sustainability

Doing the right thing The wine industry is facing up to its responsibilities

By David Williams

In psychology, there’s a concept known as semantic satiation, in which a word or phrase is repeated to the point where it temporarily loses meaning for the listener. According to the dictionary definition of the term, after a few repetitions of any word or phrase, all we can perceive is a “series of meaningless sounds”.

Over the years, there have been many times when I’ve experienced something akin to semantic satiation as I’ve gone about my business as a wine journalist, a job which entails a great deal of listening to winemakers, merchants and marketers explaining their ways of making and selling wine.

It’s happened with “terroir”, with “mineral”, and with “great wine starts in the vineyard”: all of which have at times become, through often-unthinking repetition, little more than verbal tics, substance-less syllables, “meaningless sounds”.

In recent times, however, the wine trade buzzword I’ve struggled most to hold onto as its content dissolves into white noise all around me is, without question, sustainability.

Of course, the meaning-straining ubiquity of sustainability isn’t only the fault of the wine industry. As a word (if not necessarily as a set of practices) sustainability has spread its green or greenwashed fingers all over wider society in recent years. Suddenly, it seems, everything is sustainable (or rather, everything is described as sustainable): from cereal and sock brands to cruise liners, football teams and government departments – even, in one of the more grimly hilarious uses of the word I managed to dig out on the internet, military hardware. (Let’s build a “sustainable army with a net-zero bootprint”!)

The situation isn’t helped by the fact that it’s rare to hear the same definition of sustainability twice. Indeed, it can sometimes seem like there are as many interpretations of sustainability in circulation as there were species of animals in the pre-Anthropocene world. There’s an imprecision about sustainability, a set of sometimes-confusing and conflicting ideas about what it is and what it should be that, as well as being hard to pin down, is also open to bad-faith use and abuse.

Abuse? Well, in wine, as in every other industry, it’s all too easy for companies to exaggerate the good or conceal the worst of their business by taking advantage of the shades of grey in the definition of the term and making use of the sheer range of practices that could, given a fair descriptive wind, come under the banner of “sustainable” without falling foul of UK consumer protection law.

Unlike with organic, Fairtrade or biodynamic – terms which are all much more tightly defined – the meaning of “sustainable” remains somewhat broad, elastic, and open to interpretation. In the UK, even under the strictest interpretation of the legal guidelines published by the Competition & Markets Association on making environmental claims on goods and services, the word sustainable can in effect be used by any producer, no matter how filthily carbon-intensive or socially ruthless and reckless they may be. Provided they can make some form of substantiated claim that at least some of their business practices have some form of sustainable benefit, there is very little anyone can do about it.

Defining sustainability

There are, however, encouraging signs of change, with a combination of governmental, international, and wine industry-specific initiatives working towards tighter definitions and greater transparency for consumers and making it much more difficult for companies to greenwash their brands.

Most of these efforts start from the widely adopted core philosophical tenet of sustainability. As the UN has it: “Sustainability consists of fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations, while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care and social well-being.”

For the past 20 years, the UN has also had a working definition of

Sustainability

sustainability in the shape of the “10 principles” of its Global Compact, which run as follows:

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour; Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges; Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

All of which, while perfectly useful in setting the terms of engagement, is not entirely helpful when it comes to instructing, defining and, ultimately accrediting, sustainable day-to-day business behaviour. But that’s where industry-specific bodies are increasingly making their presence felt.

In wine, the body that is doing most to provide clarity on sustainability is the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, a non-profit coalition of more than 60 stakeholders that includes producers such as Treasury Estates, Grupo Avinea (Argento), VSPT and Journey’s End; retailers such as Lidl, Systembolaget (the Swedish monopoly), Whole Foods Market, Waitrose and The Wine Society; importers such as Enotria&Coe and Finland’s Vingruppen; packaging providers such as closure giant Amorim; industry associations such as International Wineries for Climate Action, The Porto Protocol and Great Wine Capitals; and accreditation and certification bodies such as The Fairtrade Foundation, Terra Vitis, and The British Standards Institute.

The involvement of the accreditation bodies is a clue to one of the SWR’s most urgent priorities: to “lead the development of global sustainability reference standard”. A key part of the body’s Operational Plan for 2022-2023, therefore, was to carry out a “global mapping and benchmarking of existing regional and local standards”, which springs from an acknowledgement that, as the body itself puts it, “producers need guidance” and “marketers and consumers need clarity”.

This is no small task. Talking to some of the players involved in the SWR, you soon get a sense of just how all-encompassing sustainability is for those businesses that are taking it seriously – and just how many different actions it requires. At Enotria&Coe, one of the founding members of the SWR, for example, the new corporate sustainability strategy has 18 different categories, evenly divided across three broad headings: “environmental impact”, “a fulfilling workplace in the community”, and “duty of care”.

Actions range from investing in a new fleet of energy-efficient delivery vehicles to switching all of the company’s cardboard boxes and inner packaging material to 100% recycled and compostable sources, while on the social side, the company trained 16 mental health first aiders in 2022. It also found time to carry out a thorough audit of the sustainability of its suppliers.

It’s a similar situation for one of the producer members of the SWR, Grupo Avinea: the Argentinian company behind Argento and Otronia. According to Andrés Valero, the firm’s sustainability leader, the Argento brand is already certified organic and Fairtrade and it has a sustainability programme with specific goals on best practice that also takes in targets on issues

such as food safety and food security, and vegan production.

