Next week I am a panellist at the Harpers/Wine Intelligence Green Debate at the London Wine Fair. There's grandiose posh for you. I can only hope that I was asked to participate because I have no idea what a Green Wine is supposed to be?
I googled GreenWine and fell into a site called 'The Green Wine Competition'. As expected this promises to solve such dilemmas as '"which organic wines do I want to buy?" The Hon Chairman is my old pal from Fetzer days Paul Dolan. Salad days indeed.
It's a laudable project but one can't help wondering whether the whole Green Thing has gone a long way beyond whether a bunch of grapes has been biodynamically produced or whether a wine has been organically certified or not?
'Green' cannot be a tag defined by the vineyard or winery alone. It needs to be assigned to the complete commercial life cycle of the finished product. If that means checking whether the truck driver smoked three hundred cigarettes on his way up from Italy then so be it. Green is about how clean the planet will be AFTER the wine has been produced and drunk.
Green therefore is a very big word. Prizes are not relevant in the green debate. This is about not losing and has nothing to do with short term winners.
Most Irish consumers pay scant attention to Fairtrade, organic and biodynamic wines. Most stores seem to make an issue of stocking at least token supplies from each sector. One store owner told me that he 'wouldn't want to let the side down' and that he wanted to be 'seen doing the right thing'. Sort of missing the point really. Cosmetics won't matter much when the planet dies..
So, I presented a product I came across in Italy to a range of consumer types and also to a range of wine trade retailers. I asked them all a very simple question, 'What do you think?'.
The answer was the same from everyone. 'Won't buy' and 'won't sell'. This was on sight alone!!
The product was a 200ml can of a 7.5abv frizzante red wine out of Piedmont labelled VinoandFashion.
The following is a list of some of the objections:
Can
7.5% is too low
frizzante red
Wasn't clear from the front of the can what it actually was.
Wasn't clear from the front of the can what it actually was.
I pointed out to each of my cohort that this was all very negative and couldn't they at least try the damn thing. Fair enough was the reply, if you'll pay for a tasting and sampling program to go with the launch of the product.
I mentioned that the product was 'Very Green. 'Look at the can and the weight and how easy it is to cool and and and ....' They all looked at me as if I was ranting. Cheek of them. I wasn't even preaching!
Wine first. Price and familiarity will determine its appeal. Save the planet second. Some causes resonate: others don't. How resonant is Green? Well, my can could tingle and tinkle all it liked. It wasn't going to resonate no matter what shade of Green it was.
It's going to take a while to save the planet I thought until I realised that we could bypass the consumer altogether. If all products were Green then Stockists wouldn't need to make a choice and the consumer would just get on with the dirty job of enjoyment.
As I say. it's going to take a while to Save the Planet.
