The sniffer dog and bag checks at the entrance were a sobering reminder of the news, dominated by the Manchester bombing. Once inside the lovely Victorian building, with its soaring glass ceilings, it was clear that the London Wine Fair (LWF) had shrunk once again.
The fair has had more than its share of ups and downs in the past few years, falling from its position as the world’s leading international wine fair to the status of a regional wine show. In 2013, the fair moved from ExCel in East London back to its old home in Kensington Olympia, shedding exhibitors as it went. Despite a rebrand, the big players have gradually stopped coming, including the New World stalwarts who are pillars of the UK wine market, from New Zealand Winegrowers through the Wines of Australia and Wines of South Africa. Treasury Wine Estates no longer exhibits, and nor does Accolade. Brexit and the plummeting British pound haven’t helped either. These days, nearly everyone agrees, ProWein is the place to be.
In a further sign of difficulty, Ross Carter stepped down from his role as fair director, saying that this year’s fair was the most challenging of his career. His role will be taken by Hannah Tovey from mid-June this year.
But while it all sounds grim, the 2017 London Wine Fair was as interesting as it’s ever been.
A new, new wine world
The great strength of the UK market has always been its willingness to embrace new wine-producing countries. British supermarket buyers are some of the most sophisticated in the world, happy to introduce customers to wines from Brazil, or Georgia, or Moldova, long before consumers in other parts of the world even knew those countries made wine. The LWF has embraced this heritage through the Wines Unearthed initiative, a special low-cost, no-frills area where up to 100 producers looking for distributors can tout their wares. If you want a glimpse of the wine future, this is the place to be. The number of Armenians out in force, for example, is the first sign that Armenia intends to make its mark on the world of wine. Then there was the Ecuadorian stand, with a Chardonnay that set the English wine writers to tweeting.
Another focus of a tweet storm was Jeanette van der Steen, the maître-de-chai from Château Bon Baron in Belgium, who had brought some absolutely delicious sparkling wines to pour. Her attendance at the fair was to “sniff out to see if there is any interest”, and she was glad she came. “We have had a lot of interest,” she said. “A lot of people are coming up and saying ‘I have heard about you’. We have had a lot of interest from restaurants,” though she added she still needed an importer. “Yes, we will come back,” she finished.
Rowena Curlewis, the principal of Denomination design, unveiled her remarkable packaging for Yalumba’s The Caley, a $349.00 super-premium Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia, whose tissue wrap details the founder’s journey. “It’s been really busy,” she said.
Such comments were echoed by a range of producers, pleased to be getting lots of attention from sommeliers, distributors, and importers, now that there were fewer big players.
Over at the Georgian stand, there was good and bad news. The bad news: fair organisers had not only put them at the back, but had listed them under ‘USA’. Worse, many of the winemakers hadn’t been able to get visas, so the stands were staffed by a number of Georgians studying in London. They did report, though, that they were getting a lot of attention.
“It’s been really interesting,” said Valeriani Gamtkitsulashvili, an MBA student who was representing his family wine estate, Twins Wine Cellar. “It’s our first time and you definitely meet wine professionals.”
Currency issues
As for Brexit, for some people it was good news. Pavel Titov, owner of flagship Russian winery Abrau-Durso, said that the currency exchange rate was now working well for them. “The rouble went down three-fold in the past three years,” he said. “Now we see a competitive advantage in selling Russian wines abroad.” He was, he said, changing his focus from trying to sell super-premium wines to the export markets, to selling more value wines, and that the UK market still offered major opportunities.
But will the London Wine Fair still be there to help facilitate those opportunities? Kensington Olympia has been booked for next year, but after that, who knows? We live, after all, in interesting times.
