The village of Chardonnay in southern Burgundy is an unprepossessing place, its Gallic sleepiness out of step with the global fame of the grape variety to which it has lent its name. Even the local cave coopérative has gone, merged with its larger neighbour at Lugny over 20 years ago.
If Chardonnay could be said to be “indigenous” to this pretty part of France, it’s a fairly meaningless description, given the oceans of wine produced in its name in Australia, California, Chile, Argentina and just about everywhere else where grapes ripen satisfactorily. Nobody here, you can be sure, is worrying about whether consumers on the other side of the world have ever heard of the grape they’re using to make their white wine. Not unless they’ve planted Aligoté, anyway.
But there are many thousands of Vitis vinifera grape varieties on planet Earth, and only a handful have anything approaching the resonance of a Chardonnay, a Sauvignon Blanc or a Merlot. Most remain local specialities, confined to specific geographies of country or region.
They may have distinctive organoleptic characteristics – they may also yield wine that, when produced with the requisite skill and expertise, is enjoyable to drink – but they are constrained by their very lack of fame.
So, whether you’re producing Xynisteri on Cyprus, Plavac Mali on the Dalmatian coast, or Jaen in Dão, who are you going to sell it to? How? And should you be focusing on grape variety as a marketing tool in the first place?
Where best to sell it?
The simplistic answer: in more mature, developed wine markets, such as the UK, the US (increasingly), Germany, Australia and so on. But, while true, it’s also a gross generalisation: try plonking a pallet of Rkatsiteli in the middle of your average UK supermarket and see where that gets you.
You need to zoom in a little closer, says Vianney Fabre of Château d’Anglès in La Clape, where the native Bourboulenc grape is the heart and soul of its white wines. “I believe capital cities are always ahead in terms of ‘wine trends’,” he says. “They were pioneers with single-grape varieties in the 1990s, then blends in the 2000s and now lesser-known, indigenous grape variety blends.”
Namechecking Tokyo, New York, London, San Francisco and Stockholm, Fabre adds: “The most important thing is to find the right partner in order to bring the message the right way to the trade. We believe that a prestigious exclusive partner is key.”
Distribution channel is important too, if you want to access a receptive consumer. “The general public still quite understandably flocks to recognisable grape varieties like Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot, so above all we target clients in both the off-trade and the on-trade who take pride in hand-selling their wines and coaxing customers to be more adventurous,” says Nik Darlington, founder of Red Squirrel Wine, a UK distributor specialising in rare grape varieties.
“We have found that the on-trade and independent off-trade are particularly receptive, primarily as they offer the environment to ‘hand-sell’ unfamiliar varieties to consumers, and therefore minimise the ‘risk factor’ of investing in the unknown,” adds David Gleave MW, MD of UK importer Liberty Wines. “Independent merchants seeking a point of difference from the supermarkets have the broader shelf-space and specialist knowledge available to introduce customers to the sheer diversity of indigenous varieties, while an adventurous wine list with the guidance of an engaging, well-informed sommelier can transform the consumer dining experience.”
This last point is one picked up by Peter McAtamney, principal of Wine Business Solutions (WBS), who pinpoints the “Masterchef effect” (named after a reality television series where amateur cooks compete) on markets like the UK – and, increasingly, Australia. “What has happened in the Australian on-premise market in the last year to 18 months is really quite extraordinary,” he says, adding that as a result of the huge surge in the interest in food, even everyday restaurants are looking to challenge customers with new ideas across wine and food. “It’s not unusual to see, for example, food paired with a biodynamically grown, naturally fermented Merlot from the New York Finger Lakes (or a locally brewed dark ale, for that matter) on a suburban Sydney menu.”
As evidence, McAtamney highlights WBS figures showing the changing stylistic profile of red and white wine listings in the Australian on-premise. “No restaurant wants to be adding another Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc or South Australian Shiraz at the expense of giving their customers something surprising,” he says. “Put simply, there may never be a better time to come to the Australian market with something new and interesting.”
How do you sell it?
More than a decade ago, forward-thinking Portuguese producer JP Ramos hit on a winning formula for its Tagus Creek range, developed in association with UK importer Oakley Wine Agencies.
