I love wine movies. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is curled up with my wife, sharing a bottle of good wine. By the end of the film, if the match works, the wine is often wedded with the film in such a way that when I think of one, the other is not far behind.

I say this because I don’t believe anyone, and I include myself, has EVER sat down with a bottle of wine or bowl of popcorn to watch your winery’s website video intro, the one that pops up annoyingly when I want to find something specific on your website. Your website is a tool to transfer information, not a place to hangout and watch movies. And it never will be. Your “wine movie” is not primarily about entertainment, it will not engage consumers emotionally. Let’s face it, it is not going to win an oscar or do anything to sell more of your wine. No one wants to watch these wine movies.

However, a winery can still benefit from the movies. The wine I open for a movie is often selected based on the mood of the movie, or the emotion of the evening. Romantic dramas might suggest a more elegant wine, or you might prefer a muscular Cabernet for the raw-meat of a classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

I want wineries to take the “think different” challenge. Don’t plan the film that you want to make about yourself and your wines, think instead of the movies that have already been made. This weekend, for example, try those that are up for an Academy Award (Oscar). Why not tell us which of the films is the best match for your wine – then cheerlead for it? Do some wine and movie pairings, then challenge your mailing lists to offer up better suggestions then link to a place to buy films or rent them online. Maybe even offer an “Oscar pack” of wines for the winning movies. Why not?

And to all you bloggers and engaged consumers, why not challenge yourselves to a movie and wine pairing event? You can match wine and films based on mood, labels, names, styles, even by the names of the winemaker. How would YOU  go about doing this?

It’s been a while since my last movie marathon with friends, but this could be a great way to do it again. Dim the lights, make some snacks and pair some movies!

Here’s a couple to get you started from all of us at Vrazon:

• “The Iron Lady” and Blue Nun – because the once great, popular lady in blue is now a bit frayed and confused. (Robert)
• “The Crying Game”  and any good Blanc de Noir – Not everything is what it seems to be, and yet it can still stir your emotions. (Ryan)

and of course what list would be complete without…

• “Silence of the Lambs” and a Good Chianti (or Amarone, if you read the book) – No explanation needed…though choose your accompaniments carefully!

If you have any ideas, especially if you are a winery and think there is a film that expresses your wine’s personality, tell us about it in the comments below.

Cheers, Ryan

Note: The Academy Awards take place this Sunday, February 26th 2012 at 19:00 Eastern US time (02:00 Central European Time)

Here’s a list of the main category finalists to get you started:

Some writers or creators of video, audio, photography and other media, are consistently good. They might get noticed for their overall contribution – such as blog awards that take into account an entire blog’s output over a year. They deserve these awards for their great efforts, but few of us are sufficiently dedicated to compete with them, and even these awards are often limited to single languages or countries.

Unfortunately that means that some of the best content is lost or ignored.

So Gabriella, Ryan and I decided to do something about it, and it took quite a while to work out how we would do it.

If you follow the various projects I am involved in, you may have heard of the Born Digital Wine Awards (or #bdwa). These awards recognise individual pieces of work about wine (initially for articles or videos but we are looking to expand into audio and photography next year) in ANY language, that were specifically created for online publication. We want to showcase the best stuff, wherever it was published, on its own merits (i.e not only if you happened to publish 51 other posts that year), and promote those who are doing something that benefits lots of wine lovers around the world by being available online, hopefully, but not exclusively, free to all.

As well as getting a broader audience for this material, there are great prizes which will include a substantial cash prize for the winners in each category and valuable runner-up prizes too.

SUBMIT YOUR BEST STUFF

This is NOT a popularity contest with votes and canvassing that favours established bloggers. This is a contest for the content creators and so it needs the authors to submit up to 3 of their own articles. If this is YOU, then submit your articles STRAIGHT AWAY as the deadline is 28 February 2011. You cannot nominate others, but we strongly encourage you to dig out your favourites from 2010 and leave them comments, or send them emails, to tell them to participate.

