In the latest of our series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Brian Croser of Tapanappa in South Australia reflects on viticulture, climate, and the rise of Australian terroir winemaking.

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’ stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

The role of the vineyard in Australian fine wine

Brian Croser: Australia went through a huge expansion through the 1990s to 2005. A lot of that expansion occurred in the inland, highly irrigated areas, with fruit that was destined for the grocery stores as branded commodity wine—your Jacob’s Creek and the like. A lot of overplanting happened then, and we’re now bearing the consequences of that. Like California, like Italy, like Bordeaux, like Germany, I understand, we’re going to have to get rid of quite a lot of those branded commodity vines—but that’s still not what we’re talking about.

For the whole of the past 20 years, that overrun of branded commodity wine has colored—jaundiced, if you like—the fine-wine industry in Australia. We do have a vibrant, buoyant or semi-buoyant, fine-wine industry here that’s been growing for the past decade at about 4% (combined export and domestic). If you take out the American bubble of 2000 to 2008 and the Chinese bubble of 2011 to 2021, then underlying growth of premium wine in Australia is strong.

So, what’s happened in the premium wine sector? Well, we’ve made a major, major change in terms of recognizing the role of the vineyard in fine wine. We’ve gone from having the fruit-salad vineyards of the 1990s, where everything grew alongside everything else—Gewürztraminer alongside Merlot, alongside Pinot. And we’ve recognized the regional specialities—that certain grape varieties are suited to certain regions: Riesling and Semillon in Clare… Cabernet in Margaret River and Coonawarra… Chardonnay in the Adelaide Hills, Yarra Valley, Mornington… Pinot in the same places, and in Tasmania, of course. So, that recognition has been dramatic over the past two decades. At the same time, there’s been a recognition of terroir, of the influence of place on wine quality, wine uniqueness, wine style.

Our good friend [WFW contributing editor] Andrew Jefford has been very important in that. He came out in 2008, when the debate was: “Is terroir really a construction of the French, and an affectation, or is it a real thing?” The Australian fine-wine industry would now accept that terroir is a real thing, and that fine wine is a reflection of the place where it’s grown. And then refining that one step further—not all sites within a region are created equal. There are some distinguished sub-regions and distinguished sites that grow the regional grape varieties better than other vineyards sites. The idea of the distinguished site has been accepted, and everybody, I think, in the fine-wine industry, is now working to make sure that the site is right, then refining what they’re doing on that site to get the best possible result out of it.

Viticulture as manicure

Brian Croser: At the beginning of these 20 years, we were a fairly agricultural industry. A lot of the technology was developed for vineyards in the inland areas, the highly irrigated, high-productivity vineyards, and applied in other regions. Now there is much more focus on how the vineyard is set up: closer spacing, the orientation of the rows, the height of canopy, and, of course, the clonal material used, the rootstock material used. There is just much more fastidious viticulture across the whole of the fine-wine sector in Australia.

We are really emulating what’s been happening on the west coast of America, to a lesser extent in New Zealand, and certainly in the Old World—almost down to manicuring each vine according to its special requirements. When I planted Foggy Hill [in 2003], I’d already been in a war of words with the Coonawarra region—in particular, on broad spacing, big vines, lots of fertilization, lots of irrigation, big equipment, mechanical pruning, mechanical picking… as all of that was causing mediocre results. At our vineyards in Coonawarra [at Petaluma], we’d set up much closer spacing, as we did with our vineyards in the Piccadilly Valley in the Adelaide Hills. And having had experience with those closer spaced vineyards in Oregon, I was very pleased with the success. So, I decided that at Foggy Hill, that was the way we needed to go. I had been looking at that site for a couple of decades and not telling anybody (including my wife, because that meant we were going to spend some money on more vineyards). And then when the takeover of Petaluma occurred in 2001, I had the opportunity to buy the farm with the site.

In my mind, I pictured we were going to make La Tâche 5 miles (8km) from the great Southern Ocean, because it had exactly the right sort of day-night temperature differential, the right heat summation, the right humidity. And of course, we didn’t make La Tâche. But we have made a very special Pinot out of that site by implementing the vineyard in the right way. Raymond Bernard from Dijon actually visited the site in 2004, and walked down the vineyard and said, “This is a good home for my babies.” And so we have those clones, his Pinot clones, on rootstock, close-spaced and very close to the ground—and that sort of viticulture was pretty much unknown in Australia in 2003. Now, in 2024, there are vineyards in almost all the quality areas that would reflect those same priorities.

Minor for the lifetime of a vineyard; a catastrophe for the globe

Brian Croser: From the 1980s on, I started thinking about and talking about climate change, and how we had moved at least one degree from industrial times by the time I planted Foggy Hill. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not so important for our vineyard—that’s going to be in the ground for 40 years. The climate, the movement of the temperature, is relatively minor, even though it’s a major catastrophe for the globe.

And it’s relatively minor, in terms of the vineyard, compared to the climate cycles that we go through. We have three climate drivers down here in Australia. We have the ENSO [El Niño Southern Oscillation], out of the Pacific. We have the Indian Ocean dipole out of the Indian Ocean, up near Broome. And we have what’s called SAM, the Southern Annular Modulation, which crosses the Great Southern Ocean between us and the Antarctic—that’s the thing that influences our weather most, and my mind was very firmly on SAM as an influencer of this vineyard site. And all in a positive sense, because SAM brings cool air from the Antarctic up onto the coast.

So, I wasn’t thinking about climate change as having an effect in my lifetime on that vineyard. I was thinking about climate change having an effect in my children’s and my grandchildren’s lifetimes. I’m very much more focused on vintage variation. There are 212 days in the growing season—from October 1, to April 30—and a shift of 1°C [1.8°F] in the weather of that growing season produces a shift of 212°C [382°F] in the heat summation. So, for example, in the Piccadilly Valley, if it’s 1,175 degree days centigrade, if it goes up by one degree centigrade for every day of those 212 days, then we’re at 1,580 degree days centigrade—and we had that in 2016 and 2018. But if it goes down by one degree, then we go down to 900—which we had in 2011. And then there are a lot of vintages that fit in between those two extremes. But even in the coldest and the hottest years, the vineyards have still stayed true to their terroir—they produced wines that are recognizably Tiers Chardonnay, recognizably Foggy Hill Pinot, recognizably Whale Bone Cabernet/Merlot. So, I’m somewhat consoled in the timeframe that I’m involved. I don’t think I can say that in my lifetime I’ve seen a dramatic change because of climate change—in wine style or wine quality or wine composition. But I have seen dramatic change with the weather cycles.

No substitute for living in the vineyard

Brian Croser: Throughout my winemaking viticultural life, from the early ’70s onward, the vineyard has been my focus, and I’ve developed all sorts of methodologies for being able to sample vineyards properly. But there is no substitute for living in a vineyard, or for the length of time that you live in your vineyard—the accumulation of experience, the empirical observation. You can tell when vines are going to be thirsty. You can tell when they’ve got too much water. You can tell when they’re looking tired from lack of nutrients. You can become very, very attuned to what you’re observing, and to what you’re seeing on the ground, too… cracks in the ground, grass drying off.

My viticulture has changed to become more minimalist. We definitely don’t use Roundup [herbicide] anymore. We do use a knockdown herbicide. We don’t use anything other than copper and sulfur in the vineyard. But I haven’t gone organic, and I certainly haven’t gone biodynamic.

I think there is a division in our industry—which is fine, it’s a lovely, intellectual division—between the spiritual and the scientific. We’re definitely on the scientific side, but not as rigorously on the scientific side as my good friends, the Cazes family of Lynch-Bages, where they collect mountains of data about every little subsection of their vineyard. I don’t feel the necessity to do that, because my vineyards are smaller and I’m intimately in them every day of the growing season, so data doesn’t drive what we do. It’s very much based on observation and experience of what’s happened in the past, and trying to extrapolate that to the present and future. But there are many examples of recognition technology and artificial intelligence, and data can provide answers for much bigger areas of vines, and much more complex situations, than ours. Penfolds would be a great example of that—they are using all that sort of stuff to the nth degree.

The spiritual and the orthodox

Brian Croser: There is a bit of a revolution going on in fine wine around the world. I think part of it is that almost nobody can afford the best of the “orthodox” products—the La Tâches and the Latours. So, there is a movement to look for alternatives, for alternative grape varieties and alternative ways of growing and dealing with them.

Biodynamics is applied to the orthodox as well, of course—it’s big in Burgundy and it’s big in Bordeaux. It’s a spiritual thing, more ideological than scientific. But because of the restrictions that it imposes on the management of the vineyard, you end up with a product that is high-quality—maybe higher in quality than from conventionally run vineyards.

I believe it can be matched by the best scientific approach on the other side of the coin. But biodynamic connects with consumers, as does organic—the sort of more spiritual, more ideological approach to things. My methods are very similar, but we would never make a claim that they’re the same order. And there are some very bad outcomes with biodynamics and organic in bad seasons. I remember the winemaker at Palmer telling me that in 2018 (I think it was) they lost half their crop to mildew because of the application of biodynamics. There is a rejection of science that becomes evil; that is absolutely not true. But I don’t think biodynamics necessarily crosses that line. I think it’s much more benign than that. I think it can live pretty comfortably with science.

The post Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

In the latest of our series of series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Francisco Baettig, of Baettig Wines in Traiguén, Malleco, Chile, takes stock of the rapid evolution of Chilean fine wine.

