I don’t normally comment on current news in my blog – but the announcement of a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for wines from Sussex in southern England [https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/06/sussex-sparkling-wine-granted-pdo-status/] merits a comment, as a retrograde step for English and Welsh sparkling wine production. The mistake is a nuanced one – but it’s very significant, and shows a failure of cultural understanding, which is where I become interested.
PDOs in Europe are broadly about the ecosystem of the vine – what might be called terroir. They may be vast (Champagne, or AC Cotes du Rhone) or small (Pauillac or Le Montrachet) but they are about what gives a wine their style. The same is true of Chianti, Rioja, and the Pfalz. A large PDO like Champagne cuts across four departements (French counties) and two very distinct regions. Le Montrachet is a vineyard split between two villages and Rioja includes three administrative regions of Spain. Yet they share common climatic (and often geological) features, use the same grape varieties and have a common culture of production – of what they are trying to make and how they are in fact making it.
The Sussex PDO is not like that. Its boundaries are East and West Sussex – not rooted in environment per se but stretching back to tribal identity in Anglo-Saxon England and then medieval local organisation. Yet the assumption is that because this is where local authorities are based, this is where wine will have a common character.
This is not just an Old World worry (even if it may be a first world problem!). The Carneros AVA at the north of San Francisco Bay traverses two counties – Napa and Sonoma – because both parts of those counties share a specific climatic effect. Margaret River was established across two often competing shires because from Karridale to Dunsborough there are broadly similar environmental characteristics. Gimblett Gravels in New Zealand is small part of Hawkes Bay (about 800 hectares) with its own legal protection because of a specific alluvial soil. Sussex PDO has none of this: does Tinwood (to the west and fairly coastal) really have more in common with Oastbrook, (90 kilometres to the east, right in the middle of the Weald and inland) than with Hambledon in Hampshire (like Tinwood, on the edge of the South Downs National Park)? And surely Oastbrook shares much more with the Kent vineyards around the Weald such as Harbourne. A Sussex PDO merely tries to fit the subtleties of regional wine styles into a politician’s or administrator’s worldview which is a recipe neither for accuracy nor success. (Think about how Italian politicians and bureaucrats meddling in DOC and DOCG provisions has created a history of oenological failure).
There is, however, a bigger reason why this matters, and that is ‘the’ consumer. Consumers are just getting used to sparkling wine from Great Britain. They don’t have the means yet – nor even more the desire – to explore regional differences. Only 25 years on from the first success for Nyetimber the key task for the English and Welsh wine industry is to establish, in the minds of consumers, their sparkling wine as the great wine which it can be. That goal is well underway but it is nowhere near finished – especially given the pricing of the wines. This aim is fundamental, and anything which confuses the issue just detracts from that key marketing goal.
Finding out what differentiates wine from different places takes time. Margaret River was first planted in 1967 and only now are wine producers beginning to see the sub-regional differences in wine styles. In Burgundy it took hundreds of years to see to those variations clearly (and it is still being worked on). English and Welsh wine producers are beginning to understand some of these differences slowly but to impose a PDO at this stage (particularly one based on administrative boundaries) is just a distraction from the bigger question
[Warning – this is quite a long post and may take a bit of
your time. But it’s about an important
issue, relevant to social and economic change in many emerging wine regions.]
I had a long and very comprehensive talk with Markos
Kafouros, the President of Santo Wines, on Santorini. Santo are the cooperative on the island, and
unlike cooperative wine producers in many parts of the world the wines they
make are the equal in general quality of other, private producers; like all the
others they make a crisp but full-bodied white wine mainly from the variety
assyrtiko – and it has carved out a very distinctive place in the affections of
many wine lovers over the last decade or so.
In spite of this, what was interesting me was less the wine and more the
social change taking place in Santorini and how it might be affecting the wine
industry there.
Mr Kafouros is a grower; he is elected President of the
cooperative by a complex process which involves all of the 1,200 members. He has been in this post for twelve
years. He was also for eight years a
local mayor, a fact which is relevant to what follows.
We sat on the terrace at the cooperative, overlooking the
caldera of Santorini. Around 1,600 BCE
Santorini – which was a medium-sized roundish island towards the south of the
Aegean – was blown apart by a volcano, leaving a horseshoe-shaped remnant
remaining around the crater where the volcano had erupted. The island itself was covered in a layer of
volcanic ash followed by lava. It is
possible that no-one survived, and the devastation inflicted was much wider,
reaching at least down to Crete and possibly to Africa.
On the terrace of the caldera with Markos Kafouros. The island in the immediate foreground is the result of further eruptions of the volcano over the centuries. Picture courtesy of Stela Kasiola.
Since the 1990s the wine industry has rapidly developed on
the back of a great local variety – assyrtiko.
In this period Santorini has also become a prime tourist destination –
renowned for the views into the caldera and for its white and blue painted
churches. Santo Wines opened the first
cellar door on the island in 1992 and others have followed since then –
although wine isn’t the main focus of most visitors. Nevertheless, for example, another producer,
Estate Argyros, has around 30,000 visitors a year.
