I am fortunate enough to visit a lot of wineries (in normal times, that is). When I arrive at one for the first time, there’s the usual small talk, and then the winemaker offers to show me the inside of the winery.
“Actually, I’d love to see the vineyards,” I’ll usually say. “And to meet your viticulturist, if possible.”
There may be a moment of surprise, but then the winemaker will fumble through their phone for the vineyard manager’s number.
These days, the “terroir” word is bandied about regularly, and flowery descriptors on wine labels boast about the pristine landscape that birthed the fermented fruit inside. Yet, in its marketing and promotion efforts, the wine industry remains far too focused on the winery and the winemaker. Small, grower/maker operations excepted, it is the winemaker who typically acts as global brand ambassador, not the viticulturist.
Viticulturists will be the people relied upon to think on their feet, to change and adapt to growing grapes in an ever-shifting, ever more tenuous landscape.
This has always baffled me. While the talents of the winemaker should not be diminished, surely the person in charge of growing the single ingredient needed to make wine deserves a seat at the table.
We are in an age of growing environmental crisis. Within my lifetime, it may be too hot to grow grapes in certain parts of the wine world; decades of monoculture farming and intensive chemical spray regimes will render entire swaths of vineyard inarable, completely devoid of soil life and unrecoverable for many, many years; extreme weather events will become the new normal.
Viticulturists will be the people relied upon to think on their feet, to change and adapt to growing grapes in an ever-shifting, ever more tenuous landscape.
As wine lovers, the best way for us to understand this precarity is by talking to the viticulturists who face it every day, and by asking fewer questions about tanks, barrels and blending choices and more about spray regimes, cover crops, soil health, picking dates and drought resistant varieties. It’s by requesting (in a post-Covid-19 world), whenever possible, to take a walk through the vineyards or even simply to look at photos of them.
This knowledge enables us to better connect to the wine in our glass and to catch a glimpse of its future, however uncertain. It means that I can choose, as a wine writer, not to cover operations I think are aiding in the destruction of the planet. Consumers can then choose not to buy wines that are farmed unsustainably.
By getting to know our grape farmers, we can all gain a better understanding of the immediate and future impact of the climate crises on the wines we love.
Published: February 15, 2021