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’ stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

Learning what you can—and can’t—fix

Francisco Baettig: When I think of the history of the classic iconic wines in Chile, wines such as Almaviva, the wines that started in the mid-1990s, the style was set by the market, especially the American market. That meant the style was more about opulence and ripeness, and we became a little bit obsessed with ripeness. We were listening a little too much to foreign consultants, and trying to please some markets, rather than making something true to Chile. And at some point around that time, we started looking a little bit less at the vineyard—the terroir. We thought more about how things could be accomplished in the winery with new oak.

We went too far. But that started to change and, little by little, we started to realize the importance of the vineyard—that you cannot make a good wine just by technology and winery stuff. I have a theory about this, and I’m sure it’s not that far from reality. Chile started to export at the beginning of the 1990s. Before that, the wines were all simple and picked early—not bad, but simple. We were in a good position for producing grapes; conditions were safe for production; the quality of the wines was good for the price; and they were very well received in the market. This agricultural business could be done, and growers treated vines like planting kiwis or apples. Nobody, or very few people, had made the connection at the time with terroir and the conditions of the soil for each variety.

Also, because we didn’t have phylloxera, the cost of planting was very low in Chile. We could take the pruning material and put it directly in the soil, so that it would cost 15 cents rather than $1. Creating a vineyard was cheap, but the plant material wasn’t good, you had viruses, low production, no use of rootstocks to adapt to the soil conditions, no clonal material… all those tools were not used because we didn’t have phylloxera. The plant material wasn’t good, we planted the wrong things in the wrong climate.

Today, most people in a new vineyard in Chile would prepare the soil properly, with good plant material, no viruses… The reality is that you now start with very good plant material, we know what’s needed. It’s been a complete change over the past 20 years.

But it wasn’t that way back then. So, we did an impressive thing in terms of the way the wine industry developed—it grew, and wine became a big industry for Chile. But, for the reasons I’ve said, that was more at the entry level. And once you position yourself there, it’s very difficult to change. Chile became this safe, good-value-for-money place, a lot of people planted everything, everywhere… but it’s not a good idea to plant Carmenère in a cool area, or Pinot Noir in a warm area. We thought it was possible to fix things in the winery and in the vineyard with a little bit of suffering. But these varieties have particular needs: the temperature, the soil…

At the same time, the reality of wine production in Chile has changed. The cost of labor is no longer low, other costs are rising, too, and producing cheap wines is not as easy as it was. A lot of vineyards were planted with the idea of producing cheap wines, but that is not the reality anymore. 

The problem for me in Chile is that it has the highest proportion of its production in exports, something like 75%. That’s something to be proud of, but it is very challenging, to have to export, because we are in the south of South America, and we have a very small local market, and, if you look at the average price of exports of Chilean wine, it’s been almost the same—$28–30 for 12-bottle, 9 liter-cases—for the past 15 to 20 years. It’s cheap, and it hasn’t changed. It’s a challenge for the Chilean wine industry to work out how we reposition Chile overall. We understand the importance of vineyards now, and the way you manage them for quality. But we have to fix some other problems first, to solve the mistakes we made. So, today Chile is in this moment of transition.

Fire and water

Francisco Baettig: Climate change wasn’t a big issue 20 years ago—except for 2003, when it was very hot everywhere, even in France. Today, it is a reality: 2017, 2020, 2023 were all very hot in Chile. Fires are something we didn’t have before 2017—it’s a problem that Australia and California have had much longer, but it’s something we have to cope with now, too. We have to be careful in terms of how we manage the vineyards, because fires can happen, they’re a reality.

In general in Chile, the challenge has never been about ripening the fruit: You have between and 60 and 90 days of sun, no cloud. It’s not Bordeaux (although Bordeaux has changed, too), it’s a question of how to protect the fruit, how to preserve the acidity. In the past, we were obsessed with any hint of greenness. We would expose the fruit with leaf-plucking, stress the vines, with very little irrigation. That was a big mistake. 

We have conditions that are sometimes demanding, but we irrigate a bit more, we avoid putting the plant through excess stress and suffering—the whole management in the vineyard has changed. In my case, I like fresher wines, more acidity, more ageability. So, I pick a little earlier. That is a style thing, but today we know that when we overstress the plant, the vigor of the plant will go down, it will be more susceptible to wood fungus (which is more and more common everywhere), and to nematodes which attack the roots. And so we have a deeper understanding of vineyards overall, the importance of the climate, and vineyard management in a time of climate change.

Even in hot years, you will see that, in the high-end wines, they still have very good color, moderate alcohol around 13.5%, and they have acidity, because we are managing the vineyard to cope with those conditions. And the vineyard is in better condition, it’s less stressed, with fewer diseases. That happened over the past 10 to 15 years, but it took some time to get there.

The other big change in general in Chile, which has happened quite recently, is that, before, we hadn’t internalized the importance of maintenance of the vineyard. I mean year by year, not just waiting 20 years until the vineyard is in very bad shape, but replanting 1% or 2% of the vineyard every year. The French have done that forever, as one of the tools they consider essential—they know you have to maintain the vineyard every year.

Today in Chile, we consider more variables, and what you do changes depending on where you plant. In Central Chile, you need to irrigate—that’s part of climate change. Imagine: 70mm [less than 3 inches] for the whole year. That’s what happened in Maipo in 2019. But in some other areas of Chile, moving south, you get 1,000mm [nearly 40 inches] of rain, so the conditions are totally different. In the south, we planted to dry-farm, at lower vine density, so the plant has more soil, less competition. When you have high density, you need a lot of water—so, if you don’t have that much water, you shouldn’t plant at high density, you should go a bit lower.

Chile has a diversity that I love. Some areas are more traditional, such as Maule and Itata, with País and later Cinsault vines, now 100-years-old—beautiful, unbelievable things. They are part of the community, but the wines have had very low prices. Even so, there’s amazing potential there. The idea is to rescue that, to make a very good, nice Grenache, or even whites—but then the challenge is how to sell that. Chile is more based on Cabernet and Carmenère, maybe Sauvignon Blanc. But when you grow 80- or 100-year-old vines, the yield is next to nothing. You can’t charge cheap prices, because you can’t make a business out of it. But once you put the prices a little higher—especially for the lesser-known varieties—it’s very challenging to sell the wines, even if they are beautiful.

Pyramids and bush vines

Francisco Baettig: Generally speaking, wineries in Chile are like a pyramid. Almost all wineries have a big base of volume wine, a middle, and then a little pinnacle of iconic wine. Almaviva is a standalone winery, and Seña is a standalone, but that is very rare. And the question is: How do you sell your pyramid? Is your importer someone who sells quality or volume? The wineries want “both”... but the importer says, “I can’t sell both.” So, we are trapped, and we have been for a long time.

It’s difficult for general managers to see this problem, this structural problem. All countries sell volume wine, but some wineries will be dedicated to that—they focus on volume… or they are like Lafite and they sell only three wines in the top tier. It’s impossible to do both. 

This has an effect on viticulture. The tendency is to go to the average, naturally. Even if you have an icon wine, you don’t have a dedicated team for it. Most of the wineries produce every level of wine, but you can’t have the same viticulture team. These are completely different philosophies. With volume, you have to think in kilos, you have to be efficient; it’s totally different with high-end, iconic wines. 

Again, it all depends on the business you want to develop. The bush vines in Maule were planted as they are because there wasn’t much water. They have to survive by dry-farming, and so they need more space and soil. 

At Baettig, we have a clear philosophy of what we want to produce—which is old-vine concentration, good acidity, dry-farmed, from own vineyards. And we go and look for them. You can still find beautiful old vineyards—they exist. But you have to understand that the production will always be small production—you have to create your image and your business so it works that way.

The post Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

In the latest of our series of series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Telmo Rodriguez of Remelluri, Rioja and Compania de Vinos de Telmo Rodriguez reflects on the rise of fine winemaking in Spain.

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’ stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

Destroyed by chemicals

Telmo Rodriguez: My origin is Remelluri, a 14th-century property in Rioja Alavesa, which my parents bought by chance, but which was so powerful, so spectacular, it pushed them to make wine. They bought it in the 1960s, the moment when viticulture was changing radically, and when the vineyard was not important. The sales guys from pharmaceutical firms came to visit, but they weren’t accepted—at Remelluri we haven’t used a single gram of herbicide or pesticide. I was born in a culture where that was not used. 

But agriculture in Europe in general was destroyed by chemicals in the 1960s. Even much later, when I went to Burgundy… well, Burgundy was the same. For me, visiting Le Montrachet with all the herbicides, was really amazing, but this decadence was everywhere. The French did have one advantage—in Burgundy, the classification of the crus was very clear, and the hierarchy was based on the vineyards. In Burgundy and the Rhône, there was a very deep sense of the quality of the vineyards. 

When I came back to my country after years of traveling, Spain was a country where the vineyard wasn’t something important. Grapes were like potatoes—they were just there, and the winery and the clever winemaking would transform those generic grapes into a style wine. In fact, everything in Spain was about style. Even a strong region like Sherry—which was the only area with a hierarchy, and where, in the 19th century, the top albariza vineyards were less than 2% of the total, like Burgundy’s grand crus—even there, it suddenly became very generic.

