Have you ever thought?
Wine is actually an agricultural product, a natural process using a fruit with a naturally occurring yeast on it's skin
- just add water!
But like the fruit and vegetable's we eat, have you ever thought about how organic your wine is?
Something of a revolution has happened in wine over the last 30 years since the days of "Liefraumilch". In the mid 80's the Californians discovered wine making and set about revolutionising the way wine was made, transported, marketed and sold. Then in the 90's the Australians entered the game, and made wine a truly world-wide marketable commodity.
As a result of this revolution, today we have supermarket shelves heaving with drinkable wines of a consistent quality, from all over the world.
Whilst there is no doubt the popularity of wine has been good for the wine industry, the global increase in demand for wine has brought in the 'margin' men, (supermarket buyers), who have forced the industrialisation of a craft. Great wine is not something that can be built on a production line 24/7, too many other 'natural' elements influence the overall process, from the amount of rainfall and sun the grapes have received, to the amount of natural yeast present of the grape skins.The difficulty today comes in 'Supply and Demand', and can be understood by simply looking at the output figures from a typical traditional vineyard in say Bordeaux. The best of Bordeaux vineyards can only produce about 200,000 bottles a year, yet a large UK supermarket chain will require at least 300,000 bottles per year to be able to stock that wine on the shelves of all of its UK stores. So, on a world-wide basis, it's the big industrialised producers that can supply wine of a predictable quality from a consistent climate, year in year out, that attract the supermarkets. These producers draw on diverse vineyards, usually from a huge geographical area, helping them produce literally millions of bottles of wine a year.