Seminar 8: Jean-Robert Pitte, Wine; beverage of European identity and its rapprochement to the world’s different cultures.
This great seminar was started by saying that “the voice of the wine world must be heard clearly”… “wine is culture and our history” and Jean-Robert Pitte then continued directly into a discussion on the problems that prohibition of alcohol creates, comparing the American prohibition to dismantling an atom bomb!
He said that the increasing consumption of alcohol amongst young people was a mental cultural problem and that there was a huge need for educating people to wine when they were young. To show them the culture and beauty of wine and make the difference between wine and other alcoholic beverages clear.
“Wine is the taste of life itself and the heart of our culture” and there is an urgent need to share this with the young generations and also the new consumers in Asia etc. We all have to spread the message that wine equals happiness, love, joy, passion and multiplication of mankind!
He then came with numerous examples of wine as a part of our also ancient culture and religion. That wine in ancient cultures was seen as the way to get in contact with God and that our ancient Kings governed while they were drunk to be able to speak the voice of God. All over the world fermented natural beverages has been consumed since ancient times and Jean-Robert Pitte mentioned the Jews spreading the culture of wine everywhere they went and also that there are more than 400 mentions of wine in the Bible; wine – life –truth = the basics of our culture. “Wine brings us closer to the secrets of life!”
Throughout history consumption of wine has been based on responsibility; use with joy and do not abuse, and this is the message is what we need to pass on to new consumers. He even went as far as to comparing the Muslim prohibition of wine with the American Prohibition (1919-1933) giving the same side effects on culture and continued explaining that passing a glass of wine round amongst friends was in ancient times seem as sharing a part of God. That through wine God transcends to earth and passes on his heavenly powers to us. Wine is the blood of Christ and both in ancient Greek and Jewish culture wine was seen as something divine, as God.
He said that we Europeans as inhabitants of this ancient culture have always brought these values with us wherever we went. Back in ancient times vines were planted or wine shipped wherever we set foot. Wine has always been following the European people and culture around the world. Even Columbus planted vines in the “New World”! Wine was THE noble drink at that time as today and a deeply integrated part of our culture.
The only reason for wine not to have spread too far east is because of the Eastern culture of the magic plant of rice (magic because it is useful in both liquid and solid form) and then as still today is used in both liquid form, fermented into different kinds of rice wine and distillates and in solid form as the base ingredient in the diet.
Jean-Robert Pitte then moved on by asking us to see the globalization as something positive and that we should never see China’s wine production as a danger but more as a positive process that is helping us spreading the culture of wine also to the Eastern part of the world.
He then came back to the earlier mentioned subject of the wine culture being in danger. The wine consumption in the traditional producing countries is going down and wine is more and more seen “just” as an alcoholic beverage and therefore unhealthy and dangerous. He emphasized again the need to distinguish between enjoyment of wine and abuse of spirits and drugs and once more drew parallels between today’s movement against alcohol and the American prohibition. There is need for attention here! Wine consumption is going down in countries with an ancient culture about wine, but in the same countries we see increasing problems with alcoholism. These problems need to be attended. Spain has seen a 40% decrease in wine consumption over the last 5 years but at the same time an increase of cardiovascular diseases… There is a huge and urgent need for lobbying activity to combine wine-food-culture-music etc… We need to struggle to keep the “old” virtues.
The seminar was finished with following comment from N.K. Yong, former heart surgeon from Singapore and wine lover saying that we already have enough facts proofing that wine helps against cardiovascular diseases… We just have to use these facts!
Seminar 9: Olivier Humbrecht, biodynamic in viticulture.
Oliver Humbrecht, Master of Wine and winemaker at Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, is also the president of SIVCBD, Syndicat International des Vignerons en Culture Bio-Dynamique/ECOVIN. He started giving us a few facts about the CIVCBD and then a brief introduction to the history and philosophy behind biodynamic and in particular Rudolf Steiner’s holistic ideas of a nature in balance. He then told us his own story of how he became interested in the biodynamic viticulture. He himself in the begining had no idea about biodynamic but experimentally began reducing chemical treatments and increasing the use of natural compost and some biodynamic treatments just after taking over the family estate. He immediately obtained good results but did not understand why, but anyhow decided in 1996-1998 to make a total conversion to biodynamic.
He explained biodynamic as a way of understanding the nature, but not always scientifically. The biodynamic theories are based on ancient mythology and perception of the nature and origin of life, but he himself has decided to take a more practical approach to biodynamic, simply because he can see that it works and is continually trying to get a better understanding of why it is so. Olivier Humbrecht emphasized that he did not chose biodynamic because it was fashionable, but because he wanted to preserve the fertility of the soil. He said that it is important to understand the physiology of the plant and its surroundings and explained that a plant is an unconscious organism created of the elements water and mineral and that we by adding “conscience” =the element fire can create humanity and balance. He also explained the symbolism of plants that are used to classify them into different groups according to their characteristics. He also touched the symbolism and influence of the planets briefly but again said that he could not explain completely why and how it all works but just that it gives him really good results!