The British, I’m afraid, are among those responsible for Spain being bad. If you don’t give value to something, it becomes decadent—that Rioja should be cheap, that Sherry should be cheap, that’s the market …The problem with Spain was that it was supplying cheap wine, and we didn’t give any value to it. But, for me, as someone who is part of a generation between a very boring Spain and an exciting Spain, I left Remelluri, and I started this journey around Spain 30 years ago, and now I have 90ha [222 acres] of “grand cru” vineyards. And when you think about it, maybe this is the opportunity for Spain, and why it has become so much more interesting over the past 20 years—because in Spain young people can still buy vineyards and they don’t have to pay a fortune, as they do in France, Italy or Germany. 

It’s as if the Prado had been closed for 20 years

Telmo Rodriguez: An interesting thing about herbicides in Spain, is that the growers before were always working with their animals and by hand. And they discovered that with a little bit of product they didn’t have to work. So, in a region like Gredos—where I was a pioneer and which is now an area that we talk about a lot—Gredos was disappearing. The very old vines were still there, but they were not being used by vignerons, rather by paysans working the weekends, using a little bit of product, and not working a lot. But what’s interesting is that, once you start doing good viticulture again, these vines recuperate so fast—their memory comes back, and their beauty reappears. 

To me, it’s like the Prado Museum, this amazing collection, one of the greatest museums in the world—maybe the greatest. Imagine if they didn’t realize how great it was—if Spain didn’t know what to do with the Prado—and they closed it for 20 years! Spanish wine is like the Prado. We have some of the most amazing and beautiful vines—we have seven, ten, 15 varieties that nobody knows—and I think it’s spectacular that all this beauty was completely neglected for so long.

In Rioja, since I came back to Remelluri, one of the most important parts of our work has been our work with an historian. We have been asking, “What is the history of our surroundings?” In 1670, Labastida was one of the most important villages: in the 17th century, there were 300 growers, and 260 underground cellars. Today, it’s all gone! It’s just terrible wineries and a cooperative and all this beauty disappeared! When you see what we were and the importance of the sense of village and terroir in the 17th century, you see what we have lost, and how, over the past 70 years, Rioja has been neglecting the villages and terroir.

But I’m not someone who complains about the past. Today I’m 61. I’ve been extremely lucky—the Spaniards are lucky. For the first time, Spain is supplying some of the most original wines in the world, and we’re now talking about viticulture and places. Over the past 20 years, and the past two generations, Spain has been waking up, and the big treasure of Spain—the vineyards—which was so neglected, is starting to show its beauty with this new generation of young kids, which I am so happy to see. 

I have very good relationships with a lot of producers in France. And I tell them, look, Spain is much more complex than France. And you will see the day when all those valleys and mountains will be producing what they always had the potential to produce. 

On finding new vineyards like a gentleman traveler

Telmo Rodriguez: I was not a very good student, but I was very sensitive, I think. Getting to know people and vineyards in France was very important for me, and I think I developed a sensibility—I learned to sense when a place was nice, if I felt a connection or if it was expressing something. That was my real education—when I was traveling and visiting nice places.

When I came back to Spain, I was very inspired by the British travelers from the 19th century. When you go to Granada, the best way to understand the Alhambra is to read the British travelers, who were much more sensitive to our beauty than we Spaniards were. And I like this idea of someone traveling and taking time. If you are born in the place, it is what it is; but if you come from somewhere else, you have a different eye, something very fresh. 

So, I was going to places and connecting to beautiful landscapes—in Ribera del Duero, ungrafted vines in Toro, and then I came to Galica… which is its own world. I remember when I was 19 and 20, going surfing there, and it took five or six hours on very small roads… and we loved it, but it was impossible. But you have an Atlantic Galicia and a Mediterranean Galicia, which is why Galicia has more biodiversity than all of France. I am on the Sil River, and you have some vineyards facing north—you could be in Scotland—and on the south, you could be in Teruel [in central eastern Spain]. You have all kinds of altitudes… amazing rivers… mountain terraces… If you analyze the richness of Galicia—there is a deep culture there, the greatest concentration of Romanesque architecture. You need only to travel and to have a little sensibility to know you are in one of the most amazing places in the world.

And in a world dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, you go into a vineyard in Galicia… and in one vineyard you have 25 grape varieties that nobody knows. And you realize for sure they are interesting. In the aftermath of phylloxera, grapes like Alicante and Jerez were arriving in Galicia. Then you understand that, if they were planting Jerez in Galicia, it meant that wine wasn’t important. It was a kind of commodity, like bread. There was no sense of producing fine wine. So there again, there is this incredible thing, in the 21st century—all those elements are free and they’re there waiting for you… a lot of “Musigny,” of grands crus all waiting to be discovered. I had exactly the same emotion as the British travelers arriving in Toledo or Granada.

Adapting to climate change

Telmo Rodriguez: One of the ways I have adapted to climate change is by moving to the north. All my projects have been developed in the northwest of Spain, which is partly because I love surfing and I like to go to the Atlantic. But the reality is, 20 years ago I went to Alicante. I wanted to make a wine with Monastrell, because my culture was very Rhône Valley, and I thought we could make some of the best Mourvèdre in the world in Alicante. But I saw almond trees that had dried out, and I was scared by the lack of water. 

We made a wine, Al-Muvedre, which is a very romantic wine, and I still think Monastrell is an amazing grape, but it was a négociant wine, and I didn’t invest. I decided to move to Valdeorras, because I’m Basque, and I wanted freshness, I wanted green, I wanted the Atlantic, and I wanted chestnuts.

Another way we’ve reacted is by going back to grape varieties that were neglected. In Rioja, the most important wine region in Spain, we used to have 50 or more different varieties… but they neglected this, they pushed the growers to plant Tempranillo, Tempranillo, Tempranillo. And so we thought we should go back to grape varieties that were not always ripening in the past, but that we are interested in now. 

I work with a nursery in France, and it was funny to me, because they are very interested in Spanish varieties, because they think they could work in France. Last summer I was invited to the 350th anniversary of Berry Bros & Rudd. Jane Anson gave a talk, and the director of Lafite said they were thinking about changing some grape varieties. I was joking with Jane, saying that she could say in her blog that in 2060, Lafite will be made from Tempranillo.

I’m not so radical. I’m conscious that I’m not at all a scientist, I’m somebody who is, in the end, very basic. I know that the Spanish are still fighting to become something—we are not yet at the stage to tell the world what to do, we have enough work trying to revive ourselves. But we do still have grape varieties that won’t produce more than 11.5% alcohol, that don’t ripen like Merlot in St-Emilion or the Médoc—and that could be useful.

I was thinking about the future of our project… and finding people to work with who are more talented than we are… and thinking about what our children will do in 20 or 30 years. But it’s almost too much for me—I don’t know what to do! The only thing I’ve done is to go up toward the mountains, and to work more with grape varieties that were considered uninteresting because they were not ripening. 

I don’t have any irrigated vineyards. We don’t have trellising either—all of our work has been sensitive to the past, so all our vineyards are bush vines. It’s true that we do very, very good viticulture by comparison with the past. But we have been doing a lot of work in Remelluri thinking about the future, and about what is important about what we have. In Bordeaux, there’s a lot of talk about planting trees—but my parents started planting more than 200 trees a year 60 years ago. We have thousands of trees, and when we have visitors, we don’t show off the vineyards, we show off the surroundings—the trees, the herbs, the rosemary…

We could do all this in an unconscious way. If you have one hectare [2.5 acres] in Puligny, you can’t do this—the land is too valuable to plant trees. But in Spain, we have this opportunity—all our vineyards are full of trees, amazing ecosystems protected by nature.

When you see the monocultures in successful vineyard areas, it’s scary if you don’t see a single tree in 300ha [750 acres]. It’s not natural. Today, I’m preparing a plantation in Remelluri, which I think is the plantation of the future, because we haven’t just considered the densities of the plants, or the field blend in the vineyard—we are also thinking about what else we plant in and around the vineyard. These things are very good for climate change because you’re enhancing and reinforcing nature, which balances you. The tree is not just a decoration—you’re creating ecosystems, which are much more interesting.

The post Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

In the fifth of a series of series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Gaia Gaja reflects on the past two decades in viticulture and fine winemaking at her family’s Italian estates in Piedmont and beyond. 

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’ stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

The elephant in the crystal room

Gaia Gaja: It’s interesting that we are talking about the past 20 years of viticulture, because it was 20 years ago that we started to change our viticulture at Gaja, driven by the sensitivity of my father toward climate change.

Twenty years ago we started, and today it’s impossible to talk about wine without climate change—it is the elephant in the crystal room. 

The turning point in Piedmont was 1997. It was an opulent, gorgeous vintage. But it was the first vintage where we had burned berries, the spiking of heat and ripeness. Like everyone else, we are handling that better today. The vineyards are reacting completely differently from then. But 1997 was the moment when my father began to get a feeling that things were changing, he became much more alert about what was going on. He got worried.

No more great vintages

Gaia Gaja: It doesn’t make sense really today to talk about a “great vintage.” The idea made more sense 30, 40, 50 years ago, when you had one great vintage in a series of mediocre vintages. Today we have mostly good vintages, with one exceptional vintage among a series of good ones. In this sense, we have better-quality wines. Obviously, we are cultivating the land and we are frightened about the changes and challenges. But we also have to admit that we are making consistently better wines.