“We have to be very clear that sustainable wines have many different criteria, it’s not just one,” Valero says. “You may have a consumer who is focused on social fairness, and Fairtrade will be what they are looking for, and if they are worried about climate change, then it will be the carbon footprint, but if they are looking for nature and agriculture then organic practice or biodiversity practice will be their focus.”

Tuscan Michele Manelli, who has become something of a spokesman for sustainability in Italy through his pioneering work at his Montepulciano estate Salcheto, makes a similar point. “We have worked a lot on the environment, and there is still a lot to do there. But what we also need to do now is to move on the social side, to create a more respectful culture between companies and their staff and their wellbeing.”

Beyond organic

Even from a strictly environmental perspective, however, there’s a general sense among committed sustainable producers that, while what happens in the vineyard (including the adoption of organic or biodynamic practices) remains vital, it is far from being a panacea. Other measures, specifically those concerning energy and water use and packaging, can be at least as important when it comes to addressing issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and resource scarcity.

“Organic imposes certain processes on you which are not always great for biodiversity, and it consumes more energy, because of the high mechanisation it requires,” says Manelli, whose own estate has long been certified organic. “It is the best way to go, especially when you’re making quality wine, but it’s not perfect and we shouldn’t forget that it has its own issues and that it has to be part of a more complex calculation.”

Sam Thackeray, joint managing director of Enotria&Coe, takes the same view. “People will go for the headline organic or biodynamic. But when you investigate some producers that’s all they do. They don’t believe in doing anything about their community or water use – it’s like a graphic equaliser, you have to get all the different levers in balance.”

This is very much the view taken by one of the global leaders on wine sustainability, Torres. The sheer scale of Torres’ efforts to get to grips with its carbon footprint over the past 15 years is remarkable: the company invested €15m in renewable energy across the business, as well as experimenting with various means of carbon capture and lightweight packaging. The result was a drop of 27% in its CO2 emissions per bottle by the close of the last decade, putting it well on the way to its target of being carbon neutral by 2040.

When I visited Torres in Penedès to take part in a day’s conference devoted to climate change and the wine industry in 2019, Miguel Torres Snr told me that, while he was sure setting his own company on a sustainable path was the right thing to do, it would never be enough unless other companies took similar decisions. That’s why Torres joined forces with Jackson Family Estates to form the International Wineries for Climate Action, “a collaborative working group of environmentally committed wineries focused on a science-based approach to reducing carbon emissions”. Valero also identifies collaboration as an essential component of sustainability. “The next step is how we bring everything we know to the rest of our supply chain,” he says. “To achieve sustainable development, it’s not enough to work only in our company, we also [have to] interact with our packaging suppliers and with other grape growers, helping these small producers, not only to produce grapes, but to work sustainably as near to the practices that we have as possible.”

For a supplier like Enotria&Coe, meanwhile, advancements in sustainability will also require the participation of the company’s customers, among them thousands of small restaurants and independent retailers, as well as its producers and other suppliers. Even apparently trivial changes in the customer base, such as the way they deal with invoices and delivery notes, can make an enormous difference, Thackeray says.

“Using a paper delivery note is just not acceptable in a modern digital environment, and customers have to step up and take responsibility for switching to digital. It terrifies me the amount of paper we print in triplicate: 25,000 units a night.”

In a similar vein, Thackeray would like to see retailers asking themselves if they “can find digital alternatives for everyday marketing collateral. And if you are using printed, can you ensure it’s printed on FSCcertified paper?”

He also urges merchants not to be timid with their own customers when it comes to imposing sustainable initiatives. “Consumers know you can’t go into Sainsbury’s and get a plastic bag for free anymore, so independents can be confident and put your foot down on the issue. There’s an idea you don’t want to upset your customers. But if you articulate it, the end consumer has already been trained.”

None of the measures Thackeray recommends to retailers is expensive. Indeed, like everyone else I’ve spoken to about sustainability, he is convinced that, as well as being the right thing to do, sustainability makes “good business sense”.

Valero agrees, saying that “the largest investment is in time and thinking”, and pointing out that the best performing companies on indices such as the Standard & Poor 500 have “sustainable core values”. Sustainability is increasingly what the wine consumer wants and expects, in other words. Even if they still aren’t always sure exactly what it means.

For Enotria&Coe, advancements in sustainability will also require the participation of customers, including independent retailers

Argento was born with a very specific

philosophy: that organic production helps us to make the best wine possible. In 2010 we started developing our own vineyards with this working philosophy, doing some extended research on the soil, on the climate – all the local characteristics. As a result, we are the largest organic producer in Argentina, and we offer a whole portfolio of sustainable products at a great variety of price points and places.

We started with an organic winemaking

philosophy, but we had to translate this into a business model. The vision of Argento is to lead sustainability culture in Argentina, but also create brands that have a high value with consumers all over the world.

We want to convey the message that it’s possible to be sustainable and economically healthy – and, as we adapt to events such as climate change, sustainability will become more important.

Organic wine is becoming more and

more popular. According to the OIV, from 2005 to 2019-20 there was a 500% increase in organic vineyards around the world, to 500,000ha, or 7% of the total. In Argentina it is still only 4% of the total. But the annual growth is around 38%. In terms of consumers, despite global wine consumption going down 3%, organic consumption has risen by 120% and the UK is one of the top consumers of organic wine: it almost doubled from 2019 to 2022.

