YOUR SHOUT: Robert McIntosh – Start Making Sense

"Today, neither wine columns nor tv programmes educate consumers in a way that will help them choose new wines. They are shopping lists." Robert McIntosh

Surface imperfections of a spinning sphere travelling through the air affect the direction of its wake, and therefore the predictability of its path.

Would you remember this even by the end of the article? No? What if I told you that the design with fewer panels on the 2006 World Cup Football was created to change the aerodynamics of the ball when it was kicked with a spin and, therefore, make it less predictable and create more goal-scoring opportunities? This makes all the difference. Football. Free kicks. Bend it like Beckham. Context.

Chardonnay. Australia. 2005. 13.5% alcohol. Pretty label. Heavy bottle. Potentially useful bits of information, but on their own do these clues tell you anything about how the wine will taste? No. But that is often all a consumer in a supermarket has to go on. No context.

Without further education, training or experience, other potentially useful clues that might be there such as region (cooler or warmer climate?) or vinification processes (barrel fermented?) are meaningless.

Over the last 30 years or so our appreciation of many things has evolved enormously thanks to international travel, media coverage and big brands in both food service and retail. Think about things like pizza, pasta and coffee. Would you be happy to eat and drink what was being offered in UK restaurants in 1976? I doubt it.

But while consumers have learned by watching and, even better, by making the recipes they see on TV and in cookery books, literally getting their hands dirty and getting to know the products and ingredients, the same cannot be said about wine. Unfortunately, wine cannot be made on demand by the consumer.

If what we need is more context for wine so that consumers can improve their understanding of wine and winemaking processes, where can this come from? Most newspaper wine columns seem to have been boiled down to a collection of tasting notes. Wine’s role on television is largely as a match to the programme’s main focus, the food. Today, neither of these media educate potentially interested consumers in a way that will help them choose new wines. They are shopping lists.

Most independent merchants do their best in this regard, differentiating themselves from the big grocers by offering just such information. However, until consumers know to seek them out, they will continue to be driven to the less risky, branded wines on the supermarket discount shelves.

What we need is a concerted effort to develop the culture of wine in this country, one where learning about, and sharing knowledge on wine, is encouraged and this astonishing product is properly appreciated.

One way to address this is to bring wine to life. International travel has now developed to the point that there is a growing focus on things like eco-tourism and educational travel. Wine tourism is a great way to reach time-poor consumers and give them a better understanding of wine and the cultures it springs from.

The Dinastia Vivanco Museum of the Culture of Wine in Briones, Rioja, has won several awards for doing just that. Over the last 40 years or so Pedro Vivanco and his two sons Rafael and Santiago, have been collecting anything and everything to do with wine. As well as the more common barrels, presses, machinery, corkscrews and bottles, you will find interactive displays, videos, archeological artefacts and works of art normally reserved for national museums. Not only this, but rather than using it as a means of enticing visitors to their winery, they have invested in the construction of a temple to wine, for it really is that, in the form of a world-class museum and wine tourism destination.

The family motto is, “To give back to wine what wine has given to us”. This is the issue of context. No visitor to their museum walks away unimpressed by the Culture of Wine, the developments and endeavours representing the application of human intellect to wine. Twenty minutes spent watching the video of how a barrel is made, from the moment of felling the oak through every single tap and squeeze, helps the visitor to understand that barrel ageing is something special, not simply a flavouring instruction. If packaging is the thing, see how and why the bottle developed as the means of transporting wine to consumers and how labelling developed from early seals in pottery to today’s printed materials. And how about ritual? Did you know that wine was once so highly praised that a single cup offered up to the gods was equivalent to sacrificing a bull? And that was before the 2005 Bordeaux en primeur campaign!

We are sometimes at risk of introducing people to wine in a way that makes it seem that wine is no different from the spirits or RTDs they might otherwise choose. It would seem to be a modern invention, introduced by the New World in the 80’s and all about the critter that appears on the packaging.

It is a common complaint in the trade that we need to escape the narrow confines of price and packaging in the marketing of wine. I agree, and the only answer is to focus on the product. That product is so much more than the mere product of fermented grapes, but the accumulation of over 6,000 years of social and technological developments.

The real issue we face is not one of discounts or channel to market, but of relevance. Let’s all work together to create a context for learning about wine, and foster a healthy wine culture. Consumers, producers and the trade would all benefit.

© db October 2006