In a region with a grape variety like Nebbiolo, people think these are wines that you have to buy and store for ten years and decant for five hours. I meet credible collectors who have been collecting it for their whole lives who still have this outdated idea. I can’t tell them they’re wrong! But they are stuck in the past—the wines are very different now. My father has been repeating to me, “The wines of this century are different from the wines of the past century.” Years ago, I would listen to that message… now I really understand it.

In Barolo and Barbaresco, the wines are not better or worse. The wines today don’t have the austerity of tannins, and they are not so inexpressive for the first few years. We have some beautiful wines from the 1950s and ’60s that are good to drink now. You could say they were not fully ripe, but I would say they are just different in their ripeness. Today we have grapes that are more fruit-forward, riper, with lower acidity, and with riper and softer tannins—wines that are supple and easy-drinking from the beginning.

I really like the wines of today. When things got warmer, the producers started to change their style, in a way that I like. In this region, where we have a grape variety that is highly terroir-driven, an area that is so complex morphologically, where you can drink in the glass what you see—the steepness, the exposures, the soils—that expression is now more present and more vivid.

That isn’t only about climate change—it’s also about winemaking. We are beyond the stylistic fight of the 1980s and ’90s, when you could drink two wines from the same vineyard with different maceration techniques and oak treatments. In the past, the wines were so severe, so austere, so harsh… some producers would attempt to warm them up; in the 1960s, some people were keeping the wines under the roof. That wasn’t still happening in the 1980s, but there was a “rounding up,” with more oak and micro-oxygenation.

When the weather warmed up and the wines became sweeter, softer, and fruitier, some producers understood that it no longer made any sense to talk about modernist and traditionalist—the style of winemaking doesn’t impact so much now. There’s no longer a need to wrap up and round out the wines. Today the need is to preserve the freshness and integrity. And that’s why I like the wines of today. There are many fewer faults (brett and so on), no more dirty, old oak, or vanilla and cocoa and super-extracted tannins. I love the fact that you can sense the wine itself. 

The advantages of a farming culture

Gaia Gaja: We have a great advantage here in Piedmont, in that we have a farming culture—and while climate change in an area where there are good farmers is still frightening, it’s not as frightening as it might be elsewhere. There is a chance to adapt to the changing terroir—to new areas, higher altitudes, and different slopes in the denomination—and we can all acknowledge who is adapting faster and better. Right now, people are talking about allowing irrigation, or allowing the cultivation on the northern slopes, when it was historically always only on the south, west, and east—these discussions are dividing producers in terms of how and where to cultivate Nebbiolo. 

There are also discussions about what happens in the winery, because we have to preserve the freshness. We might use whole-cluster, which was not something we could do in the past. We might also use uncrushed berries and more lees, which were not used so much in the past, and larger casks, because they are more reductive. There is consideration of all types of oak, going back to Slavonian or Austrian or German oak, which is less porous. If the wine is naturally getting broader and more opulent, you need a barrel that is stricter. 

A lot of little things can change in the winery, but the topic always come back to the vineyard. If you want to survive, if you want your vines to become resilient, you need to have an environment that supports, that functions symbiotically: it’s the concept of biodiversity and having soils that are alive, that are able to have more water, and having roots that can function in the extremes of the weather.

You can’t rely on the past

Gaia Gaja: In the past, what characterized a vintage was mainly rain during the harvest. Today, in four or five months you might have four or five dramatic episodes that can define a vintage. The experience of a farmer becomes important in this context, and improvisation is what saves us. We have to be very focused, we have to trust in our vineyards. 

A lot of the work of a winemaker is deciding when to pick, and you can’t rely on the same decisions you used to make. In general, in the past, we always picked the western slopes first; now you can’t do that, because everything ripens more or less at the same time. Today, the tannins have to be fully ripe, but in that frame of ripeness we like to stay a little bit on the early side, to retain the freshness. The good thing about Nebbiolo, when compared to Barbera, is that it doesn’t continue to accumulate sugar after the skins are ripe. Nebbiolo allows you to wait for that full ripeness, without being too scared about the alcohol level. 

Nebbiolo has been around here for at least 800 years. It’s historic, and on these hills it has been reproducing itself in an incredible variety and number of types. We have to preserve the biodiversity of Nebbiolo, because among these biotypes are those that are better adaptable to the changes of today, and they will be useful when we confront the challenges to come.

But Piedmont has been through an important evolution. The wines have found a lot of new admirers over the past 20 years—they are more successful, and the prices have gone up for everyone. It’s a small region, and the wineries are family-owned and ambitious—there’s healthy competition between producers, which leads to a lot of investment, in the cellars and in research. Starting in 2004, we started to collaborate with a botanist, then an entomologist, a geneticist, and a genealogist. We started to look at the effects of climate change on grasses, on insects, and on diseases. We looked at massal selection with the geneticist. But everyone is making investments.

Adapting to new climatic realities, from Langhe to Sicily

Gaia Gaja: Bolgheri is surprising me by how quickly quality has grown and how fast the producers have adapted. It’s a new region, and there are many new producers, with a very open and flexible way of working. In the minds of many people, it’s an area of big, opulent wines. In reality, it also has examples of very fresh, fine wines. And despite the extremes of the weather, the fact is that Bolgheri has been achieving consistently good results. There are cooling sea breezes between the coast and the mountains, and the Sirocco in Bolgheri is not as warm as it is in Montalcino.

In Montalcino, the Consorzio is a bit slow to bring about change—there has been a lot of talk about zonation for the past 16 years… But they also need to address the aging regulations—the wines are ready much earlier these days, so they don’t need to wait five years before release anymore. I also think that the style of Brunello di Montalcino has evolved, and that the wines are bigger—they don’t have the tension of Chianti, which is getting better and better.

To adapt to the changes, and to help the structure of the wine, we have vineyards at different altitudes and in different locations. We bought one vineyard at the highest point in the DO, at 620m [2,000ft], and we are very excited to see what comes out of there. It’s very rocky and very windy, and last year we had big problems with hail—so you can’t escape problems even here.

We thought about Etna as a place with altitude, too, a place where we can go higher and higher in the future, and where the varieties are very, very late-ripening—we start picking Carricante a week after Nebbiolo. The focus for us is not on the reds, but on Carricante—it’s a variety with great, vibrant acidity. The gamble is to see if we can develop enough structure—acidity is not enough on its own. We decided to invest on the south slope, where we thought we would be able to play with different altitudes to get different types of ripeness and to get the structure.

In Piedmont, there is a part of the Langhe that is five times bigger than Barolo and Barbaresco, the part at higher altitude
—the Alta Langhe. Over the next 20 years, wine production is going to develop a lot here. Barolo and Barbaresco is an almost total monoculture: 80% is vineyards and 20% woods, and over the past 40 years, lots of slopes where there used to be hazelnuts are now planted to vineyards. The Alta Langhe is still very natural and wild, but there can be a substitution of cultivation—fields of grain or hazelnuts can become vineyards. I don’t know to what extent the area of Alta Langhe will expand, but there’s no doubt that a lot of producers are getting interested. 

The lessons of natural wine 

Gaia Gaja: The moment of natural wine has largely passed, but it was a philosophy—a movement—that was very much needed at the time. It helped to get everyone thinking about the topic of manipulations, and that actually helped the more conventional producers, because it came to the attention of the consumer just how much manipulation there can be in wine, and they had to react. I got very interested in natural wines… and then I wasn’t so interested. The problem is that it doesn’t really define everything. 

Of course, it can define someone who makes it, because they are embracing a lifestyle, and they believe in it—and I admire and respect them, even though many of them are not respectful of those of us who are not “natural.” But there are others who harvest and then they don’t go back to the cellar for six months… and that is not loving wine; it is not the way of someone like Nicolas Joly, of the people I admire. You also have people embracing “natural” as a trend in the market—there are plenty of industrial producers making natural wine, which is ridiculous, and also plenty of people who use it as an excuse for bad winemaking. 

Natural wine usually starts in regions that are not so historic or iconic. In Barolo, there is a community, a culture, with a way of winemaking that is historic, so natural wine has not been so strong there. It’s a little bit like the modernists and the traditionalists. The modernists helped the traditionalists, especially when those wines were so popular and the traditionalist wines were not—the traditionalists had to face their issues, and they faced them in the modernist way. Then the modernist approach—partly because of climate change—started to give wines that were a little over the top. They started to be too international in style, and they had to face up to that and come back to a more “traditionalist” way.

How to be a family vigneron

Gaia Gaja: Over the past 20 years, I have grown much more comfortable and more confident. I always said my reference point is my father. It’s frustrating to work with him, because there are many moments when we don’t think alike. But then I have to admit he is right… that’s the most frustrating thing!

The thing I admire about my father is that he always brings a different point of view—even if this can also be frustrating. So many times my sister, my brother, and I are all aligned and convinced that we have made the correct decision… and he comes back with a completely different point of view. But it’s valuable, even if you don’t agree 100% (maybe 30% or 50%...)—it takes you away from the mainstream.

But I still feel more confident, because I have more experience, and so have my brother and sister. We have different ideas... but we have the same level of involvement, and we love each other, so we have no conflict—and this makes me optimistic for the future. 

The post Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

In the fourth of a series of series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Véronique Sanders of Château Haut-Bailly in Pessac-Léognan explains how her life, her estate, and wine growing in Bordeaux have all evolved in the past 20 years.

