Wines of Great Britain Winemaking Conference

Technical topics and tastings.

The second Wines of Great Britain (WineGB) Winemaking Conference took place on 29 November 2021 at Denbies Wine Estate, Surrey, and was organised by the WineGB winemaking working group.

The one-day conference was well attended by winemakers, winemaking students, and WineGB members with an interest in wine production, for a full day of technical presentations and wine tastings from a range of expert speakers with experience from across the industry. There was also time to visit the WineGB patrons who were exhibiting and supporting the conference, and network industry peers and friends.

With the welcoming speech from Simon Thorpe MW, the key topics tackled included protein and tartrate stability, producing wine in a changing climate, sustainability auditing in the sector, and FTIR analysis and wet chemistry. Being a winemaking conference, tutored tastings took place including a range of Piwi wines, a comparison of UK blanc de blancs and still white wines from the UK, as well as the new and innovative canned wines.

Protein and tartrate stability

Sarah Midgley, from Plumpton College, focussed on recognising protein and tartrate instabilities and providing solutions to prevent these occurring. For tartrates this included the pros and cons of chilling, the contact process, electrodialysis and ion exchange. Sarah finished with a process and timeline to stabilise bulk wine.

Jennifer Lincoln from Enartis, a company providing oenological products and technical support, focussed on calcium tartrate instability, which she explained is a marginal problem, but a growing issue in many wine regions. She explained that this is likely linked to increasing calcium content in grapes, and soils. The calcium tartrates can be responsible for ‘gushing’ in sparkling wines, and cold stabilising has little effect, she explained and discussed the Enartis predictive test, before speaking about Zenith, a product for potassium tartrate stabilisation.

Geoff Taylor, former wine chemist and industry consultant, concluded the session emphasising the importance of understanding the concept of stability and the many influences that can cause changes to a wine’s complex chemistry, pre-bottling, post-bottling and during transportation and storage. Understanding this concept is important to understanding that there are no absolutely guaranteed methods to stabilise wine – or to predict its future stability. Geoff explained that the food industry accelerates ageing with food products to gauge shelf life, and he calls for more work, and research, to be done to achieve this with wine.

Winemaking and sustainability

Ian Behling, Associate Director, Sustainability at Ricardo, who focusses on strategy development, was the first to speak. Ricardo is the auditing partner for Sustainable Wines of Great Britain (SWGB), which is helping secure environmental sustainability at the heart of UK wine production. Ian announced that SWGB now has 65 vineyard members and 35 wineries. Ian described the role of Ricardo as supporting information sharing with factsheets for producers and providing measuring monitoring and guidance towards certification. The winemaking objectives are to improve winery design to reduce environmental impact, reduce the energy and water footprint per bottle of wine, reduce the environmental impact of wine packaging, reduce, re-use and recycle winery waste and wastewater as well as reduce the carbon footprint per bottle. Ian was also able to reveal that so far, all audits have passed.

Next to speak was Duncan McNeill, Viticulturist with McNeill Vineyard Management to explore the new Piwi varieties, the hybrid varieties, crossed with Vitis vinifera, that are more resistant to fungal diseases – especially in our changing climate with an emphasis on sustainability. He explained that vineyard managers are seeing the benefits of theses varieties, with reduced inputs as well as lower costs of production. With a tasting of a Piwi variety, Sauvignac, Duncan was able to demonstrate, and impress winemakers in the audience with the quality of the wine. In his view there are four varieties emerging as suitable for the UK, Pinotin, Caberet Noir, Cabinet Blanc and Sauvignac. Duncan concluded by saying that he wished he had planted more Piwi varieties in his own vineyard, and said that it is now over to the winemakers to make some great Piwi wines. A Changing UK Climate: Wine Production Risks & Opportunities

Dr Alistair Nesbitt, Director of Vinescapes and Professor Steve Dorling, University of East Anglia and Weather Quest, shared their data and research to illustrate what is happening to the climate for wine production and how climate change may affect wine production in the UK.

Starting with a chart of Growing Degree Days the speakers were able to demonstrate the pace of change of 70 years in the regions of Bordeaux and Napa, with the rising growing season temperatures changing the parameters for vines, their ripening, alcohol levels and therefore wine styles and flavour profiles. This, they explained, is leading to adaptation of viticulture practices in order to manage warmer conditions in the vineyard.

Using a chart showing climate suitable regions and variety groupings, it could be seen how the rise in average growing season temperature has benefited the UK, making it a cool climate region suitable for varieties such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay – and with this a change in wine style.

The speakers then presented early results from the ‘Climate Resilience in the UK Wine Sector’ (CREWS-UK) research project showing how climate change will affect the wine production sector in the UK. The interactive IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) map showed that the northern hemisphere is more likely to be affected by climate change and rising temperatures. Using two scenarios from modelling for temperature changes in the UK the speakers were able to indicate that temperatures will rise over the next decades, whichever model is followed. Subsequent slides in the presentation showed that there are likely to be more summers like 2018, with warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers across the UK in the future.

The speakers concluded that there is significant uncertainty in the world wine sector and that climate change is just one cause. That we are the lucky ones, but we must get used to the idea of change, research and plan for it. They emphasised that research will be critical to a resilient and world class wine producing region and that the WineGB R&D strategy needs resourcing in order to deliver a sustainable future.

FTIR analysis vs wet chemistry

The conference continued with presentations on comparison of FTIR (Fourier Transform Intra Red) analysis and wet chemistry. Geoff Taylor, first to speak, explained that for certain wine production and bottling operations it is a brilliant cost and time saving tool, but that there are limitations and that FTIR must be complemented by wet chemistry data. Other speakers were Rachel Rees, Campden BRI, Alison Evans and Henry Powles, from Encirc.

UK canned wine

James Elliot from Greencroft Bottling talked through the benefits of wine in a can; they are perfect for on the go, such as picnics, they are environmentally friendly, as they can be recycled, that the wine is good quality and great value. His presentation showed the technology and equipment required for packaging in a can.