London Wine Fair

A place for the unexpected

After the past two years a return to trade shows has been a relief and a revelation. This was abundantly clear at the London Wine Fair where it took twenty minutes to walk straight down the main isle due to the number of familiar faces that just had to stop and say hello. People have in Covid-19 times forgotten the pleasure of meeting real people chatting and swapping ideas.

The London Wine Fair has always been a place for the unexpected; that little bit of something different and this year that experience worked both ways. Wines of Georgia and Wines of Armenia both had wines made from native Indigenous grape varieties and talking with Rowton Vineyards (who joined the Vineyard Stand on day one) we agreed that whether you like something or whether you don’t there is much pleasure in the experience of the new and the unique. With that in mind it was great to see how many people had visited both the WineGB stand and also the Welsh Wine stand.

Zoe and Melissa Evans from Rowton Vineyard on the Vineyard Magazine stand

William Coran presenting his Charmat method Boco from the House of Coran Vineyard

The Welsh Vineyards had plenty of wines to showcase including an award winning red from White Castle. WineGB had numerous award winning wines available to try and on the Vineyard stand it was a great privilege to be able to show international visitors, who had never experienced English wine, a diverse selection including: Traditional method sparkling wines from Ridgeview, Hidden Spring and Rowton and still whites from Penn Croft (Pinot Blanc & Bacchus), Rowton (Solaris) and Flint (Bacchus) alongside a Charmat method rosé also from Flint Vineyard.

The show was very successful show for WineGB: "We had a great line up of different wines and producers which really appealed to the trade visitors. We were busy throughout the whole as were the Welsh producers, showing just how much interest there is in the wine industry in Britain today. Great quality visitors this year too," said Julia Trustram Eve, Head of Marketing at WineGB.

Thank you too all those who came and joined us on our stand and to the team at the London Wine Fair who made the event a great success under what were the most difficult of circumstances.

Mitigating climate change

At the London Wine Fair, Olympia, on Thursday 9 June, keynote speakers Dr Alistair Nesbitt, CEO, Vinescapes and Professor Steve Dorling, CEO, Weatherquest, shared some insights from their two year-long collaborative research project, CREWS-UK. The presentation entitled, Climate Change & Wine: Threats, Opportunities, Resilience and Mitigation, was attended by an international audience as the UK-based scientists work is relevant globally.

The CREWS-UK project is a collaboration between climatologists, wine sector specialists and scientists from Vinescapes, the Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics, and the University of East Anglia, with funding from UK Research and Innovation. The project shows how climate change will affect the wine production sector, and inform the industry to allow for adaptation and build resilience.

Dr Alistair Nesbitt commented: “It is wellestablished that climate and growing season temperatures strongly influence grape growth, quantity, and quality. Grapes are amongst the most sensitive crops to climate change – grapes for high quality wines grow in narrow temperature ranges. A small shift in temperature can move them out of the optimum zone.

“There are threats to production, but there are also opportunities, and ways in which the wine industry can help mitigate climate change,” Dr Nesbitt added.

“Climate change will impact the costs of production, revenues, and profits of wine producers – who are already, or will be, adjusting their practices and adapting their winemaking business for a warmer world. But whether this adaption is successful, may come down to consumers.

“For many producers, the climate crisis is making life much harder. Warming temperatures, extremes, drought, fires, and hail, can all negatively affect grape production, quality thresholds and vintage variability. For others, warming temperatures have been advantageous, at least in the short term! Wine production is heading poleward. There are now vineyards as far north as Norway’s Flatdal region, and viticulture in England and Wales is thriving,” he added.

Dr Nesbitt’s work with climate data and suitability modelling has uncovered 35,000ha of prime land with potential for viticulture and the impact from this research is already apparent with a 400% increase in vineyard area in East Anglia since the publication of the 2018 paper.

On a more positive note, Dr Nesbitt explained how the wine production industry has the opportunity to help mitigate climate change. “The area under-vine is able to sequester carbon and soil organic carbon (SOC) is seen as one way to mitigate climate change. Small increases of SOC over very large areas in agricultural and pastoral lands will significantly reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide,” he explained. “SOC can be improved through the addition of manures, compost, and mulch. Also, returning prunings will help soil carbon storage.

“However, the most promising ways for increasing vineyard carbon storage is better soil management methods especially avoiding tillage or ploughing and having a permanent cover crop. Regenerative viticulture methods help to build biodiversity in habitats above and below ground, with a focus on soil health, mycorrhizal fungi, and soil biology. We also now have the opportunity to select disease resistant varieties to reduce our inputs,” Dr Nesbitt added.

The speakers concluded that the threats of climate change are chronic and acute, but that there are opportunities to explore new areas, new varieties, and new technology to build resilience. To adapt, producers will need to have the knowledge to assess risk and manage variability – and be flexible in both the production and the market.

“Regenerative viticulture, knowledge and research are key to helping mitigate climate change – producers can find out more from the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation. The good news is – if you have a vineyard, you are already capturing carbon and depositing it in your vineyard soil!” Dr Nesbitt said.