Patrick Matthews asks whether flying winemakers, who travel the world making wines to popular formulae, are creating a bland, homogenous commodity or,are they simply making wines more accessible and attractive to the consumer?
John Worontschak is frowning as he reads a newspaper over his morning coffee in west London's Café Lisboa. The Australian-born winemaker is a little worried for his safety. Saddam Hussein is again defying the UN weapons inspectors, and Worontschak thinks that Israel, where he's due to fly the next day to oversee a Kosher winemaking operation, may not be the safest of destinations.
John Worontschak is what is called a flying winemaker, although these days, he almost always employs other people to go out and 'do' a vintage. At home, he can tap into his computer for an instant picture of what his employees are doing in the various countries where his company, Four Corners, is at work. And his employees can certainly expect to see the world - Worontschak, now 37, has worked in Romania, South Africa, Uruguay, France, Canada and Brazil. However, he is best known in England for his work at Thames Valley Vineyard, where he came after working with Penfolds, Australia's biggest winemaker.
The flying winemaker is a relatively recent phenomenon. The term was coined by Tony Laithwaite, the importer behind Bordeaux Direct and The Sunday Times Wine Club, when he employed the Australian Nigel Sneyd to supervise a vintage at the St Vivien co-operative in the Dordogne. Soon afterwards, Laithwaite dropped the term. "We found that most of our customers still liked the idea of a Frenchman making the wine," he says. But the supermarkets embraced the idea, taking it at times to absurd extremes: Worontschak wryly remembers being instructed to go out and make an Australian-tasting wine, but in Italy. This is controversial stuff. Michael Broadbent, the creator of Christie's wine department and author of Wine Tasting, voiced his anxiety that classic names would be 'improved' out of recognition. In the opposite camp, Malcolm Gluck, The Guardian's wine writer and bestselling author of the Superplonk books, saw the British, as in previous eras, "making the world's wines dance to our tune", and applauded.
The reality is less grand. The world is littered with vineyards abandoned as wine producing nations such as the French, Argentines, Italians and Spanish drink less wine than they used to. A proportion of their output is being directed northwards, notably to Britain, where more wine is being drunk and where there are opportunities for profit: it's easy to sneak a few pence onto the price of a bottle that is already heavily taxed.
The art of the flying winemaker is to modernise a wine, making it fruity, aromatic and ready for early drinking, without the need for much captial investment. Flying winemakers emphasise hygiene and rational work procedures, plus the use of certain portable additives and treatments.
Hugh Ryman, the young Englishman who has perhaps attracted the most attention, says that he packs a standard kit comprising a dried yeast, sulphur dioxide, pectolytic enzymes, ascorbic acid and wood chips, which mimic the taste wine acquires when more expensively aged in oak barrels. Such additives shield wine from reaction with the air - sulphur dioxide and ascorbic acid are both antioxidants - and help it retain fruit flavours which are enhanced by the enzymes. These techniques go beyond the 'hygiene and rationalisation', and provoke local resistance. One German co-operative that worked with Ryman has since cut down on the high levels of sulphur dioxide and stopped using the enzymes and ascorbic acid. Gerhardt Brauer of the Ruppertsberg co-op says his Riesling grapes are fruity enough not to need chemical enhancement.
The detractors say that flying winemakers make wine that tastes the same wherever it comes from. But sometimes they don't even manage that. For three years, Californian winemaker Randall Grahm offered his customers wines made in southern France by a young New Zealander for his Bonny Doon label. But in 1997, Grahm had to sell off every drop. Native suspicion, plus a non-French-speaking winemaker had resulted in a breakdown in communications and tanks of substandard wine. To fill the gap, he bought in another local wine and was very pleased with the result.
The most damaging attack to date has come from an investigation of Hugh Ryman's business practices. The journalist Jim Budd has interviewed several young winemakers who claim they have not been paid for their work. Ryman's London PR company R&R Teamwork has also severed their connection with Ryman, leaving some unpaid bills. John Worontschak is concerned: "We're talking about exploitation. These are kids straight out of college."
In his own defence, Ryman says: "We do have debts but we intend to pay everyone. We've never exploited people and we think our working conditions compare favourably with others in the business."
The system is unlikely to come crashing down. Supermarkets like to deal through a manageable number of intermediaries, and the co-ops are happy to be assured of selling their wine. A familiar name on the label reassures the public that wine from a remote vineyard will taste okay, and it means wine writers can fraternise with cos-mopolitan wine experts rather than hicks from the sticks. And yet...
John Worontschak's favourite café is uncompromisingly Portuguese, and a roaring success with its west London customers. Would he be happy if, say, a chain bought it, 'modernised' it, revamped the custard tarts in consultation with consumer panels and sprinkled chocolate on the coffee? He doesn't rise to the bait. What's wrong, he asks, with raising standards of hygiene? Why shouldn't pipes and tanks be clean? And, he maintains: "You can't make a wine in Italy and not have it taste Italian." However much a supermarket might at times wish otherwise.