How Argento led the way with sustainability

Argento is Argentina’s largest organic wine producer. But green viticulture is just the start of the Mendoza-based company’s commitment to sustainability, as Argento’s sustainability leader, Andrés Valero, explains

In association with Bodega Argento bodegaargento.com

Sustainability isn’t just about vineyards.

We are also Fairtrade-certified. All our vineyards and wineries are certified under the local sustainability protocol, as well as in food safety and vegan production.

The Fairtrade certification focuses on everyone in the winemaking process

in the vineyards and the winery. The certification guarantees that we implement safe working conditions and fair pay. And every time we sell a bottle with Fairtrade on the label, five cents of each euro goes to a fund for our workers to invest as they choose in their communities. Last year, some chose to invest in three local schools, which play a very important role in rural communities, while others invested in a football club for kids, and in a community diner. Our workers know what is needed.

Packaging for us is a big deal, although it is part of the supply chain where we

have the least control. What we can do as a company is to use bottles that are as light as possible. All our cardboard comes from recycled sources, and the bottles have a high level of recycled material.

If we want to be a sustainability

leader, we must convince others to come on the same journey. Bodega Argento is a founder of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable and I am one of its trustees. SWR is trying to define some targets, for everyone involved in the wine supply chain. We are members of Bodegas Argentina, and actively participating in the update of its Sustainability Protocol, the local certification for the wine sector. The current version is focused on environmental practice, but it’s been updated to include social sustainability.

We are participating in the 4 Per 1,000

international initiative. This organisation believes that soils that are richer in carbon are better adapted to the impact of climate change. We are also part of the United Nations Global Compact, which defines 10 principles of corporate sustainability regarding human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. We also work with a local network of companies against child labour.

Chief winemaker Juan Pablo Murgia

ABOUT BODEGA ARGENTO

Argento first appeared in 1999 with the aim of producing pure, elegant fruit-driven wines that embody the essence of modern Argentina. Today, Bodega Argento is a benchmark in the Argentinian category across Europe. 100% of Argento’s 322ha of vineyards are organic and Fairtrade certified. It has implemented drip irrigation in all its sites. It invested in a residual water treatment plant and is aiming to use 100% recycled packaging within five years.

It received full sustainability certification in 2019. Argento is now also fully vegan certified.

Encompassing over 600 hectares of vineyards across the Douro, 19 quintas and 15 farmers, Lavradores de Feitoria is a wine company with enviable skill, and a commitment to delivering elegant, balanced wines. It’s also determined to create a viticulture business in the Douro Valley that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.

Every single farmer in Feitoria is a shareholder in the business. This not only knits a neatly bound community of growers and winemakers, but also supports a sustainable viticulture industry in the region. Feitoria wants the industry to thrive, not only survive, and so farmers are paid above the market price, giving them a wage that they can live on. This model extends to all staff.

There’s a strong desire to retain vineyard identity across the group and, to support this, growers and winemakers are being encouraged to minimise their use of additives and non-organic interventions in both the vineyard and winery. Today, one of the quintas has full organic accreditation.

Feitoria produces both blended wines – very much in the tradition of Douro winemaking – and “terroir” wines. One of the key objectives is to reflect the characteristics, qualities and individuality of specific sites. It works to understand the diversity of grape varieties, vineyard plots, altitudes and soil types that make up its 600 hectares. With knowledge comes the ability to produce consistently top-quality, complex and characterful wines, for which Feitoria is now well known.

Aware of the current consumer trend to a more sustainable, plant-based diet, Feitoria is in the process of securing vegan certification for all of its wines.

The company’s new winery is located at Quinta do Medronheiro. Here, there is a technical team made of up winemaking director Paulo Ruão and winemaker Raúl Pereira, alongside head of viticulture Margarida Martins and viticulture consultant Nuno Magalhães. It is down to them that “whether it’s big volume or wines with great ageing potential, the wines are balanced, elegant and food friendly, and always with a Douro identity”.

Export manager Marling Espejo adds: “As the wines are all made centrally, guidance comes from the winemaker about how he would like the vineyards to be managed so that we can maintain our identity through our wines. That said, we benefit from a diverse set of terroirs, so we do want to maintain the individuality of the quintas. Because the farmers are all shareholders, there is a unity among them to all pull in the same direction.”

Lavradores de Feitoria has recently launched a new project, Trust & Respect. The scheme is currently awaiting accreditation. At its heart are economic and social programmes that form part of the company’s sustainability plan. These include paying for grapes and staff wages at sustainable levels. The long-term plan is that producers outside of the Feitoria group could apply to be accredited and, once approved, carry the Trust & Respect logo on their wines.

While the Feitoria team feels passionately that a model that supports sustainable viticulture and winemaking in the Douro should have been in place long ago, not everyone agrees.

“There is some opposition to the Trust & Respect scheme from large wine corporations in the Douro, as it threatens their low-pricing model,” Espejo says. “It is an exciting time for Lavradores de Feitoria, but a tense time for the region. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the Douro, but we hope that the Trust & Respect scheme leads people in the right direction.”

