UNESCO World Heritage Wine Regions: Benefits & Costs

September 1, 2015 By in AVAs, wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

Last week I talked about the rise of UNESCO World Heritage-designated wine regions. There are now more than a dozen wine regions that have received the UNESCO imprimatur — Champagne and Burgundy are the latest additions — and more than 30 with some wine connection (see list below) with more applications are in the pipeline.

I am not opposed to wine regions being highlighted this way — in fact I kind of like the idea — I just wonder how UNESCO designation fits into the already complicated geography of wine. I ended the column with a series of questions that I will try to answer this week.

What are the costs and benefits of World Heritage status?

A 2007 UK government report outlines the costs of and benefits from seeking UNESCO World Heritage Site designation (you can find a pdf of the report here). The costs, it concludes, can be substantial. The application process alone can be long and expensive (this is not a surprise to anyone in the U.S. who has been through our AVA application process lately).

A recent New York Times article about Burgundy’s UNESCO designation notes that the organizers assembled a team of 30 specialists to make their case and published a 600-page scientific and historical report in both English and French. Once approved, there are of course additional costs of managing the program. The UK study estimated that the costs (back in 2007) could be more than £100,000 to make the bid and possibly much more than this on a yearly basis for program management. Obviously someone has to come up with funds to finance all of this, so UNESCO designation is a major commitment.

What are the benefits? The UK study divides them into potential economic benefits and potential social benefits. From an economic standpoint, being a UNESCO site opens doors to partnerships with other organizations that might provide funding and support and is also a useful tool in promoting tourism. Being on the UNESCO list is like having an extra star in the tourist guidebook rating, I guess.

One of my university students reports that her thesis fieldwork on national parks in Southeast Asia reflected the UNESCO effect. UNESCO-designated parks had better facilities, more tourists and more government support (she also found them to be more commercialized) compared with national parks lacking the UNESCO imprimatur.

The non-economic benefits can be substantial, starting with conservation, regeneration and education benefits (which I think are the main aim of many of the programs) and moving to civic pride and social capital (“social unity and cohesion” according to the study), which are harder to measure but still important.

Interestingly, the New York Times article lists different principal benefits for Champagne and Burgundy. For Burgundy, we are told, the point is to make a statement that fine wine comes from specific terroirs, of which the newly protected Burgundian vineyard climats are among the world’s most famous.  For Champagne, on the other hand, the payoff comes in additional protection of intellectual property rights — the Champagne brand itself. To the extent that the climats are closely identified with Burgundy’s brand, I suppose the two cases are not so very different after all.

Why is there a need for an additional regional wine designation?

The first appellations in France were essentially defensive mechanisms. Defense first against wines from outside a region being passed off as a local product and then defense against local producers who were debasing the region’s collective brand through over-cropping, poor wine-making, etc.  Appellation regulations had economic value first and then provided social benefits.

Here in the U.S. we have watched AVAs proliferate to the point where most of them have little specific economic brand value. Most AVAs with a few exceptions are probably best understood as tools of regional identity not as valuable brands. They are expensive tools due to the high application costs, but they are worth something in today’s marketplace because for some consumers today the lack of a geographical designation puts a wine into a lower generic class. 

Seen in this economic light, the UNESCO designation creates a sort of super appellation that rises above the cluttered landscape while at the same  time potentially providing those conservation, regeneration and education benefits.

The creation of a super league of some sort might not be necessary, but perhaps it is inevitable (in the same way that the creation of the UEFA Champions League in soccer was probably inevitable).  The fact that the league might ultimately be based on UNESCO protocols that explicitly privilege history and culture as opposed to auction valuations or famous critic ratings, which focus on different factors, is what makes it really interesting to me.

Should your wine region look into this?

When I first read about the UNESCO designation I thought that Napa Valley was an obvious candidate. But if increased wine tourism is one of the benefits, then I wonder Napa really works. Seems like if Napa is having trouble working out a balance between wine tourism and what many see as conflicts with local lifestyles. The additional attention from UNESCO status might compound rather than resolve local tensions unless local pride somehow rose to bridge the tourism divide.

Ultimately, looking at the examples of Champagne and Burgundy, I think each region has to make its own evaluation of the costs and benefits and decide if gains in terms of profit, identity or philosophy are worth the obvious costs. It seems to me that the conservation and regeneration benefits (or lack thereof) may tip the balance one way to another. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say.

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Congratulations to those regions that have achieved UNESCO designation and to those who receive it in the future.  Despite my grinchy “dismal scientist” focus on costs and benefits, I am glad that UNESCO celebrates the natural and cultural wonders of the world and proud that wine regions are included on the list.

Here’s a list of vineyard-related World Heritage sites as tabulated by worldheritagesite.org

 

Butterfly Effect: How China’s Crisis Threatens the U.S. Wine Industry

August 26, 2015 By in economic crisis, Economic impact, exchange rates, wine, wine markets 5 Comments

china1“The Butterfly Effect” is a term coined by Edward Lorenz that describes the nature of a highly interconnected system such as the global environment or the global economy. A butterfly beats its wings in Brazil, the story goes, setting off a chain reaction that indirectly results in a tornado thousands of miles away in Texas.

The Butterfly Effect was on my mind last month when I spoke at the annual meeting of the California Association of Winegrape Growers in Napa, California. Part of my presentation outlined several indirect global threats to the California and U.S. wine industries. Two of these are in the news this week.