As Mr Kafouros recounts, the cooperative exists very much to
preserve the unique agricultural traditions of the island. As well as wine, it has a small production of
fava beans (a form of lentil) and tomatoes (turned into tomato paste) – both
specialities of the place and protected by PDO legislation, just like the
wine. These are all nurtured out of one
of the toughest agricultural environments available; an arid combination of the
hardest imaginable rock plus ash under your feet, the sun engulfing you from
above and strong winds whipping off the sea from all sides. The cooperative believes in innovation and
careful planning – but all towards the end of preserving what has been the
traditional business activity of its 1,200 members. ‘Innovation’, I’m told, ‘cannot stand on its
own; it needs history’. It also needs a
specific environment – the ecosystem that has been created by millennia of
volcanic activity.
Into this unique little world has stepped the tourist. Maybe two million of them a year (while the
resident population is under 30,000).
Like a volcanic eruption this has blown apart the human ecosystem of the
island. Hotels are everywhere, as are
restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops.
Driving through the narrow streets of Fira, the main town, has become an
exercise in total focus to avoid other cars, mules, pedestrians, and quad
bikes. In response to this rapid change
the cooperative does not just see itself as protecting the island’s traditional
products but also its community. Nevertheless,
it seems to me that such a response avoids dealing with the key issue of the
rapidly developing infrastructure and its infringement on the land available
for agriculture in the area.
Markos Kafouros accepts that. He points out though that there are three
levels beyond the wine industry: national and local government, and the local
community. They have attempted to review
the impact and potential development of tourism on the island – but national
and local governments change, and their agendas and priorities change. Some legislation has been passed at national
level to allow general zoning to protect agricultural land, but it is very
broad and perhaps unsuited to dealing with the specific situations which may
arise here. Meanwhile the cooperative is
trying to provide incentives to members to stay in agriculture – mainly by
paying its members a high price for the grapes they deliver – around 5€ per
kilo – making this probably the second most expensive region for grapes in
Europe after Champagne. Furthermore, he
says, the growers remain emotionally attached to their land – and they are
proud that their grapes, which had no market outside the island a decade ago,
are making wines sold in the best restaurants in New York and Melbourne or
being praised by the top British and German critics.
I’m still not convinced.
Crucially, why would growers continuing back-breaking work in the heat
and wind of the island if they could sell their small plot of vineyard land for
a few hundred thousand euros?
Traditionally small-scale agriculturalists in Southern Europe would not
sell. Partly because their land was
their security but even more because of a cultural view that they were not
owners of the land, but stewards of it.
They had inherited it from their forebears and had to keep it to pass on
to their descendants. Now, however,
their children are reluctant to take on strenuous work in the vineyard when
they can get easier employment in hotels or gift shops – and many would prefer
to get a better job in Athens or beyond if they can. Even more, tourism has kept the island going
through the decade of Greek austerity – indeed, it has become more prosperous
while the rest of the country has struggled.
The wine industry has also grown over this period. This is not just the rise in grape price but
the fact that outsiders have been coming in to start their own wineries; now it
is almost as if there is a ‘waiting list’ of companies who want to move in,
just waiting for some land to come onto the market so they can buy it. This has a positive side – it can help to
guarantee a good grape price for growers and it brings in more capital. On the other hand, the incomers may have less
understanding of how to make wines from such a bizarre terrain and may be less
committed to working mutually with the existing producers. Big companies,
especially, in such a limited vineyard area may push the boundaries of where
vines should be grown, pursuing quantity over quality. This wouldn’t be the first emergent wine
region where this has happened. As
Markos expresses it succinctly, the Santo philosophy is ‘not to be in all the
markets in the world but to be in the best markets.’
So how can you help to protect the wine industry? One way would be to strengthen the PDO
regulations on production. My host wants
to have a rule that all wines must be bottled on the island (traditionally
bottling in the region of origin is assumed to protect quality). He would also like to develop a cru system
(selected top-quality vineyard land) to enable the best wines to be
identified. And to improve the island’s
reputation for quality he would like to reduce the maximum yield allowed –
maybe by up to 25%.
Another possibility that has been suggested is seeking
UNESCO world heritage designation for the island’s unique vineyards – a
recognition of an interaction between humans and their environment. When I was last in Santorini, about six years
ago this was being mooted – but I was told at the time that many local growers
didn’t want it, as it would limit their rights to sell their dry, dusty,
rock-bestrewn land for a small fortune to local developers. But the proposal was worked-up by the local
authority and a file has been lodged with the national government, who have to
decide whether or not to promote it.
They are now about 3-4 years into what could take ten years or
more. But there is a Greek saying
according to Mr Kafouros that ‘the start is half of the whole’. If it’s granted this designation will create
a series of legal constraints on development in the designated area, and
protection of what humanity has carved out of the rock over the last three and
a half millennia. He accepts that there are
a few who oppose the idea but suggests that the problem is not with individual
growers, but some opinion leaders who manipulate them – mainly people outside
the wine industry. So the process is in
motion – it remains to be seen if it will be successful. Critically, he feels that they will only move
forward by discussion and education (the Greek is paideia, which I’m told has dimensions of culture and understanding
in it as well). This will be one of the
chief roles of the cooperative.
All in all, a fascinating conversation with a very
thoughtful man. The cooperative is lucky
to have such a balanced and engaged person providing a vision for their future. As well as producing grapes which he sells to
the cooperative, he also has some tomatoes and fava beans as well – and is a
bee keeper, hoping that maybe in the future there will be a PDO for island
honey. His father is 87, and still works
each day in the family vineyards from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Thanks to Stela Kasiola who translated our
discussion and added a few insights of her own as well.
Wine, Culture & Society 