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

Automatic concentration

Véronique Sanders: The world offers far better wine today than 20 years ago. When I started, it was easy to find bad wines. The progress everywhere is quite impressive. I think it’s true in Bordeaux—particularly at Haut-Bailly, of course! But it’s also true around the world. Everybody’s very committed to evolve permanently and to improve every kind of technique.

In Bordeaux, the levels of ripeness are higher than ever. And that provides us with the most fantastic automatic concentration and the ability for our wines to last. In the past, you had many more ups and downs in terms of the quality of vintages. It is much more consistent now.

If you look at viticulture, many things have changed. There is a kind of premiumization in viticulture and in vinification. It’s a new era, with an obsession about fruit and the reality of the terroir. But the fruit is the voice, and the song of the wine. And if you hide the fruit, you hide the voice and the song.

Audacious pruning and patrimony

Véronique Sanders: When we think about viticultural techniques, of course we start by thinking about pruning, which is the first gesture of wine. There was no revolution here, but there has been a big improvement in terms of comprehension of what we are doing. We have changed our techniques to avoid any wounds and protect the flow of the sap in the vines—and we do this because we want to protect as much as possible against long-term decline of the vines.

When we got the Italian pruners [Simonit & Sirch] to come to help us with the pruning system (back in 2012, I think), it was audacious—you have your pruning team and you have to tell them, “OK, guys, let’s start learning again from scratch!” We cut a vine into two. They showed us what we were doing, and they showed us how we could improve.

It was a big moment in the history of the company; I think we were one of the first estates in Bordeaux to trust them. It is about taking the greatest care of your vine. It is fundamental, like soil cultivation. 

For us, it’s super-important to consider every single vine as a tree, and to respect all of them as much as we can. There are so many products we can’t use anymore. So, we really have to consider every single vine as a part of a patrimoine, a patrimony. Haut-Bailly is part of the Entreprise de Patrimoine Vivant—we have its label on our bottles, and we respect it very much.

It’s difficult for me to talk globally or even generally about Bordeaux—every château has its own recipe. We never use weed killers. We always plow the soils, so we have a vertical rooting system, and our soil is really alive. That was obvious for us, it’s not something new. But so many people around Bordeaux have now stopped using weed killers and are working in this way—it’s a new trend, a new philosophy.

We have also made some tests about life in the soil—the worms. We call them the soil engineers, and we realized that, by plowing the fields, we were hurting them sometimes. So, now we are working differently, more sensitively, with cover crops. That’s a new thing, which is extremely important. 

Taming the reverse excess

Véronique Sanders: Another thing that has changed a lot in Bordeaux is the trellising. Over the past 20 years, the leaf area has increased. There has been a move toward more concentrated, riper grapes, and we have a reverse excess to deal with: 20 to 25 years ago, it may have been difficult to get to 11.5% alcohol; today, it’s difficult to get below 13%. So, it’s really not the same game at all. Chaptalization has become nonexistent—and I think acidification is still unusual. And managing the trellising and the height of the training is extremely important.

I think we are all concerned about that—we all want to keep what is key in Bordeaux, which is the balance, the drinkability, the elegance. And I think the past few vintages show that in a fantastic way.

What fascinates me with Bordeaux is the way we’ve been adapting. I have always said that making great wine is having no set recipe. You need to have a fresh mind every year and you learn by doing it and inventing, adapting yourself to what the weather will give you.

It’s fascinating to see how well Bordeaux has done this—to see that we are still producing wines with amazing balance. If you look at the past few vintages—I mean, the wines… wow! I think this is because of both viticulture and vinification—it’s not one without the other. So, we thought, OK, the Cabernet can handle the heat, so no problem, we can make beautiful Cabernet. And Bordeaux never made such good wine, because we have better ripeness. But everybody was concerned about Merlot… and yet, for the past two years I couldn’t believe the Merlot we produced at Haut-Bailly.

So, I had a chat with a few people who are specialists, and although it’s still speculation, they think that after a few years of very warm summers, the Merlot vines are adapting genetically, to handle the kind of weather we are having now. 

From the point of view of vinification, of course, you adapt to what nature gives you, and we are always extracting much less now; we always have more gentle procedures, to keep this balance and elegance, which is a hallmark of Bordeaux. 

So, I would say that, so far, climate change has helped Bordeaux tremendously, if you are talking only about the warm summers, having that level of ripening, which is higher than ever. What worries us more are the mild temperatures in winter, causing early budding and increasing the risks of late-spring frost. We never really had frost at Haut-Bailly; we had frost in 1991, and frost in 2017. But since 2017, we have been fighting frost every year. And there are also now the excesses of water. The rains have been non-stop since October last year [this conversation took place in May 2024]… but then again, we might have, like last year, an excess of drought.

We are clearly aware of all the climate change the world is facing. But we feel blessed actually to have a terroir that has this ability to adapt continuously—it’s a big surprise and a discovery. The evolution is broadly positive, but there are certain problems, for sure. And we have to deal with them.

Biodiversity and the sound of birdsong

Véronique Sanders: There is a trend in Bordeaux for more biodiversity, because it helps to fight parasites and pests and everybody’s developing that, planting more trees. Last year alone, we planted 6,000 plants over 2.5km [1.5 miles], in order to increase the number of birds, butterflies, amphibians, bats… everything. This morning, I had a group of wonderful people from Madeira visiting, and I was giving them a tour, and I couldn’t believe all the sounds I heard. It was incredible… I could base the tour only on what we would hear, enjoying all the bird song!

Depending on where you are in Bordeaux you have more or less forest. In our appellation of Pessac-Léognan, we always had lots of trees. If you go on top of the roof of the cellar, you can see trees around 360 degrees. We are extremely privileged in our appellation, being right at the gates of Bordeaux, that there has always been this incredible concern for trees. Some people in some parts of the region went too far as a monoculture, but I think they are coming back and planting trees again—and that concern for trees is fabulous. 

Finding workers …

One of our biggest challenges is finding the best possible talent to work with us and be part of our team. Because our vision, and what we stand for, is to magnify with our human touch what our terroir demands we deliver. But without a team of the right people being able to work permanently and express it and being very much involved… Well, terroir is nothing without man or woman or a team of people to express it. 

And we’re all facing this problem, in many industries—construction, restaurants, you name it. How do we find the right people, who have this commitment, this passion, because to work the soil, the terroir, you need this passion. It’s a social problem. How can we motivate people? How can we pass on the love of what we do? 

… finding drinkers

I’m impressed by the level of knowledge wine drinkers have nowadays. We go into universities—Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, all kinds of colleges and universities around the world—and we are meeting young people who want to know more about wine and about what we are doing. I’m happy to say that we are still producing wine for people who are going to enjoy it—they want to share it and they want to discuss it.

Of course, some of our wines at Haut-Bailly are sometimes bought for speculation, but I still believe that we are making wine to be shared, to be enjoyed together, which is a great tool of civilization. It’s fascinating to see that Haut-Bailly’s sales are 90% exports, to 80 different countries. And that is something which is a form of soft power for France. 

When you’re thinking about price, you always have to compare wine with other industries, like cosmetics, watches, textiles. You can buy a Swatch for very little money, or you can buy a Rolex—you have products for all kinds of people. And sometimes the same person can wear a Swatch during the day and a Rolex in the evening. And I tend to think it’s the same with the wine industry. You can find amazingly good wines, especially in Bordeaux, at a very cheap price, and of course you will find the most expensive wines, too—although maybe no longer in Bordeaux, maybe more now in Burgundy or in Napa!

I think Bordeaux is the most accessible region in the wine world for great wine. It’s the number one place in the world for fine wine with volume, and we produce amazing quality. I’m always astonished to see the quality of cru bourgeois and cru classé you can find at ridiculously low prices compared to what you can find in Napa. 

You could compare the price of a bottle of wine of today, even the classified growths, to the price of a baguette 25 years ago. A baguette used to cost one franc… now it’s above €1, it’s €1.30. I don’t think the price of wine went up that much. The barrel and the corks, for sure. But not the wine itself!

But I’m optimistic by nature. I firmly believe in the future of Bordeaux. Our wines have built their reputation over centuries, and it’s been so impressive watching how their reputation has progressed over the past few years. In 100 years from now, I think that Bordeaux will still be at the top of the game. I think we are entering a new golden age for the wines of Bordeaux. 

The post Vignerons’ stories: Véronique Sanders appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

In the third of a series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon of Champagne Louis Roederer tells David Williams about the philosophical journey he has taken over the past two decades.  

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

The winemaker and the saucemaker

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: Before the 1990s, winemakers were just taking fruit and making wine from whatever they were given. Since the 1990s, we have had a revolution, where the winemakers have been working in the vineyard to design the type of phenolics, the type of sugar, the type of acidity, the taste we want… because we have realized that to make the best wine, the best technique is to act less like a winemaker.

I often compare that to the gastronomic scene. In the 1980s, the big name was Paul Bocuse, and the most important man in the kitchen brigade was the saucemaker, because the sauce was bringing the flavor to the ingredients—not the ingredients themselves. Today, thanks to many influences—Japanese influences, Slow Food, all of that—we now want to let the ingredients speak, to get the saltiness of oysters and not put too much sauce or vinaigrette on top of them.

The difference between a chef and a winemaker is that the winemaker doesn’t have to buy his ingredients from small growers or paysans from different places. We can do it ourselves. I think this is really the starting point of the past 30 years. And that is not only a change of habits. We also realized that chemistry is not God—it’s not the tool that makes everything OK. It’s a very useful tool. But you must control and master the way you use it, and you shouldn’t abuse it, whether it’s pesticides and fertilizers, or, as a winemaker, in the cellar. 