China Market Meltdown and Contagion

The financial crisis in China was one of the threats that I highlighted. “I know what you are thinking,” I told the group, “Mike, we don’t have a lot of money in the Chinese stock market and we don’t really sell too much wine in China, so I don’t see how falling Chinese stock prices are a threat to our business.” Well, they aren’t much of a direct threat, it’s that Butterfly Effect that you need to worry about.

Economists have a name for the Butterfly Effect of a financial crisis — we call it contagion and it takes several forms. Exchange rates are one way that economic effects are transmitted from country to country.  The Chinese crisis drives down raw material prices on global markets and this has pushed down the foreign currency values of many natural resource producing countries including Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

These three countries are important wine exporters to the U.S. and lower exchange rates for their currencies means increased competition for U.S. producers. When you find that a Chilean producer has undercut your price for bulk Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, there might be a Butterfly Effect at the root of the problem.

Oil is another potential contagion vector. As China slumps, oil prices do, too. This has a disproportionate impact on certain countries such as Russia, which relies on oil exports to China more than in the past due to the current international  sanction regime. When Russia also slumps due to falling oil sales wine producers in Spain, for example, find themselves stuck with excess stocks earmarked for the Russian market. If they try to sell them off here in the U.S. at a bargain price that’s another Butterfly Effect to consider.committee

The Contagion-Busters

Contagion occurs in other ways and I highlighted the group that I think of as  “The Committee to Save the World” (shown above) in my Napa talk (you might prefer to call them the Contagion-Busters). The “Committee’s” job is to stop contagion or at least minimize its effects and it is a difficult task. They have been focused on Greece in recent months, but now it is impossible for them to ignore China.

Hopefully they can prevent the Chinese crisis from having real impacts on other large economies. It is already clear that there have been substantial financial effects (the U.S. stock market “correction,” for example) but the real economy of jobs and output is slower to react and sometimes is less affected. Fingers crossed.

Certainly the Chinese crisis adds risk to the whole world economic system and puts constraints on policy. If the Federal Reserve now goes forward with its widely anticipated plan to raise interest rates in September, for example, the result is likely to be a big spike in the value of the U.S. dollar on foreign exchange markets, putting U.S. wine producers at a further competitive disadvantage. Another beat of the butterfly’s wings?

Keep an eye on China. The impacts could be both bigger and different than you otherwise expect.

The Rise of the UNESCO World Heritage Vineyard

August 25, 2015 By in AVAs, wine, wine tourism 6 Comments

“International Designation is Sweet Victory for Burgundy”  is the title of the August 17, 2015 New York Times article by Elaine Sciolino, which tells the story of how Burgundian vineyards received UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. “Burgundian terroir and climats” joins “Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars” on the 2015 UNESCO induction list.

There seems to be a movement among some wine regions to seek the UNESCO designation in addition to their regional appellation.  During our visit to the Italian northeast last year we learned that Conegliano-Valdobbiadene had applied for UNESCO status for their dramatic and beautiful hillside vineyards. I saw that as a special case, bow I am starting to think that UNESCO-designation is a broader trend that deserves more attention.

A to Z: 1031 UNESCO World Heritage Sites

The UNESCO World Heritage Site program has grown and changed since it was initiated in 1978.  There are currently a total of 1031 UNESCO-designated properties in 163 countries around the world. About 80 percent are designated cultural sites and 20 percent are natural heritage locations.  Forty-eight are listed as “in danger.” Here is a list of the 1978 first group of UNESCO sites. You can see a strong preservation motive here.

Aachen Cathedral
City of Quito
Galápagos Islands
Historic Centre of Kraków
Island of Gorée
L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site
Mesa Verde National Park
Nahanni National Park
Rock-Hewn Churches, Lalibela
Simien National Park
Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines
Yellowstone National Park

and here are the locations on the 2015 list

Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque Hydraulic System
Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalú and Monreale
Baekje Historic Areas
Baptism Site “Bethany Beyond the Jordan” (Al-Maghtas)
Blue and John Crow Mountains
Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars
Christiansfeld, a Moravian Church Settlement
Climats, terroirs of Burgundy
Cultural Landscape of Maymand
Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape
Ephesus
Fray Bentos Industrial Landscape
Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and its surrounding sacred landscape
Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of Jewish Renewal
Rjukan–Notodden Industrial Heritage Site
Rock Art in the Hail Region of Saudi Arabia
San Antonio Missions
Singapore Botanic Gardens
Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining
Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with Chilehaus
Susa
The Forth Bridge
The par force hunting landscape in North Zealand
Tusi Sites

World Heritage Vineyards and Wine Regions

A surprising (to me) number of these sites have wine connections. Here’s a list of wine-related UNESCO properties and the year each was added to the list based on my quick survey of 1031 sites on the list. There may be some that I have over-looked — please use the Comments section below to let everyone know of additions to the list.

