Vinocamp London calling, yes, I was there too

An' you know what they said ?  Well, some of it was true !

We participated this week-end at the Vinocamp in London and Hampshire. Here's a résumé of what was said and happened during this event, and a few of our thoughts. In english, of course, because we want to please the worldwide crowd for once.

The Vinocamp is an informal gathering for people who have a link with the wine world and the digital world. You work for one day, chatting with your peers and listening to lectured people who have a message to deliver. Some workshops with a theme allow participants to share their views on issues regarding the world of wine, like the Evin regulation on alcool communication in France or the future of wine critic. 

And then you eat, you taste, you drink, you meet, you chat, and usually you're happy. The second day you're going to visit the vineyards of the region who welcomes the Vinocamp. It allows you to discover or rediscover a wine production area and sometimes to meet with funny exotic beverages like "English Sparkling Wines". Let's take a tour of what happened this time in England.

When you go from from Paris to London you usually take the Eurostar. And you very quickly understand, queuing for custom check, that you are going to a different world. London is full of Brits and, yeah, they are definetely not like the French. At least, the definitely do not comb their hair the way French do...

And now for something totally different...

When you arrive in London, you go near Shoreditch, a sort of hip district which looks for now on too hip to be hip anymore, to reach The Cube Space in Curtain Road, a sort of ex-garage space  turned "meeting rooms meets organic café meets hidden bar". Not so great for acoustic, but that gives you a feeling of "Oh, I'm still at home at Canal Saint-Martin, it's cool". Then you chat with people you know and you meet people you don't know.

Orange is the new black

And then you listen to Anne-Victoire Montrozier and Arnaud Daphy, the organisers, who explain to you that you are great, that you made a good choice coming to the Vinocamp, that the room is full of Brits and that you are going to have a hard time if you are an arrogant frog.

It says clearly "No Camp" but you can wear a stupid outfit anyway

Give the consumer what he wants, and not what you have

Then you have two special english guests who "will discuss the issues and opportunitiues facing french wines in the UK market" as the programm specifies.

The first speaker is Robert Joseph, aka "The Wine Thinker", a wine journalist turned wine consultant who now obviously works for the wine industry with the same passion he probably had for criticizing it in the past. He basically told us that the wine french system was crap, that nobody was understanding this "We have as many AOP (Appelations d'Origine Protégée) as we have different cheeses" and that the proper way to work was to give the consummer what he wants. So if he wants Coca-Cola, give him Coca-Cola. But Coca-Cola is american and the french make wines. Then give him "Rosé Pamplemousse", an easy drink that the consummer likes and understands.

Robert Joseph's sentence which struck us was "If they're enjoying it (the consummers), what's wrong with that". We thought for a while of making this sentence our new life's motto, looking at television reports on decapitations of christians in Syria, thinking "If they're enjoying it, what's wrong with that"... And then we realized that if it might be a valuable advice for a business activity, it is not necessarly a wise one for a sensitive approach of the entire world.

Robert Joseph and Justin Howard-Sneyd share a taste for flower shirts

Justin Howard-Sneyd, Master of Wine, also a Global Wine Consultant who makes wine in the south of France and distributes it in England, was more moderate in his speech. He gave us a few key points on how France was perceived abroad, and, obviously, nothing has changed. We're still seen as a socialist bureaucratic country who produces good food and wines served by horrible people who do not speak english. He encouraged French to simplify things and make wines look cooler. And he obviously think as well that the customer is always right.

Market pragmatism Vs complex historical heritage

Behind these simple advices there is a very interesting debate of a pragmatic english approach that is "consumer orientated" and a more historic fragmented french approach that is "producer orientated". This sort of global approach "Hey, why don't you just make one single red Vin de France that is easy to understand for everyone" is a little bit scary and very unfrench. But it is sure that the french wine industry, if such a thing exist in parcellised France, has a lot to learn on how to be more effective to be readable and accessible for the consummer who wants to drink some fermented juice grape without having to learn a thousand appelations... Justin Howard-Sneyd very wisely pointed that the most common sensation somebody feels when he has to choose a wine from a wine list or wine stall is... fear ! Fear of looking foolish and making the wrong choice.

English discipline : nobody falls asleep in a workshop after lunch

Then we had a few workshops with different themes. The idea is to have an informal talk feeded by participants with a moderator who tries to keep things focused on the subject. We assisted one on "Is there a french touch in wine ? " with a sort of answer being "Yes, but nobody understands it" and another one on " Wine Retail Vs Online Sales" which gave us a few insights on the difficulty of selling wines online, specially because of the cost of logistic, at least in France. 

VINOCAMP DAY 2 : FRESH AIR AND ENGLISH SUN AT THE COUNTRYSIDE

On saturday a trip to two vineyards was organized with the help of the English Wine Producers Association. Our first destination in Hampshire was Coates & Seely.