Blending native varieties such as Trincadeira or Fernão Pires with international favourites including Shiraz and Chardonnay made the consumer “more comfortable when purchasing the wines,” says Roque Cunha Ferreira, JP Ramos export marketing manager. “It is a strategy that makes sense in a certain maturity level of the market, to help increase awareness of the category and its indigenous varieties,” he adds.
But, as markets evolve and informed consumers broaden their tastes, this is changing. “It depends on the wine, the price-point and the intended customer,” says Darlington. “We have some entry-level Portuguese wines at about £7.00 ($11.00) to £8.00, which blend international varieties Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc with indigenous varieties Castelão and Fernão Pires, and this works well to introduce people to less familiar grapes.
“However, beyond that, unless it is the traditional tactic to blend (such as Syrah and Braucol in Gaillac, France), I prefer to show the variety on its own. That way, the grape’s story is easier to tell, as it doesn’t share the stage; moreover, only then can consumers get their heads around what it truly tastes like.”
Gleave agrees. “Within the premium wine sector that is our focus, we have seen a preference for the pure expression and distinctive ‘sense of place’ that can be found in the best single-varietal wines, and less interest in the more ‘homogenised’ character that derives from blending with international varieties,” he says.
What sells?
More than 30% of Liberty’s portfolio is made up of Italian wines, so it’s no surprise that the country’s huge array of native grapes is a major focus for the company. But whether it’s the more familiar Sangiovese or Pinot Grigio, or the esoteric Timorasso or Roscetto, they have to pay their way, says Gleave.
“Beyond quality, our key consideration when sourcing new wines, regardless of variety, is that they have a distinguished character and a story to tell, brought to life by clean, modern winemaking, and that they are produced sustainably and over-deliver on their price,” he adds.
It’s a similar story at Red Squirrel. “We regularly turn away wines made from obscure indigenous grapes that either aren’t that nice to drink, or are unrealistically expensive, and therefore commercially unviable,” says Darlington.
“We believe some wines are worth supporting even if they aren’t fast movers, such as the scarce and beautiful Pigato wines of Liguria. However, there are plenty of grapes that have, sadly, become obscure for a reason.”
There’s a fine line, he argues, between having a distinctive character and being unpleasant to drink – and, on the other hand, some varieties are simply too bland to be bothered with. “Fundamentally, being made from a rare, endangered grape variety bumps a wine up the priority list for us, but it still has to tick each box in the holy wine-buying trinity: does it taste good, does it look good, and can we sell it?”
Should you talk about grape varieties anyway?
You could talk about style. You could talk about region. You could talk about food matching, winemaker, brand – anything except that pesky autochthonous grape variety with the unpronounceable name.
“Absolutely,” says McAtamney. “Now, it’s all about the story, about the maker, about the place. If you start with truly amazing wine, there has never been a better time for wine producers to work their story backwards from that point, as opposed to trying to make it fit into the small group of boxes that worked commercially only a few short years ago.”
It’s an argument that wins the backing of Fabre. “We are French winemakers – always less obsessed by grape variety,” he says. “We are more obsessed by terroir … The terroir will have more effect than anything else on the wine’s taste. Indeed, a blend is better off marketed as ‘wine from this region, this soil, this winemaker’, instead of ‘these grapes’.”
Darlington – not surprisingly, given Red Squirrel’s USP of championing rare and obscure grape varieties – is less convinced. “You can achieve intriguing diversity by means other than different grape varieties,” he admits. “For instance, the intricate terroirs of Burgundy, McLaren Vale or lesser-known places like Dolceacqua in Liguria can produce remarkably different styles of wine from the same variety.
“We also heavily promote the exploration of unknown regions, like Liguria or Gaillac in the Old World, or New York (US), Voor-Paardeberg (South Africa) and New England (Australia) in the New World.”
But he still returns to grape variety in the end. “From a consumer’s point of view, more often than not what matters most about a wine is how it tastes, and generally speaking it is the grape variety that has the defining say in this,” he says. “And, from an environmental point of view, unless we’re talking about shrinking wine regions like Alella in Catalunya, it’s the rare indigenous grapes that are at risk of dying out, so we must obsess about grape varieties, make wine out of them, sell them and drink them – else we lose them forever and, with them, part of a region’s culture.”
