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International symposium to gather world's leading winemakers
February 19, 2008
Lucy Shaw
Twelve of the world's most influential winemakers, including Paul Draper, Peter Sisseck, Dirk van de Niepoort and Stephane Derenoncourt are to meet in Spain to discuss the issues confronting wine production today.
WineCreator, the first international symposium of its kind, will take place in the historic hill city of Ronda in Malaga, Andalusia, on 18-19 April.
A panel of 20 influential wine writers including Jancis Robinson, Michel Bettane, Michael Fridjhon and James Halliday voted in the twelve selected 'Wine Creators', who will come face to face with the critics at the event.
Robinson will be Honourary President of the advisory committee.
The brainchild of Spanish wine commentator José Peñin and funded by wine development project La Melonera, WineCreator, according to Peñin, serves as a tribute to creativity and aims to present new ideas on wine production in the face of standardisation.
Treating wine as an 'art form', the event, which offers 190 places to the public, comprises a series of discussions on topics such as terroir, trends, outside influences and the role of the winemaker in the winery, vineyard and beyond.
Other fixtures throughout the two-day event include a round table discussion chaired by Jancis Robinson and Victor de la Serna, and a series of tastings led by the winemakers.
WineCreator is the first in a series of international events to be held every second year in chosen cities around the world.
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Apparently there isn't a single winemaker from Germany on this list, and apparently, too, not a single winemaker whose primary specialty is Riesling. M. Humbrecht comes closest; but I'd argue that his finest achievements are with other grapes.
The level of ignorance, even at the professional level, concerning wines in these categories, continues to amaze me. This is symptomatic of that ignorance.
What would this panel be without someone specializing in Bordeaux or Cabernets? That's exactly the kind of flaw this is, especially as nearly half of the winemaker panel has Bordeaux connections or roots.
Just for the record, panelist David Schildnecht of the Wine Advocate, and Joel Payne of Gault-Millau, both of who write extensively about things eno-Germanic certainly have an appreciation for these most noble of white wines, if anyone in the world does, yet, at a guess, they must have been outvoted. It would require very little head-scratching to come up with the names of several profound winemakers in this category, and even not much effort to find the names of innovative young winemakers there who are on the brink of or have already achieved greatness, and whose technical and stylistic brilliance are helping to blaze a path for the world of wine.
Also, it appears that only two of the panel are primarily white-wine specialists.
"Towards diversity and innovation in winemaking" appears on the masthead of the website. Indeed. I believe that the choices did show a little diversity in the relative youth of the group, but that seems to be all.
Perhaps the panel was a little too small to be representative of all the main categories. Where is sparking wine and Champagne, for example? Or representation of the flor/solera category? One could go on. The emphasis of this panel seems to be arguably an outlet for the wine journalists, who certainly seem to dominate the setup. Perhaps they had difficulties finding winemakers who were comfortable working in this way?
John Trombley
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