He then went on to Rudolf Steiner’s theory of up-grading soil and plant life by adding mineral/vegetal/animal products = the “bio” part and the application of these preparations according to the annual cycle = the “dynamic” part. He said that the idea behind dissolving cows dung, left in a horn underground all winter, in water and spraying this onto the vines is that this water is brought to life, it has become dynamized! That you are transferring the power of the soil and earth to the plant.
He said that he in 2003 made an experiment of using this above mentioned biodynamic preparation called “500” in one vineyard and conventional preparations in another and saw a huge difference and tried to explain it the following way: The molecules in the cow’s dung change over winter and they start acting like a carrier of energy and as a message bringer from the soil. This message and energy is then absorbed by the water as the dung is dissolved and the message from the soil is finally received by the plant as the “dynamized water” is sprayed onto them. He here briefly mentioned that Sulphur is a natural mineral from the core of the Earth and is ok in limited amounts.
He also mentioned a study of molecules in conventionally and biodynamically grown wines. The result here was that they reacted very differently. For example were the tannins more healthy in the biodynamically grown grapes; they were more mature and properly ripe.
The seminar ended with a question about the costs of changing to biodynamic and Olivier Humbrecht said that he had had to increase staff from 6 to 24 persons plus that the biodynamic treatments were more expensive than conventional treatments, but that the increase of costs was most heavy in the beginning and that it in the long run was a matter of habit.
Seminar 10: Stephane Derenoncourt & Patrick Sabaté, new technologies of the wine world; vineyard and cellar & Cork; what will be the future?
Stephane Derenoncourt opened his seminar speaking about the general opinion and reaction towards new technologies. That some people believing in emotional/ traditional knowledge are always very reluctant and other people believing in scientific knowledge are more open and have a greater interest in new developments.
He explained us that the first real change in winemaking techniques and equipment and the mindset towards these came, in his region of Bordeaux, just after 1st World War with people abandoning imperial knowledge and adapting more to scientific knowledge. However; there was at this time a great problem with transport of knowledge, which meant that even the most useful new techniques and discoveries did not get out to a bigger group of producers very quickly.
This general change of mind-set led into a period of a lot of “testing” with new techniques and approach to fertilizers etc which eventually resulted in many bad wines flooding the market. This led to a demand from consumers and retailers for better wines and caused a movement for quality and we see that from the vintage 1982 and onwards there has been a big focus on quality.
A “new” generation of winemakers, amongst others Stephan Neipperg and Hubert de Boüard, started replanting using new spacing principles in the vineyards, new training methods and also new techniques in the cellar. For example was the first “green harvest” done at Canon-Gaffeliere in 1995. It became more and more common to do a thinning of the leaves to makes grapes visible in order to make it possible to do a better selection of grapes. This technique of thinning the leaves also made it easier to better manage the ripeness of the grapes and in addition sorting tables (even with vibration) was introduced at this time in the search for better quality. A 3rd effect of the leaf thinning was better ventilation within the plant and therefore fewer problems with diseases. Mechanical de-stemmers took over from manual de-stemming and became more and more popular.
Then came the era of the “garage-wines” with only 3-4 HA used for the production of one single wine in the search for perfection. Many of these wines were “technical wines” made by people that wanted to make themselves interesting and was experimenting at max.
Today many of all these techniques are common practice and even leaf thinning and harvest is done mechanically to a great extend. It is getting more and difficult to taste the difference between wines made from hand and machine processed grapes and there are sometimes no differences at all.
Now he asked the question could be if we can make better wines with machines and techniques? This a cultural issue and has to be given much attention. We can today alter a wine in almost any way we wish, but is it correct to do so? Do we want wine to be a natural or a man-made “technical” product?
There is today a big difference in-between the small and the big estates when it comes to technical equipment as this is very expensive; so it is most often a question of who has the money to renew equipment and not only who wants to produce “technical” or “natural” wines.
A positive result of all this has been the rise of a new spiritual movement amongst both winemakers and consumers looking to find the perfect balance between modern and handmade.
Here Patrick Sabaté took over and gave us an overview of the news from the cork business. He said that he as cork producer wanted to give the best service possible when it comes to finding the right cork for the wine in question and that there today is being heavily invested in organic cork plantations to be able to supply the industry with certified clean organic corks. Today it is possible to clean or treat corks with oxygenated water to remove any risk for TCA, but we do not know the long-term effect of this treatment and a 100% non-chemical alternative needs to be found.