  • Burgundy terroir and climats (2015)
  • Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars (2015)
  • Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir (2014)
  • Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (2014)
  • Lavaux, Vineyard Terraces (2007)
  • Bordeaux, Port of the Moon (2007)
  • Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture (2004)
  • South Africa Cape Floral Region Protected Areas (2004)
  • Upper Middle Rhine Valley (2002)
  • Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape (2002)
  • Alto Douro Wine Region (2001)
  • The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes (2000)
  • Wachau Cultural Landscape (2000)
  • Historic Centre of Oporto (1996)

UNESCO and Wine: Some Unanswered Questions

The vineyards and wine regions on the UNESCO list so far are certainly important, but it is easy to think of other wine regions around the world that have special properties and that are not yet on the list.  I wonder where this movement will lead? The rise of the UNESCO World Heritage Vineyard project prompts a number of interesting questions.

What are the costs and benefits of World Heritage status?

Why, when wine has appellations, AVAs and Geographical Indicators galore, is there a need for an additional designation?

Should your wine region look into UNESCO designation?

Answers to these questions and more in the next Wine Economist column.

Lunch with the Financial Times: Bargain Wine-By-the-Glass?

August 20, 2015 By in restaurant wine, wine 4 Comments

Every Saturday the Financial Times  publishes a feature called “Lunch with the FT” where a correspondent takes a newsworthy person to lunch and reports on both the conversation and the meal itself.

Don’t tell anyone, but I am sometimes as interested in the details of the food and wine as I am in the serious conversations that they facilitate. The Financial Times insists on paying and over the years I have seen a wild variation in bills.

One blustery British billionaire ordered as if he were paying himself, including a bottle of Chateau Palmer 1983 for £580 (about $900). The total tab was over £750 for lunch for two. At other times the bill is zero — the person being interviewed insists on tea at home, for example, or lunch at the company dining room.

One of my favorite interviews involved Tyler Cowen author of An Economist Gets Lunch and expert on both globalization and the Washington D.C. ethnic dining scene. His goal was to have a wonderful lunch while spending as little as possible, just to demonstrate that the opportunity usually exists if you aren’t afraid to try new cuisines (African or Ethiopian in this case).

Here, for the record, is the bill for the meal for two. I think he succeeded pretty well, don’t you?

Kebericho, Deli Market, 3811c South George Mason Drive, Virginia

Kwanta firfir

Awaze tibs

Minchet abish

Kidfo $15.99

Double espresso $2.00

Total (incl service) $22.99

Incredibly, since the Financial Times picks up the tab whether it is big or small, many subjects pass on wine. I suppose it is about making a statement — my subject is too serious to let wine get in the way — but this seems just wrong in terms of both dining pleasure and the economic incentive that the FT is purposefully providing.

Which brings me to this week’s Lunch with the FT, which is now my favorite in the series. The interview subject is economist Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State and the discussion of the role of government in economic innovation is very interesting.

So is the meal. The restaurant is The Gilbert Scott, Euston Road, London and the cost is moderate by London standards with one exception that caught the FT host by surprise when the bill came. Can you pick out the unexpected charge?

Asparagus £10.50

Leek and Jersey Royal soup £7.00

Duck leg confit £19.00

Sea bream £19.00

Green salad £4.00

Spring greens £4.00

2 Macchiato £6.50

Sparkling water £3.75

2 Glasses of Pouilly-Fumé  £80.00

Cover charge £4.00

Total (including service) £177.50

Yes, you can imagine the shock of seeing this charge “2 Glasses of Pouilly-Fumé £80.00” (about $120) and having to explain it to the accountants back at the office. We only had two little glasses of white wine … honest!

Explanation? Well it seems that the wine was a 2006 Pouilly-Fumé Blanc de Fume by Didier Dagueneau — one of the world’s great white wines and something that any wine lover would want to try. Two glasses cost almost as much as the rest of the meal including service, but many would say it was money well spent! It might be a great bargain in the grand scheme of things, although that’s a matter of taste.

It seems that The Gilbert Scott always has a couple of stunning wines available by the glass along with a well-chosen and  fairly priced wine list in general. Single glasses of the house selection are as low as £5. But if you are willing to splurge …

I am now in awe of Mariana Mazzucato — well done, Professor! You really know your wine and you know how to take advantage of an opportunity in the best possible way. I wonder if I would have been bold enough to make that choice? Brava! I think I want to have lunch with you sometime (if we can just get someone else to pay).

Thus inspired, I sit here by the phone waiting for a call from the Financial Times …. Hello? Rats. Wrong number.

Here is a link to the Mariana Mazzucato interview. Warning: you may need a FT subscription to access the page. Do you have a good wine-by-the-glass story? If so, please use the Comments section below to tell me about it.

The “Big & Hot” Guide to Best-selling U.S. Wine Brands

August 18, 2015 By in brands, Supply and Demand, wine, wine brands, wine markets 1 Comment

wv082015The August 2015 issue of Wines & Vines magazine is full of interesting and useful information as usual. One article that caught my eye provides IRI off-premise wine sales data for the top 20 U.S. wine brands. What are the best-selling off-premise brands? What’s hot (and what’s not)?

Bigfoot Barefoot?

The best-selling brand in the IRI league table is Gallo’s Barefoot, which accounted for an incredible $622 million in sales in the 52 weeks ending on June 14, 2015. That’s 5% more than the previous year in value terms and a 7% increase in volume. Congratulations to Gallo on their great success with this popular-priced ($5.64 average) wine. It is commonplace to say today that the sub-$9 wine category is in a slump, but Barefoot is the obvious exception to the rule

Sutter Home from Trinchero Family Estates is #2, but a long way back at $356 million sales. The rule does apply here — value is down 2% on the year and volume is down 3%. The Wine Group’s Franzia Box is just behind with $325 million in sales on the year, flat in value terms and down 5% in volume.  Franzia’s average price per 750 ml equivalent is up 11 cents to $2.17 compared with Sutter Home’s $5.25.

