Winemaking and Wine Marketing in a Plague Year

BY STEPHEN TANZER | MAY 06, 2020

In just the past couple of months, the novel coronavirus has profoundly changed the production and sale of wine around the globe. In this roundtable interview, 35 producers get specific about the challenges they are facing.

As you are unlikely to be visiting wineries in the immediate future, I thought I’d bring the producers to you. Specifically, I asked them how they have been affected by the new reality of COVID-19.

What has been the biggest challenge to your winery/wine business posed by the new coronavirus, and what steps have you taken to deal with it?

Obviously, there’s a good bit of repetition in their responses. Phrases like social distancing, non-overlapping shifts, virtual tastings and managing anxiety crop up frequently. And there is much discussion about the staggering effect the new virus has had on restaurants. Not only are thousands of our favorite, most distinctive, wine-friendly restaurants facing an existential threat, but the loss of this sales channel is having a serious ripple effect on wineries that have traditionally relied heavily on sales to restaurants. Many producers have quickly stepped up their use of social media to reach their consumer clients, and it’s already clear that the business of wine is undergoing significant and perhaps permanent change.

On a more personal level, I was happy to hear from so many winemakers, as I’ve been sheltering more or less in place, like most of the rest of you, with limited human contact. I had an action-packed week planned in Napa Valley for the second half of March, featuring a couple of major horizontal Cabernet tastings (2010s and 2001s, two of my favorite Napa Cabernet vintages ever) and some spectacular verticals, which I will hopefully be able to conduct at some point in the future. And since the tasting room in my dining room has not yet been closed down by government officials (nor am I yet required to taste through a mask!), I expect to publish reports on these two vintages in the near future. Tasting these wines in the past few weeks has kept me sane, along with the occasional long walk in Central Park, which is quiet enough these days to allow for sufficient social distancing.

All of the comments in this article are from head winemakers, owners or co-owners, managing directors or veteran international consulting winemakers.

Argentina

Alberto Antonini, Altos Las Hormigas, Grupo Peñaflor, Bodega Garzón, Poggiotondo and Many Others

I was in South America for the harvest until the middle of March and I was lucky enough to catch a flight back to Italy before Argentina was locked down. As a wine-growing consultant, my life has changed a lot since the worldwide lock-down, mostly for my non-Italian consultancies as at the moment I don’t even know until when I’ll be able to travel to any of the 12 countries where I consult. Because of that, and thanks to the available technology, I’m still doing a lot of work using Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp for business meetings and for tastings where my clients send me the samples (thank God couriers are working efficiently!), and we taste them together. I obviously miss being there in person, but we can still achieve a lot by doing this. In Italy, I can now go and see my clients, obviously keeping the proper distance as the procedures say.

Regarding my clients, situations vary. Those who were only selling in the on-trade are the most affected by the COVID-19 as restaurants, wine bars and wine shops are still closed and their sales have dramatically dropped. They have little income right now but of course they still have to manage their vineyards, which is expensive. But those who have a more balanced situation between on- and off-trade are surviving. The good part is that most governments are helping the growers with subsidies, which are critical to ensuring a minimum cash flow.

As a wine producer in Argentina, I’m happy that we have all been able to pick the grapes and go efficiently through the fermentation and pressing, and we can now continue to manage the winery without major problems. This has happened in all of southern hemisphere wine countries except for South Africa, where I heard they had some major restrictions on working in wineries during and after harvest.

Roberto de la Mota, Mendel Wines (Mendoza)

Certainly, our biggest challenge in Mendoza was to harvest and vinify under quarantine and with social isolation. We harvested early this year and that was an unexpected advantage. In fact, the climate during the summer and especially the fall was warmer than normal and very dry; under those conditions the ripeness came earlier for all varieties and the harvest was between 15 to 30 days earlier than normal.

The harvest started with normal conditions in February, but very quickly the government ordered a complete quarantine due to COVID-19 and only few activities were authorized, like agriculture and food production. For that we prepared special teams for harvest equipped with protection like gloves, masks and glasses. We needed special facilities and toilets, with alcohol and soap. To transport the pickers to vineyards we used buses, and the pickers had to respect the social distancing requirements inside them.

In the winery, we prepared three teams of workers. Each team had a leader for the entire process of vinification, and they worked for periods separated by two hours. One team started early in the morning, another at 3:00 p.m. and the last one at night. Each team, when they finished their shift, cleaned and disinfected the winery, the machines and tools before they left. And everybody has been required to change their clothes before they enter the winery.

Today we finished the maceration process, racking the last Cabernet Sauvignon from Altamira, and we continue with two teams, under the same conditions and taking the same precautions. I go to the winery every morning to taste each tank and decide maceration times, rackings, treatments and pre-blends. Luis, the winemaker who works with me, goes to the winery in the evenings, and we taste together twice a week. Our laboratory also works in two shifts per day, separated by two hours. All of our administration people work at home and via the web.

As in other regions, sales are complicated, especially in on-trade, restaurants, hotels, and so on. Wine shops are not able to receive customers but they can deliver wine to their customers.

In sum, I can say that the hardest or most complicated thing has been to get used to the new rules, limitations and time schedules during the busiest and most important time of year for a winery.

Sebastián Zuccardi, Familia Zuccardi (Uco Valley)

The first challenge was finishing the harvest while dealing with the lockdown that had started on the 20th of March. Luckily, the harvest was earlier than usual, so when the government instituted the lockdown we were nearly finished. But the government also declared agriculture an essential activity, so we can continue with our activities with safety measures. The government established a harvest protocol that we must follow but internally we’ve also created a crisis team. We meet daily in order to take all the necessary measures not to expose our team to the disease and to secure the workplace.

We’ve closed all three of our restaurants and our tourism areas. People over 60 years old are not obligated to work, while those in the so-called high-risk groups either aren’t working or work from home. All people who are not essential to the production areas are working from their homes. Those who are actually working in the winery receive daily training on self-care, since information is one of the most important points to go through in this situation. Everybody’s temperature is taken upon entry. All of us must change clothes when we arrive at work, and then again at the end of the day.

There´s social distancing in every task. The number of people in the same closed space has been restricted, which is why we established different shifts for meals, entry, etc. Vehicles are being used at half-capacity. Disinfectant products such as alcohol are available every 30 meters, as well as soap, paper towels, etc.

The markets are difficult now, with all the restaurants closed and distribution complicated, so the challenge is how to make it easy for consumers to find our wines. But the situation is changing all the time, so we are making minute-to-minute decisions. 

Australia

Michael Twelftree, Two Hands Wines (Barossa Valley)

Our biggest challenge at Two Hands to date was that we were only two-thirds through our vintage when the outbreak happened. We were faced with the immediate problem that if one of our vintage crew came down with COVID-19, we would have to put the whole vintage crew into lockdown, meaning that we had must under ferment and a number of our best parcels still on the vines. Sadly, the Barossa Valley had been a center for COVID as we had had two outbreaks linked to Swiss and U.S. tourist groups. We decided quickly to isolate the winemaking team and to minimize their contact with others. Myself and our viticulturalist Travis focused on the 250-odd tons that we still had on the vine and adopted strong protocols for the delivery of the fruit. Richard, our head winemaker, and his assistant Brooke did a great job of keeping the team focused on producing the best wines possible, and we finished off the vintage without a glitch.