It is no secret that the Douro Valley has its challenges, especially around labour shortages. What Lavradores de Feitoria is proposing is both sensible and sustainable. Given its plethora of great quintas, premium vineyards and winemaking talent, it is in prime position to lead by example. It is showing every year that it is possible to make great wines at affordable prices, while ensuring that everyone, from growers to winery staff, is fairly rewarded for their endeavours. What’s more, it’s proving it can be done in an environmentally friendly way, too.

Lavradores de Feitoria: an ethos built on trust and respect

With Marling Espejo, in association with UK importer Raymond Reynolds Ltd

Setting the standard

Lanchester Wines has spent more than £10m on green technology and believes that both it, and its wine-producing partners, can go even further toward making the global wine industry more environmentally and socially responsible. Director of sales Mark Roberts explains why

In association with Lanchester Wines and its independent-focused division, Vintrigue Wines

Sustainability is such a broad term. What does it mean to Lanchester Wines?

The owners, Tony and Veronica Cleary, had the foresight to get massively ahead of the curve with sustainability. We’ve spent about £10m on renewables since we started in 2011, with wind turbines, solar panels and heat pump technology, and we now produce more renewable energy than we use. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all sustainability solution, so we use what’s best in each location. This means turbines at our HQ on a windy County Durham hill and open-loop water source heat pumps at our Gateshead warehouses by the River Tyne, which take heat out of disused mine workings. We were the first commercial building in the UK to do this and have learnt a lot on our journey, which we’re sharing with other businesses interested in this system, such as The Sage in Gateshead.

Right now, our primary project is the ongoing development of Greencroft Two, our new 22,000m2, £20m home for our sister business, Greencroft Bottling. Constructed with sustainability front of mind, the building will be one of the most advanced thermally efficient buildings in the market with state-of-the-art insulation panels. The PowerPanels in the roof will have two megawatts of solar power which will create around 1.7m kilowatt hours of electricity per year. We’re spending more than we might otherwise on a new building, investing an additional £3m in sustainable practices. We’ve even adjusted the gradient of the roof to make the most of the sun.

What about the wineries you work with? What steps have they taken?

We’re very selective about who we work with, actively seeking suppliers who share our belief in wine, obviously, first and foremost, but equally the sustainable side of it. Every time we work with wineries or

Mark Roberts

producers, one of the first things we talk about is how they approach sustainability.

It must be reassuring for those wineries to look at the steps that Lanchester Wines and Vintrigue have taken and see you match your words with deeds.

Yes, very much. It gives you integrity, which I think is key. We try to be proactive, not reactive, and can only do that because the Cleary family are 100% on board. We’re looking at continuously changing technologies, what we can use where, and we want to share that, you know? We’ve been talking about having an industry forum on this.

Tell us more about some of your producer partners.

We work with a company called Tombacco of Italy, it’s a phenomenal company, which has just received Equality Sustainable Wine certification for their approach which includes a solar farm and Israeli irrigation systems for water preservation – that’s really important when we’re talking about this sort of stuff. They just happen to be an organic winery too.

In Chile we work with Matetic, who supply our Ventopuro range. They’ve got the Wines of Chile Seal of Sustainability and a brilliant plastic recycling facility and a woodworking workshop that benefits their community. They also have a tree project, planting one native tree for every 100 cases of wine sold. And in Napa Valley we work with Trinchero, who are hugely into their sustainable farming and massively into community projects. Coincidentally, these are all family-owned businesses.

Clockwise from top: the Greencroft Two bottling plant; a community woodworking project by Ventopuro; and Tombacco vineyards

What tangible benefits do producers see? Do sustainable initiatives make or lose them money?

A lot of wineries were doing these things anyway, it’s just that they weren’t being talked about so publicly. Water preservation has been at the heart of it and farmers have been eager to work with local communities, partly through providing employment and maintaining their crops but also ensuring the community has a viable future. It does cost money. Our own investment in sustainability benefits us now, but it’s mostly an investment for the future. Like, if you look at organic viticulture, it’s much easier to spray than to go through organic certification and have those practices. There is a cost, but there is a benefit, a massive benefit.

You know, if you’re going to drink a decent wine, you want to make sure that it’s got integrity.

Could more premium wine be shipped in bladders and bottled in the UK?

For sure! If you start with great wine, you should end with great wine regardless of how its been transported. Our sister company Greencroft Bottling constantly invests in the latest state-of-the art equipment. We are an incredibly modern bottling facility and we treat that wine the way the winemaker would want it to be treated.

If you’re shipping wine across the world, it’s vastly better for the wine to be in a bladder, to cope with temperature variation. It’s undeniable; the science is there to say it is fine. And in terms of sustainability, shipping in flexitank can more than double the volume shipped: a 20ft container could carry 13,200 75cl bottles (9,900 litres) or one flexitank of 24,000 litres (32,000 bottles). With that comes a significant win on the environmental front, with CO2 savings of up to 40%. We’ve worked it out as around 2kg of CO2 per kilometre travelled.

And we’re now bulk packing wines that are sitting on shelf for about 20 quid; we call this Boutique Bulk. We hosted a round table a couple of years back, with some seriously high-end pub operators, an MW and some others from the trade. Their honest feedback was that the consumer doesn’t care how the wine is shipped.

Is the problem mainly that premium wines that indies prefer simply aren’t shipped in bladder-sized quantities?