Who are the other big players? Here are the remaining members of the top ten listed in  order: #4 Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi (Constellation), #5 Yellow Tail, #6 Kendall Jackson, #7 Beringer (Treasury), #8  Chateau Ste Michelle, #9 Cupcake (The Wine Group), and #10 Mènage à Trois (Trinchero).

The next ten largest brands includes four Gallo product lines (Gallo Family Vineyards, Apothic, Carlo Rossi and Livingston Cellars), four from Constellation Brands (Black Box, Clos Du Bois, Robert Mondavi Private Selection and Rex Goliath) plus 14 Hands from Ste Michelle and Bogle Vineyards.

Clearly the Big Three companies (Gallo, Constellation and The Wine Group) dominate the list, but note how Trinchero and Ste Michelle punch above their weight. Kudos to Bogle for their success, too.

Hot N Cold Brands

The biggest wine brands are not always the hottest brands and the IRI data reported in Wines & Vines bears this out. As noted above, many of the top brands are experiencing slower sales in value terms including Sutter Home (-2%), Yellow Tail (-5%), Gallo Family Vineyards (-2%), Carlo Rossi (-3%), Clos Du Bois (-2%), Mondavi Private Selection (-4%), Livingston Cellars (-5%) and Rex Goliath (-4%).

These declines are matched by some spectacular gains elsewhere on the wine wall, often at much higher price points. Mènage à Trois tops the Hot List with 24% growth in value and 23% increase in volume, continuing its incredible market run. Black Box is right behind with 23% value growth. Gallo’s Apothic is next 21% value growth.

Continuing down the Hot List (among the 20 largest brands) is 14 Hands (+17%), Bogle (+15%) and Chateau Ste Michelle (12% value growth).

When you’re hot you’re hot, I guess. While Beringer and Clos Du Bois  have experienced falling average prices according to IRI (-11 cents per bottle equivalent for Beringer and -27 cents for Clos Du Bois), Mènage à Trois has seen its average price rise by 10 cents while Apothic’s average price holds steady at $9.58.

Remember that these are data for off-premise sales only and all data sources have limitations, so draw conclusions cautiously. Thanks to Wines & Vines for publishing this interesting snapshot of the U.S. wine market in transition. What will the final picture look like? Stay tuned to find out.

Speaking of Hot N Cold …

Fortune Excerpt: How Champagne Changed the Global Economy

August 11, 2015 By in book reviews, Shameless Self-Promotion, wine 1 Comment

My new book Money, Taste, and Wine: It’s Complicated is finally out and Fortune.com did not waste any time in publishing an excerpt.

The Fortune editors couldn’t resist Chapter 10, which is called “Anything But Champagne” and published an excerpt under the heading “How Champagne changed the global economy.” I will paste the first couple of paragraphs of the excerpt below. Click on this link to zoom off the to Fortune.com  for the whole excerpt.

Anything But Champagne? What does that mean? Well, money, taste and Champagne have many sides, which I discuss in the chapter, but I end up concluding that Champagne has actually has had tremendous but under-appreciated impact on the global system. Could Anything But Champagne have changed the world so dramatically? I don’t think so! A toast to Champagne (and to Fortune and my new book, too).

(Editor’s note:  Amazon has now released the Kindle edition of Money, Taste, and Wine and implemented the “Look Inside” feature that lets you read the first pages of the book without buying.) Here’s how the Fortune excerpt begins …

In this excerpt from his book, Money, Taste & Wine—It’s Complicated!, Mike Veseth shows how vigilant vintners created the law of the land for regional food and wine.

Money, taste, and wine come together in an explosive combination when we consider Champagne. There are many reasons to love Champagne, and some to dislike it, and it is natural that different people will come down on different sides. But for me, the biggest factor is one that I haven’t yet mentioned but that I can no longer avoid. How you feel about Champagne may depend a bit about how you feel about the world—or at least the wine world. …  Click here see the entire Fortune article.

I’ve created a page to house links to reviews of the excerpts from Money, Taste, and Wine as they appear. Click on the link to see what people are saying!

Thanks to the Fortune.com editors for making this excerpt possible. Cheers!

It’s Here at Last! Money, Taste & Wine: It’s Complicated!

August 4, 2015 By in book reviews, Shameless Self-Promotion, wine 15 Comments

Today is a big day here at The Wine Economist. August 4 is the official release date for my new book,  Money, Taste, and Wine: It’s Complicated!  

It’s Complicated!

I really enjoyed writing Money, Taste, and Wine and look forward to reader reactions to it. The early reviews have been very positive and the book even spent some time as #1 among pre-release books in its Amazon category.

Money, Taste and Wine started out as an attempt to write something that would help wine buyers make sense of the complicated wine wall that we all confront when we go to make a purchase. So many brands, so many regions, so many grape varieties. Yikes! No wonder people try to simplify and the common denominator they sometimes focus on is price. This leads to “The Wine Buyer’s Biggest Mistake,” which is the first chapter of the book.

