The Wine Industry of Tomorrow

Antonio is cultivating 15 hectares of vineyard on the Italian Appeninian foothills. His family has been producing winegrapes for three generation, on medium slope hills with an average altitude of 300 m.

Like father and grandfather did, Antonio is using a traditional Guyot system, 3,000 vines per hectare with 2.5 m between rows to be able to pass comfortably with the tractor.

For decades the practices inherited from his grandfather had allowed a reasonable production of 9-10 tons per hectare, and the tractor, the sprayer and the tiller bought by his father allowed to reduce the effort needed to manage the vineyard in the vegetative period.

The Sangiovese grape produced has always had a good Babo grade and the cooperative winery to which it is conferred recognized a sufficient price to run the farm, which also produces cereals and same fodder.

Unfortunately, in the last 10 years everything has changed.

First, vines increasingly suffer from drought during the summer period. Spring rainfalls are increasingly less abundant, and you often have 2-3 summer months without rain. Antonio's vines and those of his neighbors have never needed irrigation, so he not only does not have a drip system in the vineyard, but not even access to a consortium water supply or a pond as a water reserve for the summer months.

Even worse, when water comes it's with very strong thunderstorms, and the free run water is digging channels that are dangerous even for the tractor. The most worrying aspect is the erosion of soil in sloping vineyards, because at every storm tons of soil accumulate at the bottom of the plot. The layer of superficial soil gets thinner and thinner and some plants have already their roots uncovered.

As if that was not enough, Antonio records more and more extreme temperatures: in the last decade, in July has already reached 37-38°C in three years, even if for few days, and vineyards in the valley bottom have been seriously damaged by frost in two consecutive years.

The result is that more and more often Antonio has a much lower grape production, in some years even half of what he used to produce. The sugar level is good and the grapes are healthy enough, but the higher unit price paid by the cooperative winery does not compensate at all the lower production, also because the cost of fuel, products and fertilizers has increased at the same time.

Antonio's father shakes his head and does not know how to deal with these changes, but Antonio must absolutely find a solution and reverse the trend, if he wants to avoid bankruptcy and leave the productive vineyards as an inheritance to his children

Bertrand’s family owns a 45-hectare farm in the South West of France. In the past, the majority of the arable land of the farm was dedicated to conventional cultivation of wheat and barley, but since Bertrand took over the management of the company, there has been a gradual shift towards vines, which now occupy 25 hectares of land. The rest of the hill farm is made up of coppice woods with a wide biodiversity. 

The reasons for the drastic change of cultivation were different: certainly the higher profitability of grapes compared to cereals, but also the will to get out of the dependence on fertilisers and of the obligation of agronomic techniques that kill the soil. Bertrand wants to preserve his land in good shape, and the consumers are increasingly asking for less chemicals in agriculture: therefore, his property is certified for the production of organic wine.

The production of organic grapes turned out to be quite challenging. 

After so many years of ploughing and inorganic fertilisation, the soil organic matter was very low, and Bertrand had to supply large amounts of manure and compost, not easy to find of good quality. New vineyards have been subject to heavy attacks by mites, eradicated with great effort of many years without synthetic insecticides. More recently, many vines are infected by flavescence dorée, maybe because the vineyards are all surrounded by woods.

The main challenge for Bertrand is the management of copper spraying. In particularly rainy years, more than 10 treatments would be needed: this makes it difficult to stay below the legal limit of copper per year, and it requires numerous passages of the tractor in the vineyard, with a compacting effect that in the clayey soils of Bertrand can be very problematic.

Mark is the general production manager of a large private winery producing some of the most renowned brands in Germany for white and sparkling wines. The winery has 130 hectares of vineyards on its property, and multi-year contracts with neighbouring grapegrowers for another 200 hectares to which it provides technical assistance and often services as a contractor, given the increase in the average age of independent farmers.

In order to guarantee the standard of quality that has made the fortune of the brand, every operation in the vineyard and in the cellar is part of a productive strategy whose precise application Mark is responsible for. The property has never made Mark lack financial resources for the purchase of machinery and equipment, and has a good management policy of its human resources, with salaries that are above the sector average in the region.