Yes, a lot of indies and their producers don’t really have 24,000 litres they want to ship at any particular point. So we have steels that can ship up to 1,000 litres if needed. You can have split tanks. The juice is so good; it really is insanely good kit.

The other side of this is formats. We’re looking at moving towards cans, which almost have that stigma of screwcap but, actually, if you really are serious about sustainability, if you have a container of 187 glass versus a container of 187 cans volume, it’s a saving of 23.5 tonnes.

How can a big company like Lanchester Wines connect with small independent merchants over issues like sustainability?

We’re an independent too. We’re 100% family owned, and the business was started in a living room back in 1980. I’ve been here nearly 10 years now, and my mandate was to reinvent our wine credentials, really, as a group of wine companies. Vintrigue was born out of the fact that I wanted people to see our ethics and the ethics of our wines.

We are the only wine importer, certainly in the UK, that goes as far as we do in terms of sustainability.

Listening to Patrice Lesclaux talk about “what’s next” for Chivite, it’s hard not to think of novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s reflection on invention – “we have to be continually jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down”.

It is well known that Julián Chivite Marco was the founding father of the Navarra Denominación de Origin in 1967. It is, therefore, eyebrow-raising that his son, Julián Chivite López, has steadily been moving away from the DO.

For clarity, the move is not geographic. Chivite’s vineyard, Finca Legardeta, is firmly located within the DO boundaries, albeit at its most northerly point, where the vines enjoy a very cool Atlantic/ Continental climate.

The change is the decision to label every one of the Chivite wines as IGP Tres Riberas. Why? It allows the Chivite team to explore, experiment and innovate to the maximum, free of the restrictions of the requirements set by the DO.

The message hit home in 2015, with the first release of the premium Las Fincas Rosado. The wine was a collaboration between Chivite and 3-Michelin star Spanish chef Juan Mari Arzak. The aim was to create a world-class Spanish rosado that would fit on the wine lists of Spain’s finest restaurants.

The wine was thoughtfully and carefully created. The team wanted a lighter salmonpink coloured wine, with the finesse and textural complexity that would make it at home in the fine dining scene. They achieved what they wanted, but by direct pressing the grapes, which was strictly forbidden.

The DO didn’t allow it in 2015, and Julián had no choice but to label the wine as IGP 3 Riberas. Arguably, Chivite was pushed rather than jumped. But stretching his vinous wings felt good, and the decision was made to move the full Chivite range out of the Navarra DO.

Above all else, Chivite is focused on making outstanding wines from its Finca Legardeta, and it is seizing every opportunity to do so.

Lesclaux explains: “We have some varieties that have not worked as well as we would have liked – such as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon – and we are pulling them up. Now we have the space and the freedom that comes with IGP to experiment fully.” He continues: “We know that Tempranillo does very well in certain parcels, but our experimentation can extend much more broadly: Mencía, Monastrell … even Albariño. Why not? We will also have more flexibility with clonal selection.” Chivite has quite a vineyard playground to work with. Finca Legardeta rises from 450m to 600m above sea level. The proportion of clay and limestone varies with altitude, though the calcareous sandstone bedrock is consistent across the 250 hectares. Longidentified as one of Spain’s great vineyards, Chivite has been a member of the Grandes Pagos d’España since 2004. Currently only 148 hectares of the 250 available are planted to vine. There is a good deal of room to play with, and given the undulating nature of the land, there are a vast number of new potential parcels to identify. As Lesclaux says, “there’s lots of work to do with soil analysis and better understanding of the different areas, but this work is well underway”. The Chivite ranges have been rejigged, with the possibility of more wines to come. Arguably Spain’s finest white, Chivite’s

Blanco, is swimming in 99-point scores, gold medals and global critical acclaim. It comes from a plot known as Las Mercedes.

Chivite recently launched the singlevineyard Vino de Guarda Tempranillo. All the grapes come from a south-facing parcel called La Isla. Covering a modest 7.5 hectares, at 500 metres, the calcareous soils here have a significant presence of pebbles. Lesclaux says this plot of Tempranillo is the most northerly in Europe. Vino de Guarda means “wine with ageing potential”. 2017 is the inaugural vintage of the wine. This clear articulation about the plots, and their unique qualities, opens the door for further premium wines, perhaps made from varieties not traditionally allowed in Navarra. “We have a five-year plan to add more parcels, and our new-found freedom opens up so many possibilities for us,” says Lesclaux. “We are really excited to have a new white wine in development, for release next year, which will be the white counterpart to the Tempranillo Vino de Guarda.”

These wines will sit a level up from the Finca Legardeta mono-varietals that showcase the qualities of the property’s vineyards, among the most northerly in the Iberian Peninsula. Enotria&Coe lists the Chardonnay & Garnacha (92 points, Decanter) in this range.

Let’s not forget Chivite’s commitment to thrilling rosado wines. This year Las Fincas Rosado 2021 was a gold medal winner at the Drinks Business Global Rosé Masters and among “the best 15 rosé wines in the world.” El País also voted the wine Spain’s best rosé this year.

New this year is an oak-fermented sibling to Las Fincas. Las Fincas Rosado Oak Fermented 100% Garnacha spends six months in French barrels.

The Chivite rosado line-up will finish with the very limited production Colección Rosado. This is a

Tempranillo/Garnacha blend that has been aged for 14 months in new French oak.