The Wine Buyer’s Biggest Mistake

What’s the biggest mistake? Confusing price and quality, of course. We all know it is wrong. We’ve all fallen for the “higher price = higher quality” trap at one point or another. Having pointed out the big mistake, I offer a solution in a chapter called “Wine Drinker: Know Thyself.”

Once I got rolling I realized that there were dozens of different ways that money, taste and wine get mixed up — sometimes the result is divine and sometimes not so much. Before I knew it, I had a book! I will paste the table of contents below so that you can see what topics are covered.

You will find Money, Taste, and Wine at all the usual online and brick-and-mortar locations. Click on the Amazon, IndieBound, Powell’s or Barnes & Noble button to order your copy today (talk about Shameless Self-Promotion!).

It is a Mistake to Write a Book About Complicated Wine?

Is it a mistake to write a book about wine’s complicated nature in a world where many people are looking for “Wine for Dummies” simplicity? I hope not! Certainly this blog, The Wine Economist, seems to attract readers searching for a more complex understanding. Looking forward to hearing what you think of the latest effort. Cheers!

Money, Taste & Wine: It’s Complicated!

Table of Contents

Part I: Buyer Beware!

1. The Wine Buyer’s Biggest Mistake

2. Anatomy of a Complicated Relationship

3. Wine Drinker, Know Thyself

Part II: Get a Clue! Searching for Buried Treasures

4. Dump Bucket Wines

5. Treasure Island Wines

6. Bulk Up: Big Bag, Big Box Wines

7. Sometimes the Best Wine is a Beer (or a Cider!)

Part III: A Rosé is a Rosé? Money, Taste & Identity

8. More than Just a Label: Wine’s Identity Crisis?

9. Wine Snobs, Cheese Bores and the Globalization Paradox

10. Anything But Champagne

Part IV: What Money Can (and Can’t) Buy

11. Restaurant Wars

 12. Follow the Money

13. Invisible Cities, Imaginary Wines

 14. Groot Expectations

Acknowledgements

Selected References

 

The Great Convergence? Changing Patterns of Global Alcohol Consumption

July 30, 2015 By in globalization, wine, wine markets 6 Comments

The Economist magazine’s current issue includes a brief  article on “Booze Around the World: The Changing Demography of Drinks,” which features  this interesting info-graphic.

It is interesting to see that alcohol consumption per person (third graph) is experiencing a type of convergence in the main markets that some globalization theorists have predicted more generally due to falling income disparities among leading nations and international cultural exchanges that take place via media, immigration and tourism.

Although the graphs are about alcohol in general, this convergent pattern also true for wine, with rising consumption in the new world and falling use in the old world (including Argentina, which is an old world wine country located here in the new world).

The Economist graphs and related story raise a lot of questions. For me the most interesting thing is that, while overall alcohol consumption shows surprising stability (the first graph) the who, what when, where, how and why of consumption displays surprising change (the third graph illustrates the dramatic shift in who and where, for example).

The more things stay the same the more they change? Perhaps! Can’t wait to see what new patterns develop in the next ten years.

Three Faces of Veneto Wine: A Wine Economist Report

July 28, 2015 By in Italian wine, wine Leave a comment

Titian’s famous painting Allegory of Prudence  (1565-70) is one of my favorite works of Italian Renaissance art. I stand before this painting and ponder it whenever I visit the National Gallery in London.

The three faces represent three sides of human nature: the loyalty of youth (represented by the dog), the courage of maturity (the lion) and the wisdom (or is it cunning?) of old age (the wolf).

It is a complicated painting that can be read on many levels, but one interpretation is that loyalty and courage much be tempered by prudent wisdom (hence the title). Or perhaps it is that wisdom is the product of loyalty and courage accumulated over one’s lifetime.

Whatever your reading, it seems that all three characteristics exist at once in most people, but since we are complicated folks, they come out in varying proportions at different times.

Wine has many faces, too, and this is especially true of Italian wine. The Veneto region of Italy is interesting in this regard because it is home to the big (it produces the most wine of any Italian region) and the small, the cheap and dear, the … well, you get the idea.

We were fortunate to be exposed to many different faces of the region’s wines during our recent visit. Last week I reported on the Prosecco producers we visited in Conegliano, where I lectured at the famous wine school. This week’s column looks at three faces of Vento wine we discovered on the next leg of our tour.

From Conegliano to Valdobbiadene

Our journey took us from Conegliano to Valdobbiadene, the two poles of a wine zone officially knows as Conegliano-Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG. It would save everyone a lot of trouble if they shortened this mouthful of a name to something simpler such as Prosecco Superiore, but I don’t really see this happening soon.

Someone told us that Conegliano Prosecco has more structure and Valdobbiadene Prosecco more fruit and, when I asked a friend if this is true he just shook his head and smiled. This is Italy, he said, and everyone is loyal to their locality, so everyone must be the best at something. And so  Conegliano-Valdobbiadene it is likely to remain, despite the marketing challenge, reflecting a certain combination of creative tension and political equilibrium.

The landscape of Valdobbiadene is quite stunning, with steep hillsides of vines. No wonder if is being considered for UNESCO World Heritage site status. And the wines are quite stunning, too.