Nevertheless, recently Mark is facing a major challenge due to the lack of personnel, both seasonal and permanent.

Winter pruning is an operation that requires many hours of work and a good knowledge of pruning technique, because from this largely depends the quantity and quality of grapes that will be obtained from the vineyard in the following summer and in the years to come. Perhaps because of the cold weather suffered in staying so many hours outdoors in winter, perhaps because of the physical problems of posture and fatigue, perhaps because of the competition of tourism that has developed so much in the region, in short, every year it is increasingly difficult to find sufficient staff.

Another very critical phase is the harvest. In order to obtain the desired quality of one's wines, it is very important to harvest at the right time of ripeness of grapes. For every vineyard, there is a temporal window of at most one week within which it is necessary to harvest the grapes and quickly bring them to the cellar in order to be processed. Traditionally, several dozen people were hired for the grape harvest for a few weeks, including local pensioners and students, but also foreign workers who came specifically for the harvest. Many were also hired in the weeks prior to harvest for the sampling required for maturity control of grapes. This pool of workers seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and each year it is harder and harder to find workers for the entire harvest period.

The problem is also assuming worrisome proportions for permanent employees for the vineyard, winery and even the offices. The biggest issue here is the competence of the workers, who must be aware of the importance of each operation and know how to implement it in the best way. Training in a company is often a neverending job because there is a strong turnover of the workers, above all young people. In office work, expertise and precision are increasingly vital given the increase in legally required paperwork.

Sustainability is one of the main drivers in the production strategy of Gaetano, technical director of an important wine group in the south of Italy. The family that owns the property is seriously engaged in developing the business by minimising the impact on the environment and to the benefit of the local rural society.

Gaetano has under control all the steps of the production process: wine grape production, winemaking (100% of the wine is obtained from their own grapes), packaging, and marketing.  All the production is certified as organic, and a lot of efforts have been put in the past in the vineyard to optimise the use of resources, to maintain an healthy soil, to improve labour conditions for workers, always ensuring a high enological quality of grapes.

Presently, Gaetano’s action is focused on reducing the use of energy and water in the winery.

The high environmental temperatures during the harvest period leads to warm grapes, at 30°C or more  at winery reception, imposing their drastic chilling before any step of the process. A lot of energy is also required to refrigerate the tanks during alcoholic fermentation to keep a temperature suitable for yeasts qualitative performance. Another important energy sink is cold stabilisation, used to prevent precipitation of tartrate crystals when the bottles are on the market. Energy savings are important to reduce the carbon footprint of the winery, and recently has assumed high economic relevance due to the significant increase of bill costs.

Saving water is another goal of Gaetano’s management plan. A recent water footprint of the winery operations has quantified the overall consumption in 3 litres of water per litre of wine, above the average for wineries of the same size.  The critical points in the process were identified in the cleaning of floors and equipment, especially during harvest period, and in the bottling phase to rinse and sanitise filters and filling machines. Barrel washing is another phase with high water consumption, although regarding a limited volume of wine. 

Wastewater treatment is also a concern. Gaetano aims to reuse all water, including rainwater from roofs and courtyard, for vineyard irrigation in the dry season, and the high variability of wastewater from the winery along the year, both in quantity and in composition, poses major problems.

Graciela is chief winemaker in a large cooperative winery in Valencia region (Spain).

She is producing both white, rosé and red wines. Most of the production is sold in bulk to private wineries in Spain and in other European countries, where it is blended, fined and filtered to produce wine under brands distributed by the major supermarket chains.

The bulk wine market is global and highly competitive, with low margins.  As the selling price varies a lot from week to week, Graciela is asked to have great flexibility in the production cycle, in order to have wine ready to sell when prices are high, or in order to be able to keep the wines stored for months waiting for the market to offer more favorable conditions.