Lesclaux concludes: “The move to IGP has been so positive for us … customers are curious and there’s new and renewed interest in the wines. We are proud of our reputation as a producer of outstanding wines, not just at home but abroad. We are now in a position to give both our agronomist and winemaker the flexibility they need to push the quality levels even higher and deliver exciting wines to our customers.”

Published in association with Chivite and UK importer Enotria&Coe Visit enotriacoe.com or chivite.com for more information Moving beyond the Navarra DO has given the producer the freedom to explore, experiment and innovate

When did you start to take sustainability seriously? After a few years working as a quality producer, I wanted to grow the business – to internationalise and invest. As part of this process, I thought it was important to develop a new business responsibility, which was focused on quality but also about a new business model.

What were your first steps? The first step was building an energyindependent “off-grid” cellar from 2009 to 2011. At the same time, and with a lot of support from the research and academic world, we set out to measure our environmental impact. We became the first cellar to assess and identify our carbon footprint in 2009. That showed us what impact the cellar has. But it also showed us how big a part is played by the packaging: an important finding that drove us to invest in that direction. In two to three years, we introduced new packaging that weighed below 380 grams, the lightest glass bottle available and by far the most eco-friendly.

What other measures have you taken? We are certified organic and we work our vineyards according to European organic protocols. We produce our own fertilisers by composting, and engergise our soils with 500 biodynamic preparations. Wooden materials, plus cardboard, come from controlled sources and responsiblymanaged forests. We purify and recycle 100% of our waste water, including from spraying machines, and adopt a system that allows us to internally differentiate more than 98% of waste materials.

Do you have official sustainability certification? We publish a yearly sustainability report based on the Equalitas standard management system, which monitors environmental sustainability based on carbon footprint, water footprint, and biodiversity. The criteria are not only environmental but social, and economical too, it’s really the most complete model that exists. We were in a group of the first five wineries ever to receive the Equalitas certificate in 2017.

But your concept of sustainability is about more than the environment. Yes. From mid-2014 to 2015, we started investing in our social situation. We established a transparent relationship with the workers, involving them with the decision making, and being fully transparent about career plans, study and personal development. Then we have a welfare plan, which is probably the most talked-about thing we have done. It’s the result of these interactions, of listening and monitoring our staff’s welfare needs.

It covers many things. Some of our workers’ kids might need some support for their studies or for medical care. They may be a migrant who simply needs help in visiting their relatives back home, or to be able to study or go to the theatre more often. We create a budget for each of them to spend on top of their salary, which is already the best possible, to support the idea that they need to take care of themselves.

Twenty years of sustainability

Having made the switch from grower to high-quality wine producer in the 1990s, Salcheto has been a pioneer of sustainability in Italy since Michele Manelli took up the reins at the estate in Montepulciano, Tuscany, in 1997.

Manelli tells The Wine Merchant about the environmental, social and qualitative advantages of taking a genuinely sustainable approach to wine production.

In association with UK importer Astrum Wine Cellars

It all sounds expensive. It doesn’t cost anything to be sustainable … or at least, it costs the same. Being sustainable allows you a lot of flexibility. After nearly 20 years focusing on sustainability, I’ve begun to understand that if you are prepared to look for it, there is always a solution that is simultaneously the best for the environment, for quality, and for sustainability. It’s just a matter of looking for this specific solution, instead of just looking for quality or profit.

Have your sustainability practices also brought commercial advantages? At first, our investment in sustainability gave us a clear identity, a good reputation, without creating new business. But this has changed in the past three or four years. We really have the feeling that we are getting listings and preferences from our clients because of our focus on sustainability. It’s also made us more attractive to consumers. I think we’re doing the right thing because our sales have been growing very well in the past few years, but I am sure this is due to a combination of everything we are doing. And I am always insistent on this: we don’t sell our product just because it’s sustainable, it has to be a good wine, at the right price.

Beyond greenwashing: a deep dive into sustainability

Acouple of years ago, the team at Entoria&Coe began to think about how they would mark the company’s 50th birthday in 2022.

The occasion was obviously a cause for celebration: as it approached its half-century, Enotria&Coe was firmly established as one of the UK’s favourite wine suppliers. But it was also, as such landmarks tend to be, a moment for reflection.

And so, in late 2021, Enotria&Coe “had a long, hard look at our way of working”, says the company’s joint managing director Sam Thackeray. The process, which was also prompted by the changed realities caused by Covid, covered all parts of the business. But it was soon clear that one area above all required the most urgent attention.

“We realised that we weren’t doing things very well from a sustainability point of view,” Thackeray explains. “Fundamentally, what we sell is a demerit good. It comes from all over the world, and we forget it’s arriving in a nasty dirty ship and then on a smelly diesel van … all the things nobody likes to think of.”

Thackeray says the wine trade often obscures this central fact by a form of “greenwashing … people will go for the headline ‘biodynamic’ or ‘organic’. But when you investigate some producers, that’s all they do”.

Enotria&Coe quickly came to understand that the concept of sustainability was much

Enotria&Coe has put sustainability at the heart of its business and is now setting the pace on a range of environmental and social issues. Joint managing director Sam Thackeray talks The Wine Merchant through the company’s sector-leading sustainability initiatives

Feature produced in association with Enotria&Coe

broader. “It’s like a graphic equaliser,” Thackeray says, with dozens of different levers, representing a vast number of environmental and – equally important – social issues, both in the workplace and in the wider community.