Going Small at Silvano FolladorP1100182

A visit to Silvano Follador presented on intriguing face of Valdobbiadene wine personality. Silvano Follador inherited a few hectares of vineyards from his grandfather and produced wine from those vines and purchased grapes until, in 2004, when he made the choice to go small and to stick to estate fruit.

Now, working with his sister Alberta who met with us at the winery, he makes tiny amounts (about 2000 – 2500  cases) of beautiful wines working as naturally and sustainably  as possible. It takes courage to be small in a business where capital, technology and economies of scale are key factors.

Our interview and tasting with Alberta was conducted entirely in Italian and Sue and I were struck by the elegance of both the wines and the language Alberta used to describe them and the philosophy behind them. Tasting the wines with her was a very personal experience, which I suppose is what these wines are all about. The focus is very intense here — on the land, the seasons, the philosophy.

The wines deserve the global attention that they receive — they were featured in the copy of Slow Wine 2014 where we discovered them — but with production necessarily limited to estate fruit — and the idea of expansion or buying in grapes off the table — only a few of the world’s Prosecco drinkers will taste these wines. If you find them, do not hesitate!

Going Big at Bisol

Is going small the only way to preserve quality and a sense of place? It certainly works for Silvano Follador, but scale and quality are not mutually exclusive as we learned when we visited the much larger Bisol winery just up the road. The Bisol family has deep roots in Valdobbiadene, with evidence of grape cultivation going back as far as 1542. The business today is still all about family and, if the scale has grown the family-oriented philosophy remains.

We had our first taste of Bisol Prosecco from the iconic Cartizze zone last fall when we were in the Veneto on other business. Cartizze is the peak of the Prosecco pyramid, a small mountain covered in 106 hectares of vines that are divided up among 140 owners (Follador has a small plot of very old vines near the base of the mountain).

The Cartizze wines are so special and command such high prices that in the rare cases when vineyards go on the market they are exchanged for as much as 2.5 million Euro per hectare, or about a million dollars per acre. The vineyard scenes in the video above give you a sense of the territory. Given this it is perhaps unsurprising that we wanted to visit Bisol on this trip and learn more.

Bisol is both big and small, local and global, and this, along with the family philosophy, is the key to its success. Thinking big means thinking in terms of a portfolio of Prosecco wines that includes the popularly priced Jeio label and then moving up to Bisol Crede, a larger volume DOCG wine.

Quantity supports and enables quality and the smaller production Bisol wines really shoot for the stars. Here is a list of exceptional Bisol wines we tasted at Venissa in September 2014. We tasted many of these wines again in June in the company of Desiderio Bisol and export manager Stefano Marangon.

 Bisol “Crede” Prosecco DOCG  2013  (“Crede” refers to the marine limestone subsoil of the growing area) that we have tasted before here in the U.S. A premium and traditional DOCG Prosecco.

Next, in a silver-clad bottle, was Bisol noSO2 Prosecco Extra Brut 2012 . NoSo2 — no sulfites — in the “natural wine” style.

Bisol Relio Extra Brut 2009  came next, made from the Glera grape commonly used in Prosecco but using the classic method (secondary fermentation in bottle not tank). Different from the Sorelle Bronco sur lie wine — the Champagne style yeastiness more pronounced.

Following this we were served Bisol “Eliseo Bisol Cuvee del Fondatore” Millesimato 2001 — Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay grapes, classic method. Italian Champagne, you might say (if such language were permitted) with Pinot Blanc taking the place of Pinot Meunier in the grape blend.  Note the vintage date! Quite spectacular.

The last sparkling wine of the evening was the opulent Bisol Cru Cartizze DOCG –– from the prime Cartizze zone. I felt fortunate to taste wine from Cartizze both here and at Mionetto. A friend had warned me that Cartizze would be too sweet but I found both wines dry and well balanced. Prosecco, like Champagne, can be and is made in different degrees of dry and sweet and some styles are more popular than others in particular markets.

The final wine was sweeter but still very well balanced and it came as a complete surprise. It was Bisol Duca de Dolle Prosecco Passita — dessert wine made  with air-dried grapes like a white Recioto, but aged in a modiied solera system you find with some Sherries. A unique experience — different from any of the other wines from this region we tried and not exactly like any other sweet wine, either.

The Bisol website proclaims that the family aims to be at the cutting edge of tradition, and I think this is a wise (or perhaps cunning) approach. They use the capital and technology and take advantage of the economies of scale, but without losing sight of first principles.P1100186The Colli Euganei and Maeli Estate

Loyalty seems also to be a characteristic of the Bisol family and it shows up in unexpected ways. Venissa, the vineyard, restaurant and inn on an island in the Venetian lagoon, is a project of Gianluca Bisol that aims to honor the deepest traditions of Venetian winemaking. At Gianluca’s suggestion, Sue and I drove from Valdobbiadene to Villa Vescovi in the Colli Euganei to visit another project that honors tradition: the Maeli  Estate of Elisa Dilavanzo.

We had never been to the Euganean Hills before and we found the geography quite striking. The hills seem to erupt from the plain in a way that suggests their volcanic origins. So close to Venice that you can see San Marco from the hilltops on a clear day (our day was not so clear, alas), this zone supplied Venice with traditional wines and agricultural products for ceP1100200nturies. Now, however, there is pressure to shift from traditional wines to international grape varieties that are sometimes easier to sell, which is understandable but a loss to wine’s diversity if the trend goes too far.

