With more than 211,000ha under vine and over 800 wine producers, Argentina is constantly awash with change. It isn’t only a numbers game, Argentina is also in a new golden age of winemaking with its wine industry at its most innovative to date.
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The sparkling wine industry has arrived at a crucial moment. As markets have expanded and consumer attitudes evolved beyond the ‘just for celebrations’ paradigm, brands can expect to achieve growth that would have been impossible in the 20th century. As the hottest consumer wine topic in the UK, the scope to encourage further premiumisation across different sparkling categories is unprecedented.
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Three-word slogans have bombarded the UK under the current government, from ‘Get Brexit Done’, to ‘Hands, Face, Space’ and, most recently, ‘Get Britain Moving’, which sounds more like an ad for a laxative than a treatment for the country’s overall ills. But now we’re getting ‘Winter of Disconnect’, courtesy of the press, which is summing up both how a majority of consumers feel not only about the three-hour blackouts that the National Grid is warning of over the coming season, but also how they feel about the government’s
approach to the economy.
Retail can sometimes feel like the centre of the world in business. It joins customer to distributor and producer, as arbiter of supply and demand. This is particularly true in the wine trade, where its gatekeepers provide a vital entry point into an often obscure product category. However, in this new era of hyper sustainability sensitivity, retail has a less obvious – if equally important – role to play, with less power over sustainability related goals than some might think.
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Unemployment levels are at a record low, while the total number of job vacancies in May-June 2022 was 1.3 million, according to the latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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It seems no matter where the cost increase comes from – whether it be energy bills, business rates or fuel increases – the consumer will always pay the ultimate price.
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In April 2021, Asda unveiled a major change to its wine aisles by becoming the first major UK supermarket to group all wine by grape variety instead of country.
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There’s nowhere in the wine world quite like Georgia. Anyone visiting the country will have heard this mantra. It seems to accompany any discussion of the country’s wines, with their unique qvevris – egg-shaped earthenware buried underground – helping to make wine on the slopes of the South Caucasus for some 8,000 years.
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Being recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site certainly helps turn heads when Austria’s Neusiedlersee DAC tells its as yet largely unknown story. Not least because this relatively compact appellation, with 6,239ha of vineyards wrapped around the eastern and southern half of the lake from which it takes its name, combines diverse terroirs with the ability to produce high-quality wines that reflect the status of the region. Moreover, this is Austria’s sunniest winegrowing area, but with cool nights matching warm growing days, all moderated by the lake. And the resultant wines are typified by cool fruit character and fresh, delicate acidity, which can deliver an appealing combination of elegance and depth.
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Industrious, dynamic and diverse, northeast Italy is one of the nation’s viticultural powerhouses. Yet the region has arguably become a victim of its own success: exports to the UK are largely dominated by Prosecco and other internationally renowned styles, such as Amarone and Pinot Grigio. A great deal of excellent wine, very much on-trend in terms of moderate alcohol, has been sidelined. However, with consumers starting to grasp the profusion of what northeast Italy can offer, key stakeholders have a renewed focus on bringing esoteric styles to our indie merchants and restaurants in 2022.
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On a long enough timeline, everything comes back into fashion. Not so long ago, it was the alcopop revolution, which caught the imagination of the younger generation, alongside a slew of low-rise jeans and trucker hats (mutter what you will: it was the epitome of 2004 popular style). While some might wish such things were relegated to the annals of fashion – and fashionable drinks – it’s also true that things never come back in quite the same way.
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Casa Real is a fitting poster child for the agrarian revolution sweeping across Chile today. The nation’s winegrowers, passionate and highly driven, continue to refine their knowledge of local soils, matching the vine variety to the place. “Casa Real represents an apex of terroir expression in the Maipo Valley. Since the wine’s inception in the 1980s, our journey has been a legacy of understanding the environment,” says Santa Rita winemaker Sebastián Labbé. “We are custodians of the soil – nothing less.”
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In 2021, the German wine culture garnered newfound global attention after it was declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. The Committee of Experts at UNESCO cited German wine culture as welcoming and vibrant, an adaptable tradition “firmly anchored in German society”, while highlighting its positive social and cultural aspects. In Germany, as elsewhere, wine culture has determined the rhythm of life of people in winegrowing regions for centuries. This gave rise to numerous customs, seasonal festivals and a vocabulary
of its own, as well as familiar phrases such as “pouring pure wine”, which means to tell the truth.
With the cost of living crisis set to get worse, how can indies best protect their businesses? Andrew Catchpole listens to some differing views.
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Jo Gilbert travels to the home of Nero d’Avola in south eastern Sicily to chart the course of a success story.
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Just 10 years ago Chile was still talking about emerging regions in its push to communicate diversity and move on from its somewhat ‘safe and reliable’ image. This has fast changed, with a steady drip feed of generic-backed tastings focusing on ancestral and alternative varieties, from resurgent País to a host of contenders as varied as Semillon and Cinsault, Moscatel, Mourvèdre and Riesling, plus much else besides.
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While a severe lack of staff to power the on-trade is having an impact on many businesses, Chris Losh looks at the factors at play beyond Covid and Brexit.
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When it comes to battling climate change, working closely with the vineyard is a given. Yet, as time goes on – and the climate becomes more unpredictable – the role of technology is growing in tandem with approaches that seek to have minimal interference with the land; and where that interference is necessary, using data to carry out the best possible response.
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Much is written in Harpers about alternative styles and lesser-known grape varieties, and for good reason – discovering new and exciting wines is all part of the fun in this business.
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The pandemic years have shown a marked alteration in the fundamental patterns of shopping. During the first lockdown, there was a noticeable shift to more local shopping, as consumers strove to minimise contact with others. Today it would appear this trend has embedded itself in the very mindset of the average shopper, with convenience stores now accounting for 28.9% of UK grocery shopping.
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