Will Small
Economic journalist
Chapoutier
French winemaker Maxime Chapoutier wants to help shake up the industry
Winemaker Maxime Chapoutier would be arrested if he tried to sell two of his new wines in his native France.
“There would probably be outrage about these wines in France, and that would be a good thing,” he says. “Sometimes you have to be provocative to create change.”
The two bottles in question, a white and a red, would be illegal in France because they were made from a blend of French and Australian base wines.
Under French law and European Union law, it is prohibited to make a wine combining fruit from the EU and third countries. In France in particular, the authorities take these things very seriously.
The French wine industry has a famous word called terroir, which applies to all the environmental factors that affect the cultivation of grapes in a vineyard, such as soil, climate and altitude. As a result, wines from a specific location are held in the highest esteem.
Add to that a strict appellation or classification system for French wine regions, and the idea of mixing French and Australian wines to create a global hybrid would horrify many French wine lovers.
Yet that is what Maxime did, and all thanks to one word: Brexit.
Because while it can’t sell both wines in the EU, it can do so in the UK now that London is no longer required to follow the food and drink rules set by Brussels.
Maxime created the wines in partnership with British online retailer The Wine Society, where they are called Hemispheres Red and Hemispheres White. The red is made from Syrah grapes, or Shiraz as they are called in Australia, while the white is a blend of Marsanne and Viognier grapes.
The components of Australian red and white wine are shipped in bulk to the United Kingdom, where they are blended with wine from the northern Rhône and Roussillon regions before bottling.
Maxime, who works for the famous Rhone wine company Chapoutier, says that while he respects France’s emphasis on terroir, there should be room for global blends to be sold as well.
“Chapoutier has been making wine for over 200 years, very terroir-focused and biodynamic,” he explains. “But more and more people are turning their backs on French wines because they don’t understand the complex rules of appellations.
“We need to adapt to consumers and make wines more accessible, which international blends can help to do. Perhaps European legislation will change. It is also more environmentally friendly to ship wine from Australia to Europe in bulk, as you are not allowed to do so.
Getty Images
The EU has strict rules regarding wine, but other regions and countries are much more relaxed.
Another wine company that now produces wines by combining grapes from two continents is the Australian company Penfolds. She sells reds made from Australian and Californian grapes, as well as others blending Australian and French. Again, they can’t be sold in the EU, but they can in the UK, US, Australia and elsewhere.
Penfolds calls these blends “world wines” and says they “possess an otherness that can best be described as worldly.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Unsurprisingly, some more traditional winegrowers are not in favor of this development. One of those people is Jas Swan, an independent winemaker based in Germany.
While the two-continent blends of Chapoutier and Penfolds are carefully crafted from quality grapes and priced accordingly, she fears that if the trend grows it will result in many more going on sale cheap and inferior wines.
“I believe that these types of wines would no longer have anything of any terroir, even before leaving their continent,” she says. “These wines would have undergone only mechanical work, heavy additions to keep them clean, and are made to be easy to drink for the general public.
“Why can’t consumers be more demanding? Consumerism is insane.”
Tabea Tstreichel
Winemaker Jas Swan is not in favor of blending wines on two continents
Peter Richards, who holds the wine industry’s highest global qualification, the Master of Wine (MW), is also sniffing around. “The notion of blending wines across the country is not something I find scandalous in and of itself,” he says. “My concern is rather to create novelty for novelty’s sake.”
His wife, Susie Barrie, who is also an MW, adds: “I remain convinced that a wine made from a blend of grapes from different countries can be excellent in terms of taste.”
In contrast, wine writer Jamie Goode says developing wine across two continents “is actually a pretty fun idea.”
“If the wines are good and well made from good vineyards – and not just some gimmick mixing cheap bulk wines and then putting a huge markup on the wine – then it’s pretty interesting.
“The fundamental basis of good wine is the notion of terroir: wines come from a place and their flavor expresses that place in a unique way. But not all wines have to be terroir wines, and there is room for wines like this.
“In a way, it takes a lot of skill to put the right wines together to create something interesting from such different places.”
Chapoutier’s two wines for British retailer The Wine Society cannot legally be sold anywhere in the EU
Pierre Mansour, head of purchasing at The Wine Society, says he and his colleagues came up with the idea of creating two wines made from grapes from different continents as part of the company’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
“We were thinking about the future of wine and wanted to do something innovative. Ultimately, we thought one area of innovation was blending, creating a wine that could mitigate the impact of climate change on a particular country.
“And from a carbon footprint perspective, it’s more environmentally friendly to ship wine in bulk from Australia to the UK. But at the same time, we expected the ‘terrorists’ to say: ‘Wait, this is fundamentally against the French principle of wine’.
“So we approached Chapoutier thinking they might say ‘you’re crazy, how dare you insult us’, but they were great. They were really enthusiastic.”