Visit the awards site to read all about the award categories, and the illustrious judging panel (that does not include us), and PLEASE enter your favourite materials. We have already received a great many entries in at least half a dozen different languages, but we’d love to see as many as we can in this launch year.

We hope that by this time next year we will have helped wine lovers to find a treasure trove of new wine content, and be building a way to incentivise, and reward, those who are building and sharing the online wine culture.

Related articles

• Born Digital Wine Awards – a new prize for online wine communications (bkwineblog.blogspot.com)
• Writing under the influence of twitter (wineconversation.com)
• “Every wine tells a story”. Not your boring old wine book… (winesleuth.wordpress.com)
• What do we mean when we say “born digital”? (hangingtogether.org)

First, the BIVB event. I went to hear how the BIVB presented itself, the diversity of offerings from Burgundy (at Village level) and maybe try a few of the seemingly popular 2009 Burgundies. The presentation was simultaneously familiar, yet surprising, but more on that soon. The 2007 & 2008 wines they showed were really good, but I can’t help feeling that if they lost that chip off their shoulder about their superiority, consumers might be more forthcoming.

However, the most memorable aspect (above and beyond the very few 2009′s that I tasted, which to be honest were not as impressive as I had expected) was the fact that a light in the Old Billingsgate gantry decided to overheat and burst into flame. Not sure if people were more concerned for their safety and that of the building, or the impact it was having on their ability to smell the wines. However, I left as we were being (temporarily) evacuated. Here are a few snaps I took of the offending light.

I moved on to the Oregon & Washington tasting instead, and arriving earlier than planned, was lucky to take part in a comparative tasting of some TOP Washington Cabernet Sauvignon wines from 2007 and 1997. Here are my tweets:

• Ch. St. Michelle Cold Creek 07: chalky, soft tannins but a big sweet, dark ripe fruit body. Slightly reductive nose. Years to go
• Ch. St. Michelle Cold Creek 97: lots of tertiary character on nose, tannins nicely integrated. Sweet spice. Elegant, almost floral, wine
• Seven Hills, Klipsun Vineyard, 07: v. Young, plum & White pepper nose, sweet, dark fruit and liquorice root
• Seven Hills, Klipsun Vinyrd, 97: smells of Campari (bitter edge, spirity), sweet fruit masked by acidity & tannin, maybe falling away? [I decided later it was actually Averna it smelled of - a herbal digestive drink]
• L’Ecole No41 Pepper Bridge 07: Pepper (yes), blackcurrant nose and christmas spice, chalky, rounded taste. V. Nice
• L’Ecole No41 Pepper Bridge 97: very nicely integrated, juicy, tasty wine. Well developed. My fave I think
• Woodward Canyon Old Vines 07: mocha, vanilla nose. V soft, opulent tannins. BIG! needs age
• Woodward Canyon Old Vines 97: herbal, all spice nose and hint of damp. Real herbal edge to taste. A little overpowering
• Overall impression of Washington Cabs: REALLY benefit from age, they’re full flavoured, not full bodied, wines. Know your AVAs

As you might expect really, the extra time has been very positive for these wines. The shame is that as you drink the 1997s you really notice how young and un-ready even the 2007′s are, but that is how they are being experienced by the consumer. Wineries … hold on to your stocks a little longer! Your importers and retailers cannot do it, and it is your wines and your eventual customer that will benefit.

A memorable day in lots of ways.

Is it the tools, technology and modern training received from experts at the best wine colleges? Or might it be the fact that when they walk through a grove, crunching the remains of Autumn leaves underfoot, to the sounds of the local church bell down the hill, they know the fact that the trees are exactly 107 years old because their grandparents planted them to celebrate their wedding?

Vasco Croft at Afros

Does a biodynamic vintner make better wine because (s)he follows this particular regime, … or does the biodynamic respect for nature stem from a connection to that land that the vintner already has?

This was my second meeting with Vasco Croft of Afros Wine, the first being a Vinho Verde tasting in London where I was rather taken by his wines. This time we met at his estate on a visit during the Wines of Portugal International Conference (#WoPIC) in 2010.