There is a global trend for sustainable solutions and finding a future proof solution for pure and clean cork is very much needed and possible indeed… We have today both the knowledge and techniques needed to produce TCA free corks…
The seminar ended with a discussion about the question whether today’s “great” vintages will last as well and develop the same way as the great old vintages? If the “technically” correct wines of today has the same ageing potential as the “traditionally” made wines?
Seminar 11: Christian Roger, wine & money.
Christian Roger began explaining about his own start in this field of fine wine as investment and explained that it all started with the urge of creating a structure for investing in high quality wine, to use investment as back-up for buying entire or parts of cellars or even single cases and bottles. His first wine fund was quite small but now after the creation of many additional funds he is running one of Europe’s biggest existing funds, the SICAV in Luxembourg. Now, how can investment in fine wine be structured taking the great price variation that exists into consideration? He said that by only in the ”crème de la crème”, only about 150 different labels, but in many different vintages a certain stability of investment is possible. He does not buy en-primeur and sell before the wines are released, but keep wines for a longer period of time till they are ready to drink and at their optimum. He however, focuses mainly on the great vintages of the greatest wines and not so much on the en-primeur business. Storage conditions need to be impeccable as many wines stay for a very long period of time in the cellar before either sold again at perfect maturity state.
Wine is a unique product; the only agro-food product without expiration. A product with no immediate decay due to oxidation and a product that improves over long time. His focus is on long-lived wines, as the rarity of the finest wines in the world play a significant role over time. He came here with the example of the huge price difference in-between Sassicaia 1985(800-1000€) & 1986 (100€) that is caused mainly by the much smaller amount of bottles of the 85 available and not so much the actual quality of the vintage.
The market of collector/rare wines is very particular. The supply cannot be increased and the number of bottles produced in e.g. Bordeaux and Burgundy will not increase in the future, but the demand is increasing. All these factors influence the potential of wine as an investment option.
One of Christian Roger’s newest ideas has been to offer some of the world best restaurants to store a selection the investment wines at their premises to be able to offer some of the worlds finest and rarest wine to their customers and then only pay for the bottles as they are sold. This kind of selling under consignment is a great help for the restaurants and a more dynamic way of creating value within the funds.
Then the moderator Paolo Cristofolini, an investor from Monaco took over and stated that the main purpose of wine investment is to make money! And that any bottle should therefore be sold when the price is at its highest and not necessarily when the wine itself is. The price and quality of a wine does not always match, but that the supply and demand determines the prices. The normal investment horisont is 3-25 years and prices of bottles depends on rarity and reputation, not only the actual quality of the wine. Investment wines represents a very limited part of the entire wine production and the market defines prices. The nature of an investment fund is to guarantee value over the investment time and to eliminate risks and therefore wines should be sold when the prices are at the highest!
This seminar ended with Paolo Cristofolini asking if wine funds would have existed if Robert Parker did not exist, whereto Christian Roger said yes and Paolo Cristifolini said no!
Two indeed very different approaches to wine as an investment object.
Seminar 12: Yair Haidu, “HAIDU”; a major new development on the internet.
Yair Haidu was here to present for us his great new project of the worlds wine platform “HAIDU”. As a child of a generation that wants to grow and advance he created this idea out of a need on the market, a need for a platform, not a site nor a portal. A platform that shares content, not sale nor rating of wine. A platform that contains all key information a wine lover needs when he goes travelling! Tasting –travelling – dining… Restaurants will be rated according to wine approach for the first time; selection, prices, glassware etc.
HAIDU will be a new great tool for wineries to communicate directly with their end consumers; a B2B2C or CRM (customer relations management) tool. Then now, how does this work?
It is a multilayered structure covering all information needed and only this. Some years ago we had to search for information, but today we have to sort in information to find what is relevant to us. This overload of un-useful information has been eliminated on the revolutionary platform of HAIDU that consists of interlinked layers about wineries, restaurants, hotels, tastings, information etc.
HAIDU builds on an open source system and will allow you to book visits at wineries, find the nearby hotels and restaurants, or even restaurants selling the wines from the winery you just visited, all over the world. It will be able to help you find wine tastings in the area you are visiting, information about winemakers, chefs and articles from local wine writers and will be able to recommend you alternative wineries and restaurants to visit based on your preferences.
HAIDU will be launched first with all content in English and French and will be translated completely into 10 different languages before 2014. The local content and articles will be written by a selected group of journalists from each country that in this way will be able to get their works published all over the world in several different languages. In this way all content will be added on a win-win basis. You as user of HAIDU will be able to decide exactly what information and content is relevant for you and you will also be able to follow what your network does. All content will be protected and you will never receive information that you did not ask for or need.
The vision behind HAIDU is to create a trustworthy platform to increase the amount of people that want to learn more about wine. To spread the passion and knowledge about wine… To grow wine into a life style! To create a worldwide community sharing the same passion.