à à à la queuleuleu, tout le monde s'éclate à la queuleuleu (popular french song)

Coates & Seely or the English Sparkling Wine going premium

Christian Seely and longtime friend Nicholas Coates decided in 2007 to create their own domaine for producing english sparkling wines. A year later they bought 12 hectares of land not far away from Overton. Some were already planted, which gives them vines of around 35 years old, and they planted some more. They also farm 40 more hectares they do not own and that they don't necessary use for their own brand, Coates & Seely, which targets a production of 65.000 bottles a year of premium English Sparkling Wine.

Christian Seely believes he can fly. He believes he can touch the sky.

Christian Seely, who is head of Axa Millesimes which owns eight important wine properties like Château Pichon Baron in Pauillac, gave us an insight of why they choosed these two hills with chalk soils and on the difficulty of gaining sufficient maturity in an often very wet region. If 2012 was a disastrous year, with almost no production, global warming makes it more and more easy to grow grapes in the south of England to produce sparkling wines. It was interesting to see these vines planted in a middle of a very green environment usually devoted for cattle pasture. And to learn that the Coates & Seely facility is based in an ex-milkery.

Vineyards paparazzi discovering english chardonnay

A warm welcoming by Nicholas Coates

After the vineyards visit, Nicholas Coates, a former investment banker for the Barings Bank and still a financial advisor, welcomed us in is country house in Overton for an informal lunch under the english sun. It was a wonderful moment in this peacefull and very posh environment. Overton is a delicious village and the Coates own a very neat countryhouse outside the village. Everything is perfect there, like a sort of museum of the lifestyle of the upper class society in the countryside. The british civilisation at its best, which made us soft during the conversation on how stubborns and snobs are the french. Caracteristics that are, of course, totally foreign to the english... We could taste the brut Reserve and the Rosé that appeared to be very honorable efforts that received good critics in the UK.

A moment of bucolic perfection at the Coates house

Who cares about the sheeps, I need some network to tweet...

People started planted vines and Simon Robinson brought them a winery

After this moment of delight we went to visit the winemaking facility of Hattingley Valley, in the south of Basingstoke. Simon and Nichola Robinson, the owners, were looking for a way to diversify their farming activity. They started planted vines in 2008 and to sell wine in 2010. They soon realized that many more people were also starting to grow grapes in the area but that there were no winemaking facility for all these people. So they build a big winery to vinify the grapes of their 22 hectares of vines but also the ones of their neighbours. They now have 19 contracts with other growers who sell in bulk or under their own labels.

Hattingley Valley have four winepresses which allow them to press 10 tons of grapes a day per winepress. The Coquard winepress, a massive equipment in a sort of nice blue/grey color, is impressive. Simon Robinson says it does a fantastic job at pressing very softly, but obviously cleaning it gives headaches to the winemaking team, as explained Romain Orion, the young french Chef de Culture.

Romain Orion speaks with owner Simon Robinson in front of Hattingley winery

The very impressive Coquard winepress that could also be a fancy decorative item in a large living room

We tasted Hattingley Valley Classic Cuvée and Blanc de Blanc and thought that Champagne doesn't have to fear them yet. But it's clear that with such players as Coates & Seely and Hattingley Valley, Champagne, which is already challenged by Prosecco and Cava worldwide, will have to fight these new english competitors on the UK market. Coates & Seely, who putted with humor "Méthode Britannique" on their labels, are clearly targeting the same market as Champagne, with a consummer price of around 28/30 Pounds. If a french will still prefer a good bottle of Champagne from a "grande maison" at this price, Coates & Seely wil certainly touch the heart of a british clientele finally happy to drink some sparkling wine homemade.

And as the events manager of Hattingley Valley told us with mischievousness, the englishhave  been giving money to french for sparkling wines for centuries, they hope now that they are going to get a little bit back by selling us some wine. It might though take a few decades (centuries ?) more to convince the french to drink English Sparkling Wines. You now how stubborn they are...

The wine market : a worldwide economical war that challenges french local approach

We clearly felt during this trip to Vinocamp London what is too often very far away from french wine producers brains : wine is now a global market, and competition comes from everywhere, even England, which would have been a funny thought 10 years ago. And if our english friends and lecturers were sometimes annoying at repeating over and over the same clichés about France, they were friendly enough to warn us of the threat we are facing.

If France have a powerfull image for lifestyle and luxury goods, everybody now wants a piece of this market. The competition is worldwide. A lot of new world countries do wine now, with less constraints than in France, cheap labour costs and powerfull marketing tools. If Burgundy and Bordeaux châteaux are not threaten yet, less known regions will have to fight hard and adapt to this global competition. So french will have to choose : keep quarreling with the village 2 kilometres away (1,427 mile for our english readers), as they have done forever, or group forces to keep strong positions in the global battle of wine. And this battle is happening now. Right now !

If you want to know more about London wine shops read our article on The Winery and Hedonism Wines