By the way, Vasco, as a fellow visitor remarked, has more than a passing resemblance to a young Richard Gere and certainly seems to embody the ‘vitality’ that biodynamic followers like to discuss. He looks like he could move seamlessly from the winery to leading a local yoga masterclass.

I was taken by the sounds of his place. I’ve been to many wineries recently, from the large and clinical to the small and haphazard. This place was more ‘natural’, more suited to the translation of ‘Adegga’ as ‘farm’ rather than the grander wine term ‘estate’.

There may have been 30 people there, but you could still FEEL the calm, seeing the mountain horses and sheep allowed to roam freely in the vineyards and hearing the specially designed fountain sculpture ‘dynamising’ the water used in the winery and vineyard.

After a brief outdoor tour, past the edges of the vineyards, through the special room for biodynamic preparations, past the fountain and into the grove, we finally entered the recently completed tasting room. Here we matched the rather individual Afros wines to a menu specially designed by the kitchen team at Ferrugem (a well respected local restaurant) that, like the wines, take traditional materials and delivered them in an exciting way.

Our first experience was to match the delicate mouse and fragrantly biscuity Afros Espumante Reserva Loureiro 2007 (sparkling wine) with a spoon of “sarrabulho* sweet, Reineta apple puree and caviar of cherry tomatoes”. Arguably the food flavours were a little strong for the wine, but both were excellent.

Sarrabulho sweet and caviar of cherry tomatoes

Next was a superb take on a classic: Pastel de (Bacalhau com) Nata – a light pastry which instead of the traditional sweet cream, was filled with creamy, savoury cod in order to match the floral, crisp Afros white made from the Loureiro grape, Afros Loureiro 2009. A stunning combination, not just of the salty food and crisp wine, but also the creamy softness of the food accentuated the structure of the white wine. Wow!

We followed this with a surprising combination of  red Vinho Verde, made from a grape no-one thought could make ‘proper’ wine, the 2010 Afros Vinhao, with Caldo Verde soup (based on potato and cabbage I think). Lovely! The wine was intense, with that ‘purple’, inky, sharp character I associate with teinturier grapes (with red flesh) but also fresh, with a fruity character of crisp blueberries, red currants and pepper.

Next was the surprising Afros Espumante Reserva Vinhão 2006 sparkling red, made from the same Vinhao grapes, but further enhanced by the second fermentation that rounded out the palate with some yeasty character but also had the bubbles to bring out the fruity aromatics. We matched this to chef’s local equivalent of a ‘surf and turf’ dish of octopus, chestnut and red pepper sauce. So many flavours but well complemented by the wine.

polvo com tinta(o)

It is heartening to see a small business balancing a very modern outlook with a natural approach in a traditional context. Biodynamics, from a traditional ‘estate’ but made with an eye on an international consumer.

This is a small estate, and one of the very few registered biodynamic producers in the whole of the country, but I hope it represents a new wave of ‘artisan’ winemakers that will gain international and national recognition for their dedication, and will raise the profile and standing of their region and country.

Well done Vasco, and well done Portugal

p.s. lots more food and vineyard photos if you see the full set above or click through to my Afros photos on flickr

*as far as I can tell this is a dish made in the style of black pudding, but I have been unable to find out much more – it essentially was a blood-pudding meatball

Related articles

• Forthcoming From Reign of Terroir (reignofterroir.com)
• A Vindima: A Geologist’s Take on the Grape Harvest in the Minho (catavino.net)
• Historical Wines Of Portugal Documentary Update (reignofterroir.com)
• A snappy wine for a fish dish (brettthewinemaestro.wordpress.com)
• Vinho Verde (wine-by-benito.blogspot.com)
• Vinho Verde Wine Selection Reverts to Regional Portuguese Recipe (catavino.net)

I should warn you now, I am a dedicated proponent of a non-communicable disease.

There is only ALCOHOL!

The debate has been stirred by a report by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs advisor, published in The Lancet called “Drug harms in the UK“. However, it continues a debate we had at the recent European Wine Bloggers Conference as well, on “Freedoms, Rights and Responsibilities”.