Inspired by this heightened awareness, Enotria&Coe became one of the founding members of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, the only global, independent, not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder forum, designed to incorporate the whole wine value chain. And it was through its work with SWR that the company settled on a working concept of sustainability that helped shape its strategy and priorities for 2022 – a year in which the company carried out a vast array of initiatives that have placed it at the very forefront of sustainability in the UK wine trade.

Sustainable progress

The list of E&C’s advances is hugely impressive. It has switched to an energy provider that uses 100% renewable energy, and now has a fully digital wine list, with any professionally printed collateral now printed on Forest Stewardship Councilcertified paper, and with the number of pages printed in-house decreasing by 65% from January-June 2019 to the same period in 2022. E&C also sends zero waste to landfill from its combined warehouse and head office. And in September 2022, it introduced an energy- and fuel-efficient fleet with new vehicles across its nationwide distribution network.

The company has also sent out an important signal about how seriously it takes its responsibilities on carbon emissions by signing up to the Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR) framework, which measures carbon footprint per pound earned.

“For a business like ours, this is particularly important given that higher sales are very likely to correlate with more deliveries and a higher carbon footprint,” says Thackeray. “According to our annual SECR analysis, our intensity ratio [total gross CO2 emissions relative to annual turnover] fell by 16% from 2020 to 2021.”

On the social side, meanwhile, E&C trained 16 mental health first aiders in 2022, while its charity and social committee leads local volunteer projects and fundraisers to support charities including The Drinks Trust, Room to Reward and Drinkaware. Ticket sales for the fine wine tasting at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2022 raised money for the Ukraine Crisis Appeal by the Red Cross. E&C has also supported its staff with a range of training, apprenticeship and sponsorship opportunities.

All parts of the supply chain

As impressive as each of those achievements is, Thackeray is aware that they only account for part of the E&C supply chain – which is why the company undertook a massive survey of its suppliers, quizzing them in detail on their approach to sustainability.

The survey found that 58% of E&C’s suppliers have some form of sustainability policy already in place, and 70% have future sustainability goals.

“You have to really look at what’s going on,” says Thackeray. “The onus is on us to provide our customers with that information and visibility.

“We could see that, as agents and partners, we occupy a privileged position that we could harness to influence the producers we work with for good.”

That attitude is typical of the new E&C approach to sustainability. Adopting the approach has not been easy, or, in the short term, cheap. But Thackeray is convinced it will pay off in more ways than one. He gives the example of switching all of E&C’s warehouse and head office lighting to LED bulbs, which the company will undertake in January. “It’s a large a capital outlay, but it will be recouped in savings in 18 months, which is a relatively short timeframe.

“And ultimately, it all evens itself out. There’s some temporary pain potentially, but in the long run it’s a no-brainer. It’s to do with attitudes and how we want people to engage with us. We have no choice from an ethical-moral standpoint, but crucially it makes good business sense, too.”

Precision-engineered wines

Luigi Bosca winemaker Pablo Cúneo believes he’s lucky to have near-perfect conditions to work with in Mendoza. But his wines, including the icon Paraíso, are also the product of a meticulous approach in the vineyard and the cellar, as a group of invited independents recently discovered

Luigi Bosca has 120 years of history in Mendoza, and its owners, the Arizu family, are one of Argentina’s most pioneering winemaking forces.

The vineyards are described by head winemaker Pablo Cúneo as a “treasure”, some containing ungrafted wines that predate phylloxera. But the business has always been more focused on the future than the past, introducing the idea of “precision viticulture” in the 1960s and driving the idea of the Luján de Cuyo DOC, which was introduced in 1989.

It’s now widely forgotten that Malbec was once in almost terminal decline in Argentina, thanks to a slump in domestic consumption. But Luigi Bosca kept the faith, replanting and renewing its vineyards in the 1980s and upgrading its winery technology in the 1990s.

Today, the focus is on working as sustainably as possible. “We admire and respect nature,” Pablo tells a group of independent merchants gathered for a tutored tasting over lunch in London.

“We have been gifted with a land that’s almost the perfect place to grow vines. We have to work in a sustainable way, to protect this land and give it to our next generation in the same state or better.”

De Sangre White Blend (RRP £21.49)

This Chardonnay (50%), Sémillon (35%) and Sauvignon Blanc (15%) blend is a complex but somehow seamless wine

Pablo Cúneo: “I always say we didn’t choose Malbec, Malbec chose us”

that showcases the personality of each variety. The fruit comes from coolclimate Tupungato, with the Chardonnay fermented and aged in oak before blending with the other varieties, which are fermented in stainless steel. The wine exemplifies Pablo’s proud hands-off approach to healthy fruit. “I like the citrus and floral character,” he says. “Some herbal notes. On the palate, what you look for is balance, for roundness. And for acidity, which is the element that helps the wine to be paired with food.”

Rebecca Smithson “absolutely adores” the wine. “The harmony of these grapes creates something so unique,” she says. “So soft and elegant yet with a beautiful precision to the acidity. ”

Luigi Bosca Pinot Noir (RRP £19.49)

The Uco Valley fruit is picked early to maintain freshness, with 70% of the juice spending nine months in oak. A portion is allowed to bleed away, and effectively vinified as a white wine, with the rest macerated in the usual way.

