Women winemakers exchange information
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AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ocak 17, 2009 00:00
BORDEAUX - Women winemakers from California have met with their counterparts in Bordeaux at a meeting to exchange information about how they work and techniques on growing, making and selling wine. ’We all want to make great wine but we have very different challenges,’ said the organizer
Old world, new world wine barriers crumbled a little further this week, with a four-day visit of 15 Californian winemakers to that fountain of age, Bordeaux.
All 15 winemakers are women and their goal is to exchange information with their Bordeaux counterparts, 12 of whom, again all women, visited California's Napa Valley last January.
"They really want to understand how Bordeaux works and there were lots of technical questions this morning about growing, making and selling wine," said Wendy Narby, a U.K.-born Bordeaux wine specialist. Narby, who delivered a seminar on Bordeaux's sales system, described the group as "just a bunch of girlfriends," and said the aim was to exchange experiences.
The use of the word exchange speaks volumes about how the relationship between the grand dame of Bordeaux and her California cousin has changed over the last 40 years, starting with the results of an infamous Bordeaux vs. California tasting, held in Paris in 1976. Now known as the "Judgement of Paris," and the subject of two new films, the results shocked the world when Napa came out the winner.
"We need this kind of peer contact, we all want to make great wine but we have very different challenges," said Sharon Harris of Napa's Amici Cellars winery and organizer of the visit. Among the challenges Harris listed was Napa's relatively short 150-year wine making history, compared to Bordeaux's five centuries.
"In Bordeaux they are grappling with a history that goes back to the 17th century, we [in Napa] are a lot more independent, but less supported," Harris said, encapsulating the biggest difference of all, freedom and its difficulties, versus tradition and its problems. "We are a bit stuck in our traditions, we try not to shock," confirmed Martine Cazeneuve, owner of Bordeaux's Chateau Paloumey. "It was very interesting to see how surprised the Napa women were by the fact we do not sell our wines directly over the Web," she said.
Cazeneuve said that kind of shocked reaction was necessary to shake up Bordeaux growers, and make them question the way things are normally done.
From its side, the Napa group said there was much to learn from Bordeaux about product trust and "terroir" Ñ that highly valued combination of soil type, land layout and weather conditions, so essential to Bordeaux wine making. Their contribution, they said, would come from their experience in marketing and sales, as well as a keen understanding of their consumers.
"The biggest disconnect for me in Bordeaux is that they [the producers] do not know who is buying their wines," said Pam Starr, of Crocker & Starr, a Napa Valley winery that produces 2,400 cases of wine a year.
While the idea of simply selling their wine production to a "negociant," the specialized Bordeaux merchants that control the vast majority of domestic and international wine sales, appealed, Starr saw the limitations. "We do not have that kind of support system," she said. Instead it is up to the grower to find a broker or a national distributor and then an exporter.
That means more work, but the advantages are producers are free to sell to whoever they want, using any channels they chose, either by contacting retailers and restaurants directly, or by offering their wines direct to customers over the Web. Plus, in the process, they get a better understanding of the final consumer, she said, and control over the retail price.
In Bordeaux, by contrast, thanks to the control the negociants wield, most producers are unable to tell you neither their consumer profile nor average retail price of their wine. They only know the wholesale price paid by the negociant.
Another hot topic, at the tasting held in Bordeaux's Medoc area was wine blending and the best soil in which to plant different types of vines.
All 15 winemakers are women and their goal is to exchange information with their Bordeaux counterparts, 12 of whom, again all women, visited California's Napa Valley last January.
"They really want to understand how Bordeaux works and there were lots of technical questions this morning about growing, making and selling wine," said Wendy Narby, a U.K.-born Bordeaux wine specialist. Narby, who delivered a seminar on Bordeaux's sales system, described the group as "just a bunch of girlfriends," and said the aim was to exchange experiences.
The use of the word exchange speaks volumes about how the relationship between the grand dame of Bordeaux and her California cousin has changed over the last 40 years, starting with the results of an infamous Bordeaux vs. California tasting, held in Paris in 1976. Now known as the "Judgement of Paris," and the subject of two new films, the results shocked the world when Napa came out the winner.
"We need this kind of peer contact, we all want to make great wine but we have very different challenges," said Sharon Harris of Napa's Amici Cellars winery and organizer of the visit. Among the challenges Harris listed was Napa's relatively short 150-year wine making history, compared to Bordeaux's five centuries.
"In Bordeaux they are grappling with a history that goes back to the 17th century, we [in Napa] are a lot more independent, but less supported," Harris said, encapsulating the biggest difference of all, freedom and its difficulties, versus tradition and its problems. "We are a bit stuck in our traditions, we try not to shock," confirmed Martine Cazeneuve, owner of Bordeaux's Chateau Paloumey. "It was very interesting to see how surprised the Napa women were by the fact we do not sell our wines directly over the Web," she said.
Cazeneuve said that kind of shocked reaction was necessary to shake up Bordeaux growers, and make them question the way things are normally done.
From its side, the Napa group said there was much to learn from Bordeaux about product trust and "terroir" Ñ that highly valued combination of soil type, land layout and weather conditions, so essential to Bordeaux wine making. Their contribution, they said, would come from their experience in marketing and sales, as well as a keen understanding of their consumers.
"The biggest disconnect for me in Bordeaux is that they [the producers] do not know who is buying their wines," said Pam Starr, of Crocker & Starr, a Napa Valley winery that produces 2,400 cases of wine a year.
While the idea of simply selling their wine production to a "negociant," the specialized Bordeaux merchants that control the vast majority of domestic and international wine sales, appealed, Starr saw the limitations. "We do not have that kind of support system," she said. Instead it is up to the grower to find a broker or a national distributor and then an exporter.
That means more work, but the advantages are producers are free to sell to whoever they want, using any channels they chose, either by contacting retailers and restaurants directly, or by offering their wines direct to customers over the Web. Plus, in the process, they get a better understanding of the final consumer, she said, and control over the retail price.
In Bordeaux, by contrast, thanks to the control the negociants wield, most producers are unable to tell you neither their consumer profile nor average retail price of their wine. They only know the wholesale price paid by the negociant.
Another hot topic, at the tasting held in Bordeaux's Medoc area was wine blending and the best soil in which to plant different types of vines.