Presently, Graciela has low processing capacity, both in terms of undersized equipment and shortage of personnel. Although, till now she has been able to manage large volumes of wine with low production costs and few investments, thanks to her good enological background that allows her to prevent accidents and to produce unfinished wines with high commercial standards.

Graciela is now facing a major challenge, as nature and market are pushing in opposite directions.

Because of climate change, the composition of grapes entering the cooperative winery are very different from the past: higher potential alcohol degree, higher pH, temperatures well above 30°C and highly extractable color. With these characteristics, the wines are more easily contaminated by spoilage microrganisms, and prone to early oxidation. Moreover, tartaric and protein stability is more difficult to reach. She observes also a reduction trend over years, both in quantity of grapes brought by associated grapegrowers, and in juice and wine yield from grapes: this imposes a rigid control of production costs.

Simultaneously, the market asks for bulk wines with good acidity, low alcohol, possibly produced without additives and processing aids with potential allergenic effect.  

Graciela task is becoming very challenging, because the alteration in grape composition is expected to modify further in the incoming years, and the consumers ask to reduce the use of the main tools she has available against wine deterioration, such as sulfur dioxide as antimicrobial and antioxidant.

It is time for Graciela to propose to her management a new winemaking strategy, introducing new practices with reasonable cost that can allow the production of competitive wines for the global bulk market.

Catherine is the owner and winemaker of a 100-hectare estate in the northeast of France, producing around 760,000 bottles a year. For 5 years now the estate has been transitioning from conventional to organic practices. Catherine, in line with her personal values, is starting to feel the pressure from her clients, and society as whole, to have a more environmentally friendly approach to her wine production not only in the vineyards, but also in the cellar and in sales. Recently, Catherine has also attended market study conferences presenting local and international trends of consumers.

Combining these factors, she has multiple goals for the next 5 years, in a global approach to reduce the carbon footprint of her estate. To begin with, she will focus on sustainable packaging efforts as this is also a strong market request.

Packaging is vital for the conservation of a quality product and for brands to distinguish themselves in the consumer market, and Catherine is curious of how to be more respectful of the environment – while being cost-effective – in both the manufacturing of her packaging and in its potential reuse. She asks herself if there are more efficient, profitable, and responsible ways to work? Catherine exports 70% of her wine, with bottles weighing 650 grams and uses foil capsules.  Her labels are traditional paper facestock.  In this same direction, Catherine would like to find ways to recycle and reuse packaging materials.  

Catherine’s clients are not only concerned about sustainability, but also about the quality of the wine.  While her efforts in the vineyard are quite successful to produce a quality wine, Catherine is looking for a cost-effective way to produce and bottle small lots, something special for the consumers. Once again, she would like to do this in an energy efficient way.

Andor is the owner of a 10-hectare vineyard in Hungary. After an initial reluctance to take up the family business he decided a couple of years ago to start investing in their vineyard with his husband. They have specialised in producing botrytized wine made 100% with the Furmint variety. Nowadays they produce around 50,000 bottles of 2 premium wines, a traditional Tokaj and a dry white.

They are both experienced in winemaking, and their brand has gained some popularity in the international markets. They are even thinking about elaborating a Tokaji Escenza, the highest added value wine in Hungary.

Even though they are very proud of their international reputation they have seen that the national market is increasing especially due to an increase in local tourism.

They have around 400 visitors a year and they know they are the best at communicating the essence of their wines and their history. They are also very proud of their partnership with a communication agency that is boosting the number of visitors that attend their winery interested in the product, but they don’t see a huge number of direct sales. They are realising that they are producing a wine of which they are very proud of, but the most challenging part of elaborating the wine is selling it and, especially, selling it at the price range that they think their wine deserves.

In addition, to diversify their income during the COVID19 pandemic, Andor decided to expose their wines in different gourmet webpages at a national and international level. Nevertheless, the commission and the small number of sales have convinced them that they need to invest in another way to reach the consumer.

After their investment in a communication agency, they have realised that data management has a huge potential but what specific data can increase their direct sales, at the cellar and online?