“If you had asked me 20 years ago about Pinot Noir or white wines in Argentina I would have said it will be a big challenge to achieve high or world-class wines,” says Pablo, “but today I say, of course we can do it. We’ve had to go to the coolest areas. And we have learned a lot in winemaking.”

Nikesh Jani says the wine illustrates how “the grower, winemaker and terroir can work together to create something beautiful”. He adds: “The nose and palate all seemed very effortless, but there was a

great balance between ripe fruit character, and a perfumed, stalky freshness.”

Luigi Bosca Malbec (RRP £23.49)

“I always say that we didn’t choose Malbec, Malbec chose us,” says Pablo. “It loves the sun and needs a long period to ripen. It’s a sweet, round, gentle wine with red-fruit character. Not every country in the world has its own grape variety so we have been blessed.”

He adds: “This wine used to be 100% Luján de Cuyo fruit, until the 2016 vintage. Then we start using 60% Uco Valley grapes in order to bring some freshness and nice acidity to balance the ripened, sweet character from Luján.”

Rebecca Smithson enjoys the Uco Valley component, describing the wine as “a Malbec unlike any other I have tried”.

“So delicately soft with hints of strawberry,” she says. “I learned a lot from this wine; definitely one to challenge preconceptions of what a grape can do.”

De Sangre Paraje Altamira Malbec (RRP £23.49)

As Pablo explains, the wine is sourced from two parcels within a particular vineyard in Altamira, a small sub-region in the extreme south of the Uco Valley.

“Altamira has a particular character, which is violets,” he adds. “You will find some violet notes, floral notes and a blueflowers character, which is the expression of that area. That’s what we wanted to show in this wine.”

It’s one of the stand-out wines for Rebecca Preece. “It’s a unique expression of the terroir of Altamira,” she says, “and reveals a leaner, more floral and mineral side to Malbec that is typically not seen on UK shelves and expected even less by Malbec drinkers.”

She adds: “It was wonderful to learn that this elegance and versatility, along with characteristic violet notes, are a result of the exposure to the westerly cooling influences of the high Andes, unlike the notably plummy wines found central and eastern Mendoza.”

Los Nobles Malbec (RRP £46.99)

Pablo and his team benefit from precision viticulture and it’s only appropriate that that precision winemaking should follow. The style of this Las Compuertas wine has evolved as its creators have fine-tuned it.

“If you taste the ’14, ‘15 and ‘16 you would see that the oak has more presence in the wine,” Pablo says. “Here we still age 100% of the wine in oak, but not new oak.”

He adds: “The oak has less impact on the aromatics, but we still use oak because it’s very important for the ageing. The question is the type of oak, for balance, and to follow what the wine needs.”

Geraldine Shearer describes Los Nobles as “a full-bodied wine with a modern palate”. She adds: “I think this would be easy for me to sell. Anyone who is into Amarone or the general perception of Malbec would love this wine, and I think it would also raise their expectations.”

Paraíso (RRP £110.99)

This icon wine makes a statement not just for Luigi Bosca but for Mendoza more generally. It’s described by Pablo as an homage to Finca Paraíso, home of three generations of the Arizu family which still owns the business, though the grapes come from three sites across the Uco Valley.

Malbec, which makes up 70% of the blend, does a variety of jobs depending on the site it’s from. One parcel contributes freshness, minerality and the red-fruit character; a second brings a distinctive black cherry and lavender element; the third adds a violet-tinged sweetness. The Cabernet beefs up the tannins and delivers some spicy notes.

Unsurprisingly, the wine is our star performer. “Intense, yet elegant, and without a hint of pretentiousness,” says Rebecca Preece.

Conor Strutt describes this as the most enjoyable wine he’s tried for some time. “The aromas were impressive: ripe plum, coupled with lavender and earl grey tea from the Malbec and dark berries with spicy herbaceous notes from the Cab,” he says. “The aromatic intensity on the palate was enough to slide the 50% new oak into the background where it was picked up half way through the mid palate.” But the wine’s main attraction is its texture, he argues. “Spiced velvet was what I wrote down at the time, and that goes some way to trying to define it,” he says. “Malbec’s textural generosity and Cabernet’s firmer more defined structure formed something amazingly special.”

Consumers may not be used to spending north of £100 on Argentinian wine, but the group agrees that Paraíso would more than hold its own against more famous wines in that price bracket.

Carlos Blanco says: “Even though we tasted an early vintage [2019], the wine is actually ready for drinking now, and this is not what would you expect from a highend wine usually.

“Paraiso is a cuvée that certainly has a market in the UK. There is a clientele that appreciates good, elegant and very wellmade wines, regardless of provenance.

“It is a wine that, tasted blind with its peers, would certainly be the winner in many cases.”

OUR GUESTS

Carlos Blanco, Blanco & Gomez, west London Rebecca Preece, Oxford Wine Co Conor Strutt, Peckham Cellars, south London Rebecca Smithson, Bottle London, north London Stuart Young, Aspen & Meursault, south London Geraldine Shearer, Cellar Door Wines, St Albans Nikesh Jani, Vagabond Wines

Feature sponsored by Bancroft Wines For more information contact bancroftwines.com or call 020 7232 5450