What I discovered in that very interesting session in Vienna, with presentations by Adam Watson-Brown (Information Society & Media Department, EU Commission), George Sandeman (representing Wine In Moderation) and Ken Payton (blogger at Reign of Terroir), was exactly how governments and official bodies think of alcohol – and it makes a BIG difference in understanding their approach to the debate.

In this debate, there is no “Wine”. There are no “Spirits”. There are no “Alcopops”, “RTDs“, “artisanal cordials” or even “record-breaking alcoholic beverages”. There is no ‘good alcohol’ or ‘bad alcohol’. There is only ALCOHOL!

ALCOHOL is not a feature of a beverage, a natural by-product of age-old techniques, nor even an industrial process. Alcohol is a drug, and its consumption is a ”non-communicable disease”.

“The World Health Report 2002: Reducing risks, promoting healthy life, identifies five important risk factors for non-communicable disease in the top ten leading risks to health. These are raised blood pressure, raised cholesterol, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and overweight.” WHO fact sheet No. 273

In other words alcohol is seen as a disease to be eradicated.

It is like banning bridges because they can be used to jump off

Before I go further, let me state that I agree that alcohol abuse is a problem is many societies, and a factor in many problems, but I believe alcohol is also very different from most of the other drugs listed in Prof. Nutt’s study and so this debate is very ‘unhealthy’. Let me explain how.

The chart we have all seen today is this:

This illustrates that, according to a long list of criteria relating to the harm to the individual and also harm to society, and its widespread consumption, alcohol comes top of the list, delivering to the world’s media the nicely controversial headline: “Alcohol is more harmful than heroine“.

What this chart, and this way of thinking completely misses, in my opinion, is that this is only half of the story. It is like banning bridges because they can be used to jump off.

Take a look again at the list, but from a different perspective. Which of these items listed CONTRIBUTE to individuals and society, if any? Where are the BENEFITS? I think most of us would be very hard pressed to say that Crack, Methylamphetamine and Heroine contribute to society in any meaningful way. [Heroine is interesting. Unlike 'Alcohol', this chart doesn't list 'Opiates' where Heroine = BAD but medically administered Morphine = GOOD]. However, the two ‘legal’ drugs on the list, Tobacco and Alcohol do.

Another look at Nutt Report on drugs and alcohol

[note: this is my crude attempt at modifying the graph, sourced from The Lancet, for illustration only]

(I’m not going to make the case for Tobacco, others can do that, but even here there are some benefits to society from taxation, even if they are outweighed by the costs.)

But alcohol IS different.

Let’s take wine, but you could argue a similar case for beer and some spirits too. The benefits include:

• Huge revenue streams from Duty & VAT receipts to the Treasury
• Vast numbers of people employed in production, supply, retail, marketing and distribution (not just winemakers, but bar and pub owners & staff, importers, wine shop assistants, glass manufacturers, cork companies, shipping companies, label printers, designers, journalists, educators, etc.)
• Sustainable environmental benefits from land cultivated, often where little else would be viable, and people making a living in rural areas instead of moving to cities
• Developing tourism infrastructure around regions dependent on wine production
• Thousands of years of historic and cultural legacies in production and consumption

I’m not even going to touch on the contentious issue of potential individual health benefits from moderate drinking.

I am not in a position to quantify these benefits, but others such as the WSTA might. However, it is obvious that these benefits do exist.

One of the main reasons this needs to be taken into account is because the blunt weapons of punitive taxation and medical warnings can disproportionately reduce the BENEFITS instead of reducing the harm. Raising taxes on alcohol might cut consumption rates, but it also costs jobs and tax revenue. It reduces the margin and incentive to increase quality for retailers and producers because their products are less affordable. This benefits large brands less connected to any local, cultural investments and driven by sales volume growth (which is the opposite of the policy’s aim).

It won’t be just those who are abusing alcohol the most that are affected, but everyone else as well. The approach is backfiring. We already have some of the highest taxes in the world, yet their own evidence shows that things are still not improving.