We are part of a larger ecosystem

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: It all comes back to understanding that we are part of a larger ecosystem—this ecosystem is fragile, and we have to respect the work of nature. I remember being at university, and people were studying vineyards… and people were saying in the 1980s that the vine needs so much nitrogen, so much potassium, so much phosphorus… So, we were feeding the vines. Today, the philosophy has completely changed. We feed the soil… which will eventually feed the vines. It’s not a direct link between man and vineyard. It’s a link between man, the earth, and the vineyard.

So, this is agriculture. It’s as simple as that. It’s nothing new, but I think we have now fully realized all of that—and that has pushed us winemakers to go back into the vineyards to craft change. We revisit all our techniques—and when I say revisit, that’s important, because whatever I’ve done at Roederer, my motto has always been: “Back to the roots.”

I’ve been asking, “What have our ancestors been doing? What have our predecessors been doing? What was the generation before ours doing?” I wanted to put things into a perspective that understands there is not one model—there are different models—and this is how we will succeed in the future, this is what will shape the next 30 years. And whether it’s adapting to climate change, or anything else, it’s about changing slowly from one model to the other one, and then coming back to the first one. Maybe find a third one and come back again. Always adjust your model and change your model, because doing the same thing every year for 30 years for anything is no good.

You shouldn’t eat the same food for 30 years, or drink the same water for 30 years—so, don’t do the same farming for 30 years. It’s just not possible… because your farming has such a footprint on living elements, that if you do the same thing every day, every year, you select your disease, your enemy. In fact, you make the battlefield easier for your enemy, because you don’t confuse them.

I didn’t want to be “green”

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: So, the past 30 years for me have been about going back to the vineyard, understanding how it works again, and being as humble as possible… and because of that, I have switched to organic farming. I didn’t do it just for the sake of being organic. I didn’t want to be “green.” That wasn’t the target at all. The idea was to put down all the shields we’ve built to protect ourselves. To remove the seat belt and feel the pressure because, when you have no safety net, it pushes you to be better.

It’s been a fascinating journey—putting yourself at risk and relearning and finding a different direction. And then I thought, why should I wait? There is biodynamics; there is permaculture; there are all these different tools, so let’s bring them in. Not to “be biodynamic,” not to “be permaculture,” but just to say, let’s look at all the inventory of things people have thought of and try them! I don’t understand most of biodynamics, by the way! But does it do something or not? If it does, I don’t care about Steiner. But if it works and if it makes my vines better, why not do it? I wanted to have full freedom. 

The challenge of biodiversity 

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: So, we talked about organic, we talked about biodynamic. You can talk about soils, about not using pesticides or whatever—all these techniques to make your soil clean. But I think there is another challenge that is even bigger than this one. And that is biodiversity—the biodiversity challenge, which, for me, is the next level. The idea is to get biodiversity within massal selection, by going back to the old vine material—the rootstocks, the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay, the Arbane and the Petit Meslier and all the other great grape varieties—and do a full inventory.

That’s what we started in 2002—a full inventory of the genetic material that has been doing this journey with us for centuries. What is in our own fields? What is around us as well? Because this genetic material, this Vitis vinifera material, or rootstock material, has seen many changes as well; it has been organic for such a long time—more than organic, by the way—and it has traveled from the Middle Ages... and it’s still here today. So, that has seen many, many different climates, many, many different conditions… and they are survivors. They are resilient to this big world. So, let’s make sure we have as many of them as possible. And let’s make sure that we don’t plant only one clone in one plot, but plant 30 different individuals because you need to confuse the disease; because if there are different stages of evolution, ripeness, you don’t have the same deal.

So, I think genetics is now the next chapter that we have to work on—and that will probably give us a lot of power, a lot of resilience in terms of taste, and resilience of the vineyards into a changing world… and that will be very important.

We started our own nursery in 2008, reselecting from all our old vines, and today we have 150 different Pinot Noirs—all virus-free. They come from old vines, but they are clean. At Roederer, we always make the most of science as well. There is no point in developing viruses!

When we do find any virus-infected vines, we put them somewhere else—but we look at them as well, to learn from this virus infection. Because we all have different viruses within us, and we have to live with them. So, the story is not the virus itself—it’s how the vines deal with the virus, the stages by which they can cope with it, and at what level they cannot stand it anymore. That’s what we have to find: What is the status of the vines versus the virus? Because you will always have viruses. You cannot stop them. That’s life. You cannot fight against life. Never.

We have created an association of growers in Champagne that is now run by the CIVC [Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne]. We do massal selections all over Champagne, then gather the material at the CIVC, in a special location, and then we can go and take buds back into our own vineyards. The idea is to build a bank of maximum diversity. Maybe I can take some Pinot Noir from Barnaut in Bouzy, and some Chardonnay from Rodolphe Péters, and they can take some from Roederer. And in the end, I think we freeze the diversity at the regional level, which is even better.

Another possible tool is resistant hybrids developed through genetic manipulation. And many people believe in this as the future. I’m not saying this is not the future—I’m saying it’s an interesting topic. But we have no idea how these new vines will resist over time. Maybe we are creating vines that after only 20 years won’t be working at all. That’s why I think massal selection is more important—because we know it has 2,000 years of history behind it, while the hybrids are new. They have no history, no track record. I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying this is something we should work on. But let’s make sure we have a strong pool of diversity to maintain our direction, and take our time. 

Destroyed by civilization

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: I think we have done a lot of damage already. And because we didn’t see it early enough, I think it’s now a question of survival—we are in survival mode. Biodiversity has been considerably destroyed by our civilization. By our farmers. By our models of production. By the market. Because we had to make some types of ingredients that were very commercially necessary and in demand.

We have specialized too much. Agriculture has never been a specialized industry. In the past, they were doing many things at the same time, so they were cross-fertilizing every field. Now, there is no more cross-fertilization, and that has resulted in very poor biodiversity.

So, we need to change the model. I’m not saying we have only to go back. I’m saying we have to change our practices, to recreate this necessary diversity—more Pinot Noir, more Chardonnay… more insects, more bees, more worms, more bacteria… that would be the best, the most resilient ecosystem. 

Experts in climate change

Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon: No region has more expertise on climate change than Champagne. Why? Because Champagne is sitting in a very unstable climate. We are between a maritime climate and a continental climate, and there is a fight in the sky between them. Some years are very hot and sunny, and then Pinot Noir is king, and you make very deep Pinot Noir wines. And then some years are cool and wet, and then Chardonnay is queen, because it handles that weather much better than Pinot Noir. And that’s why we have both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, by the way!

So, we have had this battle in the sky that was not called climate change—it was called an unsettled climate, or a variable climate. So, we have organized our own knowhow accordingly—I’m talking about Non-Vintage, keeping some reserve wines from hot years to blend with cool years, and reserve wines from cool years to blend with hot years to maintain the style, year in, year out, in a very, very… well, yes, variable climate.

So, we are in a perfect position to speak about that, because our product itself—Non-Vintage—has been designed for that. We have very inconsistent raw material, ingredients that are always changing. No two years have been the same in Champagne for the past 200 or 300 years. And what is climate change? It’s never the same—sometimes it’s warmer, sometimes it’s cooler, sometimes it’s a bit wetter… So, this is in our DNA. This is in our product. This is in our techniques. The difference today is that it’s more amplified than it was, and that’s where we see the effects of climate change.

We have the difference from one year to another, which is maybe a little bit more amplified from one year to the next, and also maybe from one month to the next within the same year—you can have a dry month followed by a very wet month. And so, it demands of us as a grower, and as a master blender, more agility, more flexibility, and more speed in our adaptation, in our decision-making.

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In the second of a series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, South Africa’s Eben Sadie tells David Williams about his past two decades of wine growing.  

Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

Vignerons’ stories: Brian Croser

The story of South African old vines

Eben Sadie: What happened in South Africa with old vines—it’s a deal thing. Because of Apartheid, because of our isolation, for a long time, our industry was locked into a slumber mode, somewhere between a form of hibernation and being on standby. When you’re in that mode as a country and an economy, you buckle down and ride out the storm. You try to save money, and not do things. At that time, not many vineyards were planted. But Australia was coming on point strongly, and California—after the Judgement of Paris, there was a rise in the perception of what American wine was. California was pumping, Cloudy Bay was pumping, all these New World countries were pumping.

But there was nothing here, as there was no way here. We couldn’t export, we had a diminished national market dominated by big co-operatives. There was no incentive for new varieties or vineyards, thanks to poverty, lack of vision, slumbering. And so, a lot of old vineyards didn’t get pulled up, and that was down to an absence of progressive thinking. But, you know, sometimes the worst thing that can happen to an old building is when an ambitious person comes and buys it and ruins it without understanding it. 

By 2005, I was already invested in Europe, and I’d just started to become very aware of the big correlation between old vines and quality inside places like Vega Sicilia, Alvaro Palacios, Comte de Vogüé, Armand Rousseau… Whatever the fine-wine producer, there was a big proportion of old vines going into their reserve wines. Going back to a South Africa that was just coming back into the limelight, I saw vines being ripped up and replaced with Cabernet or Merlot or whatever other trendy, productive variety, without any foresight. I met Rosa Kruger at the time, and we sat and discussed it, and we decided we had to do something. And so we just basically started a number of campaigns. 

