London in the Organic Age

I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the factors affecting London wine merchants in the context of today's market.

Let's (briefly) start with economic factors. The words "credit crunch" are never out of the media at the moment. What practical effect, if any, has this Phrase of Doom had on the London on- and off-trades? The press would have us believe that no one is eating out these days, painting a bleak picture of families huddled behind closed curtains, washing their dinners of bread and cheese down with nothing so extravagant as wine. At least from where I am sitting, this is not borne out at all. At the merest hint of sun, the restaurant and cafe tables in the central London street where I work are filled to capacity with lunchtime covers from the nearby offices.


which is the true picture?



On the other hand, the strength of the euro against the pound does appear to be having an impact. We saw record price rises in French, Spanish and Italian wines this year (on the back of a particularly punitive budget, which is another story). The effect of this on the shop floor is that customers who would instinctively have headed for the old world sections are now venturing towards the likes of Chile, Argentina and South Africa.

The increasing health-consciousness of the UK means that people are drinking significantly less than in yesteryear (as Giles Coren's recent programme on the gastronomic debauchery of the 1970s showed brilliantly). However, we are also becoming more selective; the increasing education of the wine-drinking masses is being translated into pennies and pounds as decreased volume consumption but an increased average spend per bottle. Out with generic oaked Aussie Chardonnay, in with the boutique wineries of Otago and Priorat.

Which brings me neatly onto the organic wine phenomenon. Although the wine variant of this lags considerably behind the Whole Foods revolution, it has already given rise to some interesting anomalies. Witness the new Hoxton "eco" restaurant Watermark which says it will give preference to organic wine - fair enough - but that it will not consider any non-European wines on "carbon footprint" grounds, a frankly risible attempt to jump on the fuzzy green bandwagon. If Watermark et al actually looked at the detail of wine shipping, they would find that sourcing wine from a landlocked part of Europe such as Rioja entails a lot of to-ing and fro-ing by lorries, which have much less capacity and therefore pollute far more than one (large) sea cargo vessel from say Nelson (coastal New Zealand), which in many cases can deliver almost to the front door of a bonded warehouse in east London.

So in a nutshell, notwithstanding a mild battering by duty rises and exchange rates, the London wine trade in 2008 is struggling on, reluctantly passing on price rises to the consumer and doing its best to be proactive and keep up with the increasing sophistication of the public (even when such sophistication does occasionally sacrifice common sense in the interests of trend-setting).

Wallaby and Condor - Southern Hemisphere Syrah

A touchstone southern hempishere debate is currently being played out between Chilean Syrah and Australian Shiraz. There has been of late - or so the Chileans would have us believe - a consumer trend away from big, powerful Aussie Shiraz a la Barossa Valley, towards “cool-climate” Syrah of the sort currently found in the Chilean Central Valley and emerging in one or two other promising pockets of the long thin country. If such a shift in the consumer palate is indeed on the cards, Chile is currently looking like the most serious pretender to Australia's new world Syrah crown.

All of which could make very good marketing sense for Chile, which is currently trailing Andean neighbour Argentina by a country mile in the premium wine game. Argentinean Malbec is simply more of a selling point than the Chilean alternative - Carmenere - which is currently the only credibly unique Chilean offering. Were Chile to establish itself as a new world source of quality cool-climate Syrah, some of this lost ground could be recovered.

In terms of regions, the north of Chile seems to have the most favourable combination of sun and breeze. To describe areas such as the Elqui Valley (pictured below) and Limari as cool-climate may seem counter-intuitive, being as they are on the fringes of the Atacama desert, but the cooling sea mist rolls in off the Pacific and tempers the heat. Elqui, which lies just inland from La Serena, one of Chile's most popular seaside resorts and also a functioning port, is the traditional Chilean growing area for pisco, the national grape spirit, and has so far largely been overlooked by wine producers. The combination of climate, relative cheapness of land (compared to more established regions such as Maipo and Colchagua) and access to transport could prove a winning formula.

Corporate relations between Chile and Australia appear to be cordial. Witness the recent joint distribution agreement between the UK arm of De Bortoli and Chilean producer Undurraga. Both outfits are long-standing family companies. Undurraga had not previously found a place in the UK market, which made it stand out among Chilean wineries of its size. With its route to the UK market now secured, it will be interesting to watch the development of Undurraga over here and see if the De Bortoli agreement sows the seeds of further southern hempishere couplings.

Whatever the business synergies, just as our palates were wooed away from the Rhone valley by muscular Barossa Shiraz, we may now be seeing a shift back towards a more refined Syrah style. The Next Big Thing in the Syrah story may well be happening in northern Chile. Watch this space...