As they are making a dry white, they are sure that there is a new market waiting there but they have the same packaging and branding as their traditional Tokaj. Maybe there is a new technology that can help them interact with the new young consumers? They are sure they want to focus on direct sales from the winery, but they don’t know where to start.

Eleven years ago, Paula and Nil fulfilled their life-long dream of elaborating their own wine in Paula’s family vineyards, in Catalonia. They met at university, when studying for a degree in Viticulture & Oenology. They both live with their two children in an impressive country house, which also accommodates the cellar, surrounded by part of their vineyards, which are all within eight kilometres reach.

There are six people working the whole year to both grow 40 hectares of vineyard and produce six types of wine, two of them sparkling. The rest of the grapes are sold to other neighbouring wineries. They practise organic, biodynamic and regenerative vine-growing and their grapes are high-valued to produce top quality wines. The price of their own wines is also in the high range and 75% of them are sent abroad by five export distributors.

They would like to gain more local consumers, though. On the one hand, that would mean reducing expenses related to transport. On the other hand, prices should probably be lower, but that still would fit with their awareness on environmental sustainability.

Last harvest they decided to start organising visits to the cellar for colleagues, distributors, and friends. They know they have a nice place to share with their customers and Nil enjoys doing that from time to time. Sometimes, they think that they should focus on it and, other times, they think that it would be taking on too much. Would it allow them to get closer to potential customers? Would it be worth it?

In addition, they also wonder if it would be worth it to elaborate a better quality-price-ratio wine for local and national consumers. Would it work? Paula would like to foresee the future, as this idea keeps going back to her head. If only they could know why people choose their wines, what they are looking for or even what they think when they taste it. If only they were able to explain their wines and winery to them! However, distributors are reluctant to share their contact with clients and even the gender or age range of their consumers.

They have also been discussing several times about adding an online shop to the website that they created some time ago with a friend’s help, but their distributors may not like that as they may see it as potential competition.  Paula and Nil are keen on integrating new technology to have feedback and even suggestions from their consumers, but they don’t know where to start. Nevertheless, they’ve both realised it is time to find new ways to establish relationships with consumers and design their communication strategy based on their preferences.

Maria is responsible for management decisions in a wine company in the Douro Region of Portugal with 95 hectares of vines. The company produces both red, rosé, and white wines from different Portuguese autochthonous grapevine varieties.

The properties that Maria is responsible for are distributed in the three sub-regions of Douro. Maria works with five direct collaborators that manage the different farms and the winery.

Recently, the administration decided to invest to expand their business of grape production and wine selling to enotourism, near the winery as well as start to sell to international markets. In addition, the administration is considering creating a new category of product, sparkling wine, to differentiate their offer in international markets and at the same time to move towards a more sustainable pathway.

With the support of her assistant, Maria is responsible for managing new commercial trades, to decide the distribution channel fit for each product and to evaluate and accept the purchase of raw material for viticulture and enological products. The decisions must be supported by data directly acquired from the different farms/vineyards and the wineries.

Five years ago, the company implemented online by-weekly reunions, where reports of each of the vineyards and wineries must be presented including wine stock in each winery, winemaking records, enological and viticultural products inventory and/or products needed to be ordered. Even though Maria is a well-organised professional, she struggles with a lot of paperwork, and spends a lot of time dealing with bureaucracy work. Also, her office is starting to get filled up with folders and shelves. 

Last year, due to the excess of documents to approve, Maria forgot an order for a client and, when she was on the way to solve the problem, the stock had already been sold off. Maria is also responsible for filing and proceeding to employees’ payments, which sometimes are delayed, especially during festivities and holidays, times of the year when the wine orders increase.

Maria is concerned about all of this and her bosses also agree and have admitted the need to improve and simplify the management system. All the tasks are becoming very difficult and not very sustainable, from recording the use of products in the vineyard and winery, company accounting, wine inventory control, to recording orders and sales.

It is time for Maria to propose a new approach, introducing new practices that can allow a more simplified management, with reduced paperwork.