With Gianluca Bisol’s support, Elisa Dilvanzo has dedicated the hilltop Maeli estate to try to preserve some of the wines and traditions of the Colli Euganei and to develop markets for them, too, since one way to preserve tradition is to demonstrate its value.

We tasted a number of quite fascinating wines and walked the vineyards, too. The wine that stands out in my memory and that I will always remember is the wine shown here: a Fior D’Arancia DOCG made with indigenous Moscato Giallo grapes. The wine really does remind you of orange blossoms. It makes a strong statement that winemakers should be loyal to their heritage even as they reach out to the global markets that can support their efforts.

Maeli’s strategy is to begin by exploring Moscato Giallo in all of its many possible expressions, then continue the journey with other red and white wines that have deep roots in the region. These include Bordeaux varieties that were introduced by the French here long ago. We tasted a delicious wine called “D+” — Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere — and joked about the name. In the United States “D+” is a poor grade — better than D- but worse than C-.  Here, however, it means “even more” and that’s what this wine (and the project) aims for while still staying loyal to the past.

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And so here are three faces of Veneto wine. Are these the three faces of Veneto wines? Oh my, no — just scratching the surface. But they show the rich diversity of this impressive region and, like Titian’s painting, represents three sides of Venetian wine character. Thanks to everyone at Silvano Follador, Bisol and Maeli estate for giving us a taste of their wines and a peek into their worlds. Special thanks to Michela De Bona for all her help. Photos by Sue Veseth.

Wine Wars in Prosecco’s Home: A Report from Conegliano

July 21, 2015 By in Italian wine, wine, wine markets 4 Comments

Sue and I spent 12 days in the Italian Northeast last month and this is the first of an series that reports our experiences in this colorful piece of the Italian wine mosaic.

Conegliano Genesis

We came to  Italy in response to an invitation to speak at the Scoula Enologica di Conegliano,  the famous wine school in Conegliano — which I like to think of as Italy’s equivalent of UC Davis in the U.S. Students come here from across Italy to train in viticulture, enology and also to study the business of wine.

Because of its location and history, there is a special focus on the wines of the Veneto and perhaps especially Prosecco, the famous sparkling wine.  Indeed, the statue you encounter as you approach the school is of the founder, Antonio Carpenè, who is also the originator of the “Italian method” of making sparkling wines (secondary fermentation in autoclave, not bottle), which is used today to make most Prosecco wines and many other sparkling wines around the world.

Interest in the U.S. market is very high these days in Italy (as it is in most winegrowing regions around the world), so I had an attentive audience for my seminars on “Anatomy of the U.S. Wine Market” and “Wines of the Veneto: A SWOT Analysis of the U.S. Market.” Anna Paola Giacobazzi, export manager at Cantina Della Volta, came all the way from Modena for the first seminar, bringing with her a bottle of Cantina Della Volta’s award-winning and distinctive Rimosso,” a Lambrusco made using the classical method and bottled sur lie. Stunning color and distinctive flavor! I’ve never tasted anything like it!

The opportunity to meet with researchers from the wine school and to visit wineries in the Italian Northeast was too good to miss, so we spent several days touring the region visiting a small group of distinctive wineries. Each winery told a different story and I am still working to put them together into a coherent story for a future book project.

Giro [Northeast] d’Italia

The Giro D’Italia is Italy’s elite professional bicycle race (the Italian competitor to the Tour de France). The race, which was won this year by Alberto Contador, passed through the Italian Northeast a few days before we did but sometimes it seemed like we were climbing higher and higher like the racers themselves — not just in terms of altitude but also quality and sophistication. It was an elevated experience to be sure.

We visited four wineries in Conegliano and they presented us with a classic “compare and contrast” exercise. What did they have in common? Prosecco, of course, and the traditional still wines of this region. They all displayed an emphasis on quality and an obvious  rising ambition. With Prosecco’s recent success and the continuing popularity of Pinot Grigio, everyone sensed that this might be the Veneto wine industry’s moment to take the next step in export markets and especially in the United States.

The contrasts were striking, too. These wineries differ so much in their size, scope and history and because of this their strategies are very different, too.  Herewith four brief profiles to illustrate my point.

Paladin: Prosecco and  More (including a surprising Malbech!)

Our wine school hosts first guided us to Paladin, an innovative family firm that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012. Prosecco is the name of the game here, of course, and it came in all of that wine’s many delicious forms. A great beginning.

The Bosco de Merlo line featured many fine still wines, both red and white, in addition to bubbles, with an emphasis on regional grape varieties. At my request we tasted a Malbech (my first Italian Malbec!), a wine with a longer history in this region than I would have guessed and a celebrated part of the Paladin portfolio. Can it be true that Italian immigrants introduced Malbec to Argentina? If so, we owe them a debt of gratitude.

Paladin’s strategy is multi-region: they also owns an award-winning  winery in Franciacorta (Castello Bonomi), which was recently named Italy’s best sparking wine, and a winery and beautiful agritourism facility in Rada in Chianti, Borgo Castelvecchi.  The same team directs winemaking at all three locations, maintaining a consistent emphasis on quality.

We learned that tradition is important at Paladin, but that innovation and imagination are honored and embraced. The whole operation is very analytical and data-driven — but rigor and respect for tradition are not mutually incompatible.  Soon we found ourselves out in the middle of a Paladin vineyard in the company of viticultural scientists from the wine school. Together Paladin and the school are doing research to discover how winegrowing itself might mitigate wine’s big  carbon footprint.

