vineyards | New Brief #213

There is something called heroic viticulture. It is, for instance, vineyards on steep slopes, at high altitudes, on narrow terraces, on dry, windy islands. Here the wine world’s superheroes toil. The more difficult the terrain, the greater the work effort. Steep slopes more often suffer from a lack of water than vineyards on the plains. Yields will be small.

But these problems can affect any vineyard today.

The heroic wines are sometimes niche wines made in small quantities with prices accordingly. And if the winemaker gets paid for his hardships, then it’s easier to be heroic. Customers help to make cultivation financially sustainable.

Where are the most difficult places to make wine? It may be on the steep slopes or on windy islands in the Atlantic. But it can also be in a humid climate with a high risk of fungal diseases or a region with recurring drought.

But should you grow vines where it is not suitable? Some regions suffer routinely from fungal diseases, and regular spraying is inevitable. Why have vineyards there? Well, if downy and powdery mildew had existed from the beginning, maybe there hadn’t been any. These two severe fungal diseases came to Europe only during the second half of the 19th century. By then, much of the vineyard map was already drawn. And the producers found solutions that they were happy with, spraying with copper and sulphur, so they continued.

Then came synthetic fungicides as effective alternatives. Today, researchers are working on finding other and presumably better solutions than the two previous ones. This is what happens all the time in the wine industry. The climate is changing – not least, more regions are affected by severe drought – and diseases and pests are spreading from other crops, regions and countries. But technology is also evolving. Today, how much water the vines need can be measured with sophisticated methods. With clone selection and crossings, you can obtain grape varieties that can withstand drought and fungal attacks better.

Adaptation and flexibility are the keywords, and this applies to producers, consumers and rule-makers alike.

We do not intend to nominate any heroes. All wine regions in the world have their problems. “That’s the life of a farmer,” said Ruki Väänänen in Bordeaux philosophically when I spoke to him the other day about a violent hailstorm in 2018. It affected his, and only his, vineyard and destroyed 75% of his harvest. There is no pesticide against that.

C’est la vie.

Wanderlust? Wanderlust!

Things are going in the right direction. The weather too. We are longing to go out into the vineyards. There hasn’t been much of that in the last year. Only two tours, Britt in the Douro Valley and Per in Piedmont, in a whole year. We long to visit wineries and wine cellars, taste good wines, eat good food.

Maybe it’s the same with you. Would it not be great to meet some winemakers, walk among the vines and the wine barrels?

When you start having the urge to travel to the wine regions, you know that we are here.

You’d have a hard time finding a wine tour operator who knows more about wine than we do. We have the contacts among the wine producers. Many of them say, when we visit them for the first time, “so nice to see you, I have been reading what you write for a long time”.

We want you to have the most incredible and memorable experience possible. We have no other ulterior motives with our travels. We do not want you to buy certain wines. We do not do this because we want to advertise a wine region or a wine producer. We just want to give you an unforgettable wine tour.

So, when you start to get the urge to travel to a wine district.

Remember that we are here for you.

Enjoy the Brief!

Britt & Per

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