Johann Rupert very soon latched onto it. The Rupert family has always been into conservation and art history, and they put a lot of money forward for all that. And so, the Old Vine Project was born, and it got even more profile and trajectory. 

Parallel to all of that, on our small domaine here, in the first ten years, Columella and Palladius were made from old and young vineyards—either very new or very historic, but blended. By 2009, I thought I’d learned so much from the old vineyards in South Africa, I started making experimental wines from old vineyards. I wanted to understand the mystique and the majesty of these old vineyards. And then, in 2009, I released this thing called the Old Vine Series, with some of the most iconic vineyards bottled as monopoles. It became a global thing, and I had huge global support for the project. It wasn’t so much a marketing thing, but a completely new, fresh level of quality and a whole new type of wine in South Africa, and a lot of people latched onto that, supporting us and following us with this journey. As awareness grew, we could invest massively in our old vineyards, and that became a very big success story. 

Place above progress

Eben Sadie: I like history and tradition, but you have to know what to preserve and what to keep. Progress is very important—we can’t stay in the cave. But we also ruin a lot of things in the wake of progress. One of our barometers is place above progress, which means you need to be acutely aware of progress, but if it completely alters things and comes at the cost of the place, it’s not worth it.

The vinification of the Old Vine Series wines is the 1950 formula—textbook… mid-century. It’s just destemmig, one pump over a day, basket press, and then just left in the tonneau, with all indigenous yeast. Winemaking 101, without being clever about it—every red wine and white wine in the same way. If you want to understand what you’re doing, you have to have a constant to read the differentials in terroir—that’s why we have a very fixed winemaking regimen.

In South Africa, the idea of an old vineyard has suddenly taken off, single-old-vineyard bottlings have taken off, and we’ve managed to save grapes that would have been extinct in South Africa, such as old-vine Cinsault and Tinta Barocca. The bigger thing now, the more recent communication, is how you plant a vineyard to get old. 

Just because you’ve planted a vineyard, that doesn’t mean it’s going to get old. With commercial vineyards, everything is done on the cheap, and most vineyards won’t get to 20 years of age. What do you need to do to make it reach 100 years, or 150 years? I’m not talking about hanging on, I’m talking about being prolific at that age. You need to be planting top plant material, you need to think about how carbon is managed in the soils, your cover-crop materials, your grafting materials, your trellising system, the architecture of the vine… the whole thing.

We’ve been raising a lot of awareness of old vineyards. But if you start lapping up old vineyards, but not planting new ones, then you’re not part of a sustainable system. With old vineyards, people naturally look back—but if you’re really serious, you have to look forward. Old vines—and the care of existing vineyards. We’re trying to get that thought pattern. I mean, every guy with a cute little t-shirt and ripped jeans is coming out with an old-vine Chenin with a groovy label. That’s important, it’s cool, but what are you doing for the next generation? How do we make this into a legacy?

The power of young vines

Eben Sadie: The other illusion out there is that you can only make super-premium wine from old-vine vineyards. That’s not true—although it is much easier.

A young vine is a big, powerful thing like a youthful person—it grows, it’s vigorous, it looks like a grown-up. It has a big canopy, but it has very limited roots; your above-the-ground vineyard is always in excess of your root development. It’s much easier to grow aerial than into the ground. With a young vine, for at least 20 years, that vigor is exponentially bigger than the roots.

If you can adjust the vigor of your young vine through the season, you can do something. It’s very difficult. An old vineyard is much easier. It has an established root system, it’s rejuvenating every year, it’s a very stable system

The thing with old vineyards is that the young vine requires an incredible take on viticulture. If you look at David Abreu, the guy who did all the vineyards for Screaming Eagle and Colgin… there are guys who are able to do these kinds of vineyard management aspects, but not all companies can do it. Old vines are much more relaxing—they have adopted all the available networks and space. But young vines—with a diminished root system, respirating too much with a vigorous canopy, and with all these inner stress patterns occurring—they suffer a loss of acidity, all the cycles go out of sync. And that just generally happens to a much greater extent, unless you have a farmer completely on top of everything every week. 

Climate preparedness—and complacency

Eben Sadie: I’ve spent the past 25 years on R&D, creating the most robust system for climate change and being overprepared. And I’m gobsmacked, when I travel to the traditional regions, to see how little they’ve done… and sometimes I replace the word “little” with “nothing”!

If you’re getting $300 a bottle without sweating too much, you’re more likely to be sweating about your ski holiday or Rolex than climate change. I get to very prolific wineries that are world-famous and I say, “What are you doing about how your wine is now 15.5% ABV? I’ve been a collector of your wines for 25 years… What are you doing about it?” And the thing is, there is still someone—in Asia, most likely—willing to buy it. But for how much longer? 

If Pinot Noir in Burgundy is now at 15% ABV, and you’re not worried, when will you be? At 16%? 17%? In Barolo and Barbaresco, if 15.5% isn’t an issue here, is 16.5%? When do we say, we’ve got a problem? It’s mind-boggling how complacent people are—they are not even thinking about what radical change could be.

In terms of what we’re doing: I started in 2001 an R&D program, to start working with a plant-improvement scheme in South Africa, with the government and ourselves, to try to bring here all the grapes in the world and start studying them. I love maths, science, and engineering. I like design, troubleshooting, and algorithms. Let’s look at the latitude, temperature, soil, to compute where in the world is climatically similar, and which are drier and warmer than us, and what are they growing, and if [those varieties] get here, in which parts of the country should they be going.

 The first thing we should understand is that vines are either isohydric or anisohydric. With isohydric, water management is better managed in terms of a vine’s ability to shut down and weather extreme heat. The good varieties are Grenache, Carignan, and Assyrtiko. The bad ones are anisohydric: Merlot, Sauvignon, Pinot. A lot of the most popular grape varieties are anisohydric, and are the worst-adapted to climate change.

We’re looking at our acidity and our freshness points. We’re getting ready. We are ready for the change. Most other producers don’t know what we’re talking about. I’m a geek, I’m weird… Fine, but there’s nothing geeky about Syrah in the Swartland, which you can’t pick at an acidity of more than four [grams per liter]. You can add three grams of acid—but is it then linked to this place, to the terroir?

It’s all about the robustness of potential varieties in a site, and that’s where places like Burgundy are going to have it very hard. If you don’t plant Pinot in Burgundy, the whole story is kaput; but I’m in an area where if I don’t plant Syrah, but I plant Alicante Bouschet, we just move on. Our legacy is not going to be our Achilles’ heel.

I think Bordeaux is one of the few places that has taken a good measureby planting Touriga Nacional. It’s not cool for the hipsters, but at least they’re getting on with it. All these other little hipster regions are doing nothing. I have huge respect for Bordeaux, and by planting Portuguese varieties, they will have a buffer for a while. Some of the traditional areas, like the Mosel, Barolo, and Barbresco, don’t have much of a buffer—these cool-climate places don’t have the systems in place.

 The second thing is we’ve changed our viticulture. We have more soil space per vine. We have lower densities. If you go into a financial crisis, you want a financial reserve; the vine’s reserve needs to be big—it needs a lot of stored starch. You need to get more carbon in your soil, you need to farm your cover crops, you need to mow them flat. You need to change your canopy management to have more shade in it. Then there’s your shoot-positioning… All of that stuff helps you adjust to climate change. The difference is, there are not as many watering stations on the marathon… So, what must the athlete’s training look like?

I’m very worried—not because I want to worry, I also want to relax. But the most dangerous thing in the world is not to know what season you’re living in. I’m a legacy person. I’m not just interested in my career—I worry about this place when I’m dead. I’m thinking about my sons and about my daughter—both sons have studied viticulture and enology, and they’re going to come back here at some point. They have to carry on with the R&D. We want to make wine for a long time—and not just for the sake of it or to just hang in there. We want to calculatedly find a way that we can take this domaine into the future and keep the amazing work we’ve done afloat... and improve... and make better wines. 

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In the first of a series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Katharina Prüm of JJ Prüm in the Mosel tells David Williams about her experiences of wine growing over the past two decades.

David Williams: If the story of the past 20 years of fine wine has a single overarching theme, it’s been the remarkable return to primacy of wine’s fundamental agricultural nature. “Great wine is made in the vineyard, not in the winery” is a phrase that has become somewhat degraded by overuse by marketers of varying degrees of sincerity in recent years, but its essential truth has become only more apparent as the 21st century has progressed, a time when the wine grower, vigneron, or viñatero—the winemaker who spends as much time amid the vines as in the cellar—has become the emblematic figure in fine-wine production, eclipsing the all-powerful cellar technician who had emerged as the star of the late-20th century.

What better way, then, to hear the story of fine wine during WFW’s first two decades of existence than in the words of some of the world’s most accomplished, articulate, and influential vignerons?

Between them, in a series of extended interviews, our cast of nine wine growers offers a truly global perspective. Some of what they say is highly specific to their country, region, or vineyards. But inevitably they share preoccupations—from vine age, genetics, and pruning, to the merits (or otherwise) of organics and biodynamics and the ominous presence of that other overarching theme of fine wine’s present and future: climate change.

Over the next fortnight, we will be publishing these vignerons’ stories one by one, starting today with a representative of one of Germany’s most important wine families: Katharina Prüm.

Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie

Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon

Vignerons’stories: Véronique Sanders

Vignerons’ stories: Gaia Gaja

Vignerons’ stories: Telmo Rodriguez

Vignerons’ stories: Francisco Baettig

Vignerons’ stories: Diana Snowden Seysses

An extreme beginning

Katharina Prüm: I joined my father at the winery in 2003, when I finished law school. It was a very unusual year, and in a way I’m really happy that I started with a vintage like that. You learn most if it’s something extreme—it’s more intense.

I remember before harvest, in summer, the grapes were ripe quite early. And I remember going into the vineyards in early August and it felt like my shoes would burn, and that was something we had never experienced before, my father and I.

My father was much calmer than other people, and I think that’s because he could remember the 1959 vintage, which he experienced as a very young man and which was also quite extreme. He drew a lot of parallels between the two years. In the weeks before and during harvest, a lot of younger growers stopped him and asked: “Well, what do we do?” They were panicking and he said, “Don’t start too early. The wines still need their time to mature.”

Of course you always have to remember we are in the Mosel, and not in the South of France; hot here is a different thing compared to hot in southern Europe. It was warm, but we didn’t have people dying because of the heat.

It was very unusual, but I sometimes think I would like to travel back to that year and experience it again with today’s experience and perspective. And I think I would experience it in a different way, because that year was extreme at the time, but it wouldn’t be at all unusual now. 

The 2022 vintage was more extreme than 2003, because it was so dry. We didn’t have that dryness problem in 2003, and I see dryness as more of a problem than heat. And of course, we now have the experience. We have had more years like that. We had 2018, we had 2019, 2020, 2022, which were all very warm.

So, it’s really the dryness aspect. And even then, in 2003, my father said we would never have to worry about dryness because our slope always offers enough water.

This year we’ve had fantastic winter humidity, and I’m very glad for nature. I mean, it wasn’t very pleasant to go out, but the water in the soils for the forests and everything—they really needed it. But even though these winter rains are important, I don’t think they’re the key. More important is what happens in the main growing season, and in 2022, between April and August, we had very, very little rain. And if you compare that, for example, to the 2020 vintage, which had almost the same amount of sunshine hours, average temperature, and average rainfall, but in different periods, it was a completely different experience. And we did not at all face the challenges we had in ’22.

I grew up with the idea that the longer you wait, the better (more or less). My father was always somebody who waited as long as possible to get enough ripeness, because the Mosel is a very cool climate, and probably the biggest concern every year until the early 1990s was to get enough ripeness.

It was very important, of course, not to work with too high yields, but also to be patient enough and wait long enough to get that ripeness you need for complex, fantastic wines. And that perspective has changed now.

It’s no longer our aim to wait as long as possible and have only this kind of longer hang-time. Now we do sometimes have to start a bit earlier to get freshness, and we are not afraid of starting a week earlier, because the wines still have good complexity, because everything starts earlier, and that’s something we also have to consider.

On average, we now pick three weeks earlier than 20 years ago. When I was growing up, we usually started mid-October and then finished in mid-November, roughly speaking. Now, over the past couple of years, we’ve always started in September, with the exception of 2021.

In 2003, which was then the earliest harvest we’d done, we started on October 3, and even then we still thought there would never be a time when we would start picking in September. And now, since 2018, we have always started around September 18, except 2021 when we again started in mid-October. But that was a big exception.

The end of Eiswein?

Katharina Prüm: Different parcels behave differently every year, and the parcels that were maybe a little bit cooler, because they were higher up in the slope, for example, have generally done better over recent years, whereas before you might have said, “OK, those are the ones where you’d be lucky to have sufficient ripeness for Kabinett,” now, you have a good chance of producing Spätlese, or maybe even Auslese, from it.

But I wouldn’t be able to name a parcel that has got worse. All parcels now can potentially produce top wines—and that wasn’t the case 20, 30, or 40 years ago. And I don’t think we are producing more, or less, botrytized wine. I would say it’s the same, on average. The past three or four years, we produced less; but if you looked at the previous four years, it would be more. But in general, over the past 20 years, we’ve always had years when we had a very good amount of botrytis.

The only thing that I fear is getting rarer and rarer is Eiswein. The last one we produced was in 2012. We still get cool temperatures, but since the growing season has shifted earlier, and because you need the grapes to stay healthy for long enough on the vine until it gets cool enough, that’s getting more and more unusual.

Many changes in the vineyard; zero change in the cellar

Katharina Prüm: When it comes to the cellar, there’s been almost zero change over the past 20 years; in the vineyards there have been lots of different things.

We work a lot more with different yields. On the one hand, you don’t want to have yields that are too low, because that means the grape is driven even faster and your harvest is too early—and we don’t want to make that happen. On the other hand, with these more extreme weather conditions, you have to make sure the vine doesn’t have too many grapes, (a) for the quality of the wine, and (b) for the strength and the health of the vine.

That’s much more of a topic than it used to be, and the key decision is usually made at pruning, not in the summer. We want to give each vine the best starting position, which means pruning it in the best possible way. And while we cannot predict the season, it should be neither too high nor too low in yield.

As a general approach, we don’t like doing a green-harvest. But in 2022 we had to do a really severe one, because we saw the vines really suffering from the extreme dryness in the growing season. We went to all the places where we felt there was too much stress and cut individual bunches—we really did it vine-by-vine. That meant we lost a lot of crop; but it guaranteed the quality both for that vintage and longer term. And I think that was a very important decision in that year.

We have also become more and more conscious of how we do our pruning, adapting our methods as much as possible to what we have learned from the work of Simonit & Sirch. I mean, we were always careful to do it in the right way, but now we feel we understand the vine even better than we did before. We have two teams for pruning. The first one is more skilled and experienced, and they do the main cuts; they understand the vine and how the sap works. And then we have a second team, who are maybe not so experienced; people who do the cuts where you don’t have to have that knowledge.

We are also involved in a project with artificial intelligence, to help us understand the vine even better. It’s still under development, but it’s part of making sure we do our best to keep the vine long-term, to prevent it from having too much stress and keeping it as healthy as possible.

The timeless importance of vine age

Katharina Prüm: I grew up with the idea that vine age is important, but I appreciate and understand it better than ever now, because, with climate change, you really see the value of old vines. 

If I look back ten years, I remember going to a symposium with a discussion about old vines and young vines, and there was a scientist who said there’s no difference in the quality of the wines they produce, which surprised me quite a bit at the time. I would say that if they were to do that event again now, the scientist would be saying something different. The vines have deeper roots, so they find water in the deeper areas. As with human beings, they also have more experience as they get older; you know better how to deal with extreme situations when you’re older than when you are a child.

So, we definitely value our old vines very highly, but they were always important for us. I remember when we had a reallocation process here in our vineyards, whereby the state took land for building bigger passes and new roads, which in general is a helpful idea. But it’s a very sensitive issue—and all the more so if you lose some of your vines. We had a lot of issues, including some legal issues, with the process. And I remember when it started about 20 years ago, even then a lot of people were laughing about “the Prüms with their crazy ideas about old vines.”

Another development is that we have a very high proportion of ungrafted vines at our estate, and we appreciate those, too. Over the past 20 years, we have made some selections we bought from nurseries, a small amount ungrafted. We also worked with Geisenheim University; they selected wood from certain parcels, grafting half and leaving the other half ungrafted for us to plant. It’s something I’m trying to find out more about, because I think it’s still a field that is not widely researched.

We have the impression that, particularly during harvest, with ungrafted vines you have a steadier, more consistent ripening and you are usually able to pick the grapes in a more perfect situation. With grafted vines, we sometimes experience something where the ripeness continues, you get almost to the ideal point, and then very suddenly it almost collapses, and the vines start to develop a little bit of rot. It’s nothing dramatic, but of course we work on a high level, and it’s these nuances that make a difference.

The vines are 40 to 50 years old on average. And what we usually do is use the system that my father called eternal viticulture (except in those cases where we had to replant a few parcels because they built new roads and they needed to adapt the parcels to the roads). If there’s a parcel with some vines that are dying of disease or old age, you replant just a single vine. We have these fantastic slate soils here, and they allow continuous monoculture, so we don’t have to take the vines out after 30 or 40 years and let the soils recover—we can just replace single vines.

Organic gray areas 

Katharina Prüm: We are not certified organic or biodynamic. Not because we don’t care, but because sustainability and working organically is not the same thing. I wish it were, because it would make things much easier! But there’s not this easy black and white; usually there’s a lot of gray in between, and there’s no simple right or wrong.

We work organically in part, but copper is an example of this gray area, where I’m really swimming between the different ideas of what to do, and is it good to use it or not, because it’s a heavy metal. There are of course pros and cons, and some people say, well it’s in very small doses, so it’s nothing to worry about, while others say it’s a heavy metal that stays in the soil forever. Just the other day, I was reading an article about copper causing a species of bird to completely disappear. 

We’re always discussing these issues. We don’t use herbicides. But for many other treatments, if you work organically, you have to spray much more often, which means you also have much higher CO2 emissions. We think sustainability is more important than organic. And we just try to do the best for nature. But there’s not one simple answer, unfortunately. And I can’t imagine a single situation where I felt it was harmful for our business not to be organic. When I explain our thinking, I’ve never had anyone look at me and say, “That’s not convincing for me.” And they would prefer you to be authentic, rather than putting it on the label for marketing reasons.

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