The vines apparently take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. How? And how much? These are the questions that this rather sophisticated project seeks to answer and the researchers are optimistic that their studies will yield results that will be good news to environmentally-concerned winegrowers and wine drinkers everywhere.

Ponte: A Progressive Cooperative

On the way to Paladin we drove by La Marca, a big Prosecco operation and maker of one of the best selling Proseccos in the U.S. We learned that is a second-level cooperative — a cooperative of cooperatives — with the resulting size and economies of scale. Our next stop after Paladin was different  cooperative, Ponte, which is also quite large (14 million bottle annual production) if perhaps less well-known here in the U.S.

Cooperatives are born in times of crisis — when growers have no choice but to make wine with their own grapes because no one will buy them and so growers band together to share risk, cost, and expertise. Ponte was born in the postwar wine crisis year of 1948. It started with just a handful of growers and now has grown in scale and scope, with 1200 members farming 2000 hectares of vines.

American wine growers please read those numbers again. 2000 hectares (about 5000 acres) and 1200 members. The average vineyard holding is 1.7 hectares or about 4.1 acres per member and, since this is an average, you know there are lots of vineyard plots of one hectare or less in the mix. Making such tiny holdings profitable is a huge challenge and puts a lot of pressure on the cooperative to be efficient in its operatives and successful in marketing the wines.

Ponte makes dozens of different wines at many price points but, unlike some of the old style cooperatives you have heard about, the goal here is not simply to dump plonk into the bulk market. Despite the scale and fragmented ownership, we learned, there is a focus on quality that displays itself most prominently in a line of sparkling and still wines that honor Teatro la Fenice, the famous Venetian theater.

Like the successful cooperatives we discovered in Alto Adige a few years ago, Ponte is very demanding of its cooperative members, who must supply grapes of high quality to get the best prices. Then it is up to the winemakers in the vintage winery (distinctive state-of-the-art architecture when it was built  in the 1950s, state of the art production technology today).  Interestingly, Ponte’s portfolio also includes wines from outside the Veneto:   Champagne de Castelnau from Reims, France, MonteStregone from the Piedmont, and Nuraghe Crabioni from Sardinia.

In Tune with the Times at Borgoluce

One of my themes in speaking about marketing wine is the importance of seeing wine as consumers do, as part of a life experience that often includes food, travel and culture. The fact that Americans think about Italian wine in this way gives the Italians a big advantage over wines from other regions. Borgoluce understands this holistic message and has embraced it to a degree that frankly caught us  off guard.

Borgoluce is all about wine  — Prosecco of course and also red and white still wines —   but wine sometimes faded into the background just a bit (except at lunch) when considered alongside the bigger enterprise: a large family estate with vines but also pigs, beef and buffalo (raised for both their milk and their meat). Sustainability and accountability are watchwords here and key to the experience whether in the shop, where wines and other products of the estate are sold, the osteria up in the hills where farm-to-fork is the name of the game or in the farmhouse holiday venues.

Ludovico Giustiniani showed us around, taking obvious pride in the environmental accomplishments and “triple bottom line” approach and the opportunity that Borgoluce presents to those who want to reconnect with the land, nature and ultimately I suppose themselves. But, having said earlier that wine sometimes seemed in the background, it is actually the foundation of it all since from an economic standpoint wine makes possible the tremendous investment in agriculture, hospitality and tourism. The Borgoluce wines we tasted were great, but Sue and I will always remember the values they stand for, which seemed to us to be entirely in tune with the times.

Past, Present and Future at Carpenè

Our final winery visit in Conegliano completed the circle — from the wine school that Antonio Carpenè founded to the winery he built: Carpenè Malvolti, the original Prosecco producer. Brand manager Roberta Granziera was in the audience for my lectures and arranged for us to meet with global sales and marketing manager Domenico Scimone at the historic downtown winery.

Once upon a time Carpenè was synonymous with Prosecco (you asked for a Carpenè not a Prosecco much as someone might ask for a Kleenex not a tissue) and this is still true in some places. Carpenè is number one in its category in China, we were told. But Prosecco’s rapid growth has weakened both this brand identity and the identity of the wine itself. To many consumers who have just discovered this product it is not clear that Prosecco is a product of place rather than the name of a grape variety.

Carpenè’s intent is to reestablish Prosecco’s identity, connecting the history and the territory. They are confident that once consumers really understand Prosecco’s history and appreciate it is a product of a particular region (not a generic grape designation), then they will reach for wines that represent these ideas, including especially Carpenè Malvolti. One project that got our attention was a very limited production luxury wine called PVXINUM after the first reference to Prosecco (as a still wine) found in Pliny the Elder’s works.

Carpenè aims to lead from the front and we were impressed with the wines, the people and the strategies we discovered here. Very different from our other Conegliano visits, but that makes sense since each of these wineries is so distinct in history and personality. A good foundation for the next stop on our tour.

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Thanks to everyone who met with us during this quick trip and extra special thanks to our hosts at the Conegliano wine school: Professors Vasco Boatto and Luigi Galletto, Luigino Barisan, Gianni Teo, Tanja Barattan and Michela Ostan.