We have to change the rules of the debate they have set

I went to the EWBC hoping to make the point that wine blogging can have a positive impact on society, through education and reconnecting consumers with the cultural roots of wine enjoyment so that alcohol may be consumed responsibly. I realised, sadly, that the anti-alcohol lobby wasn’t just ignoring us, we weren’t even speaking the same language.

So, how do we engage with the discussion? We have to change the rules of the debate they have set. It is a time for much more concerted efforts by wine lovers and wine businesses.

Unfortunately, printing messages on labels and adverts about “drinking responsibly” are not the answer.

We need clearer data on the benefits of the alcohol trade to individuals, governments, countries and regions. We need to broaden out the debate about dealing with alcohol abuse from the purely medical, to the cultural and economic areas too. And we need informed politicians willing to have a sensible debate about these points without fear of being pilloried by the media.

[UPDATE: 03/11/2010 An interesting follow-up on this debate from an NHS site is here]

Related articles

• Alcohol ‘more harmful than heroin’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Alcohol is the Most Dangerous Drug (chris.pirillo.com)
• Can we have a bit more faith in wine (wine-life.co.uk)

The level of background noise affects both the intensity of flavour and the perceived crunchiness of foods, researchers have found.

It also makes me wonder about wines. We’ve known for a while that wines don’t taste the same in the air, and I seem to recall it was assumed it had to do with air pressure, but noise also makes sense. If any of your senses is being overwhelmed, then the others will naturally be affected.

I happened to run a dB meter on a recent plane trip (“there’s an app for that”) and it registered over 90dB – that’s as loud as a petrol lawnmower … and you sit in it for hours!

On the other hand, the research also seems to point to positive aspects – where pleasant sounds increase the intensity of flavours, which is backed by anecdotal evidence of “great wine moments” you have on holiday or with a great dinner partner.

Also in the group’s findings there is the suggestion that the overall satisfaction with the food aligned with the degree to which diners liked what they were hearing – a finding the researchers are pursuing in further experiments.

It seems that we have, at least partially, now got evidence that wine drinking is a pleasure that requires all your senses, not just taste!

Certainly, airplanes are not ideal wine tasting locations for many reasons, but there’s always a good reason to keep testing!

Related articles

• Airline food blandness explained (bbc.co.uk)
• What’s That Flavor? I Can’t Taste It Over All This Noise | Discoblog (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• That Wine Tastes Great, But Could It Be The Lighting? (seriousaboutwine.co.za)
• Loud Music Doesn’t Affect Hearing as Much as Previously Thought [Audio] (gizmodo.com)

It isn’t that they CAN’T taste wines, they simply are not used to analysing what they are experiencing, often because they haven’t really bothered before.

It is a matter of education, not in the sense of classes and diplomas, but just taking the time to taste, and most importantly, SMELL things.

The importance of smell to the enjoyment of wine starts early.

I was reminded of this only yesterday morning. On our arrival at the airport (at 6 am after an overnight flight), a fellow passenger managed to smash a 1.5 litre bottle of dark rum he had bought Duty Free (probably for the best!).

I barely paid attention, though noticed ‘a’ smell.

My wife complained about the “smell of alcohol”

But my daughter (only 5, and rather hyper after the flight) said, “What was that Daddy? I think it was a bottle of vanilla. I used some with grandma and that’s what it smelled like. Why did he have a bottle of vanilla, Daddy”

She’s absolutely right. It DID smell of vanilla more than anything else (that she’s used to smelling).

When was the last time you took a second to ‘smell’ vanilla? I’m off to do it right now!

Let’s encourage kids to smell and discuss food, ingredients …  even wine … then hopefully we will all enjoy experiencing things more, even alcohol spillages at airports.

In the last few days, I’ve come to a realisation that there is something unpleasant that wine & football share, and it involves people falling over.

(Yes, this is my gratuitous World Cup post, including a tenuous, though hopefully interesting, link to wine).

I decided a long time ago, following the Heysel Stadium Disaster to be precise, that I didn’t really care for football, a.k.a. soccer (or most sports to be honest). However, I do care about sport in general, particularly with regard to making sure my kids enjoy a healthy and fun lifestyle. I do enjoy watching occasional, hopefully high quality, games at the final of big events such as Wimbledon, the Olympics and the Ryder Cup. I rarely care who wins, I just enjoy the moment, the excitement and, I hope, the spectacle of sportsmanship.

So, like I said, I don’t like football.

I did watch some of the World Cup, particularly as I had some personal stake in Spain doing well, and so I thought I would use the opportunity to let my 5 year-old daughter stay up late to watch her very first World Cup Final. What an opportunity.

What a mistake!

Fouls, dirty play, few chances and, in general, a poor showcase for the sport. She went to bed at half time excited and high on the adrenaline from the aggression rather than the quality of play.

What made it worse was the excuse by the Dutch coach saying:

“It was still our intention to play beautiful football, but we were facing a very good opponent. … We did a good job tactically on them. We got into good positions at times. It’s not our style, but you play a match to win.”

Is that what I have to tell my daughter?

It reminded me that a few days earlier we had watched 7 year old boys at her school playing football in an early morning coaching session. In the 5 minutes or so that we were there, several kids not only fell over on the ground after fairly innocuous tackles, but lay there, clutching their legs and heads in absolute agony … until it was time to take the free kick. At one point, a child literally dragged his mate off the ball by the arm, and when challenged, he uttered these words:

“But that’s what they do in football”

Who are these kids’ role models? Any guesses?*

(* If there isn’t a football equivalent of the Razzies, celebrating the most theatrical acting on the pitch, there should be)

Wine, or more generally, alcohol, suffers from a similar issue. What do kids think about wine? Where do they see it being consumed?

• On television – only when it is a major part of a plot, usually involving a drunken adult, probably doing something inappropriate, funny or violent.
• In the pub or at parties – when they may be invited along where adults, not necessarily their parents, are likely to get carried away.
• On the street – and none of us like seeing that.
• At home

If we want kids to have a healthy attitude to alcohol, we need to give them experiences and role models to use. This does not meet not drinking around children as some suggest. Don’t get DRUNK around children, but do show them how adults can enjoy their drinks responsibly.

Just as it is a shame that my daughter’s first major lesson about football was about yellow cards versus red cards, we don’t want their first lessons about alcohol to be about hangovers, aggression and car accidents. Hopefully we can be more positive.

If parents, or any of us, aren’t acting as fair role models, where else will children turn to for guidance? What you don’t want is to see your child, hanging onto his friend’s arm, falling to the ground saying:

“But that’s what they do in the pub”

—–

For more information, please check out the campaign being run by Wine In Moderation, a pan-European programme promoting responsible and moderate wine consumption

Other references:

The Alcohol Education and Research Council: See (“Why do people drink at home? An exploration of the perceptions of adult home consumption practice“)

[still trying to find research I once saw where UK consumers placed "To get drunk" at the top of a list of "Reasons why you drink"]

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• Cruyff slams ‘anti-football’ (skysports.com)
• World Cup 2010: The Dutch, once elegant at football, played like cagefighters (telegraph.co.uk)

It was quickly announced that Laithwaites, one of the key retailing brands of the MASSIVE Direct Wines, the king of direct mail wine suppliers in this country, including The Sunday Times Wine Club and countless others, was to take over the space. I wondered how they would be using the opportunity. They already had a number of shops as well as their direct mail business, but this was a big change for them.

I was not disappointed by the effort they have made to make this a pleasant and welcoming shopping experience. Check it out yourself:

Although the Majestic shop that had been there was a bit of an institution, its warehouse style presentation, that works well in its shops around the country, didn’t quite fit the end of the Vinopolis experience. Much as I enjoy shopping in Majestic stores as a wine lover, they can be rather daunting to some, and moving from the Vinopolis Tour to a roomful of thousands of wines was a bit like getting someone to watch a single episode of The F Word then expecting them to run the kitchens at one of Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants.

The choice, presentation and decisions were rather overwhelming. Maybe even off-putting.

I hope Laithwaites apparent focus on the tasting table, and the space to explore around the displays, will be more welcoming for novice wine drinkers. I also hope they keep the range of wines available to taste as broad (and non-exclusive) as possible.

I didn’t have much time to look at the full range available. I did notice some well-known names from Australia, New Zealand, Spain and also a range of ‘Fine Wine’ (usually £20+ per bottle) but I wonder what regular consumers will make of the lack of the brands they are used to seeing in high street retailers for context?

In any case, let’s hope the site helps to welcome many more consumers to the enjoyment, variety and culture of wine.

The official opening is on February 19th (according to Tony Laithwaites blog) but you can already pop in today.

Disclaimer: in my professional role for wineries in Rioja, I am involved in supplying 1 wine to Laithwaites.

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• The case of Majestic’s big small announcement (wineconversation.com)
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Colonel Pickering: How do you do it, may I ask?

Henry Higgins: Simple phonetics. The science of speech. That’s my profession. Also my hobby. Anyone can spot an lrishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue … but I can place a man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.

An off-hand comment on twitter prompted me to think a little deeper about one of those ‘common knowledge’ aspects of the wine world, that there exists some sort of difference between the Old World and the New World. But what does that mean? More importantly, can it help?

It makes sense to group the sources of the wine we drink into easy to understand and separate groups – its shorthand for helping to make decisions. The simplest has always been “Old vs New” and by definition it is Old = Europe (& the Mediterranean) and New = the Rest of the World. But why?

It is meant to be about how old the wine making traditions are, of course, but even many ‘New’ countries have been making wine for around 300 years.

The question that prompted this soul searching was whether Japan should be considered an Old or New wine producer. China and Japan have very ancient wine traditions (of sorts), but they are not what we normally think of as “Old World”.

How does this Old & New dichotomy help anyway?

What it probably meant when it was first adopted was that the Old world made the wine we were used to drinking in the UK (and other wine drinking European countries) and the New world was the source of the ‘new’ wines; with ‘new’ ways of making them based more on science than tradition and ‘terroir’, and ‘new’ ways of marketing them.

If that is the case, it was probably true 30 years ago, but much has changed in that time. If you’ve ever heard stories about wine tasters that could identify a wine by region, grower, and vintage, (and possibly slope of vineyard, etc.) then many date back to this time. It is MUCH harder today. Henry Higgins would be hard pressed to apply his “scientific” approach to identifying the accent of a wine today!

Much of what was good about the ‘new’ science of winemaking has now been adopted in the ‘Old’ world wineries, and concepts such as terroir and artisan winemaking are making inroads in non European wine producers’ wineries too.

What it means is that the terms Old & New are not so much about WHERE in the world the wine is made any more. It makes more sense to think of them as HOW the wine is made.

It can mean that a wine from Europe is made in a ‘New World Style’ as some aspire to do, particularly in the South of France and Italy and parts of  Spain. It can mean that the history, sense of place, artisan wine making and vintage variation associated with ‘Old World Style’ traditional methods can also be applied to vineyards from beyond the borders of the Mediterranean.

In some ways this is justification rather than criticism for European  regions that apply ‘traditional’ rules strictly. You CAN see it as unnecessary restriction of wine making, stopping the more innovative wine makers from competing with those from other countries. However, you COULD also see it as a means of holding on to a style that differentiates the wines from all those in the rest of the world. Uniqueness sells … to a point.

The world has moved on. People, skills and techniques travel the world. I imagine Henry Higgins would struggle to replicate his neat parlour trick in today’s Covent Garden market, and the same is true of wine.

Old & New I think are still useful, but I think that they if they are used to describe styles rather than geographic boundaries, wine drinkers will find themselves opening the door to a whole new range of wines they might have otherwise dismissed.

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• Wine Wednesday: New World vs. Old World (chicagoist.com)
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• ‘Full on’ (fiascowines.wordpress.com)
• Coals to Newcastle (blogs.timeslive.co.za)