Earth Calling

Organics in the UK is taking off like never before as the big chains put their full weight behind what is an increasingly profitable market. But, asks Robyn Lewis, can it work with wine?

WITH HEALTH scares from BSE to Salmonella hitting the headlines and agricultural practices from Foot and Mouth to GMO causing concern, it is no surprise that we are turning more and more to organic foods.

But what about organic wines? Should we all be jumping on the organic train (solar powered, of course) or will it remain a niche market? In all honesty, is it likely that the ‘promotion junky’ attitude of the general public, that is so well lamented in the wine trade, will suddenly wish to pay a premium for an organic wine?

Or is that wine made from organic grapes? Can organic production methods, consistently supply the volumes required by big retailers? Do you need to grow a beard if you want to drink it? Can we ask any more questions in this one paragraph?

"The surprising thing is that for us, organic wine is a very small part of our business," says Renee Elliot, founder of Planet Organic, the London based organic supermarkets. "My take is that people who buy totally organic produce tend to be a bit more health obsessed and drink much less than your average consumer.

With or without chemicals they see alcohol as a poison."  In the mainstream, however, among those of us who are happy to poison ourselves on a regular basis and who buy a bit organic and the rest chemical riddled, demand for organic wine has increased.

"We have seen a very big rise in terms of sales of organic wines," says Carolyn James, wine buyer at J Sainsbury’s.  "Almost 50% in our last financial year and this is a trend we expect to continue, although I do think it will slow down.

 We have found that consumers are requesting it more and more."  Oddbins and Tesco too, report that customers have been specifically asking for organic wines and that they have responded to that by increasing their ranges.

At the other end of the market, however, retailers have reported a less enthusiastic response from consumers in general, mainly due to pricing issues.  Suzie Cornwell, wine buyer at the Morrisons supermarket chain, says that requests for organic wines are very few and far between from her customers.

"We only have two organic wines in our whole range as we find that they don’t really give as good value as normal because there tends to be a premium to pay."

Somerfield too, report that consumers are put off by the higher price bracket.  "I’ve tasted so many organic wines where I feel that they are not offering value for money, which is what customers are looking for," says Somerfield’s wine buyer, Angela Mount.

 "There are organic wines that you taste and think, ‘yeah, that’s an alright £4 wine’ and then you find out it’s £6. If I taste a wine that is good value for money and it’s organic then that’s a bonus but I just don’t believe in making a consumer pay over the odds just because a wine is organically produced."

The issue of price is something that will cause problems for the organic industry if they are to continue their move from niche market into the mainstream. Neil Palmer from Vintage Roots, a specialist organic wine supplier, says that growth into the on-trade sector (which is where many see the biggest opportunity for development) is being hindered by this very issue.

"There is tremendous potential for organic wine in the on-trade but there is this question of cost. At the cheaper end of our selection we don’t have anything trade price under about £2.80 a bottle excluding VAT and, whilst I think the prices will nudge down a bit, we can’t expect them to be as cheap as other wines as they are not mass produced."

It is not, of course, out of the realms of all possibility that the British consumer could be persuaded to pay a premium for organic wines as they have done for organic fruit and veg, but there are also other problems that need to be addressed before we can see organic wine as a major contender for serious market share.

"There is much more limited choice for us buyers when it comes to selecting wines for the range," says Tesco’s Helen McGinn.  "Small volumes and limited sources of supply are very common, though this is beginning to change, but the New World has been very slow to realise the demand for organic wines.

However, we have just launched an own-label organic Australian wine, so this is changing." Nearly all retailers agree there is a problem providing a wide range, due to the fact it has taken a long time for those outside Europe to cotton on.

This has meant that an organic range has tended to translate into predominantly French wines.  "Part of the reason that New World countries do pose a problem for sourcing organic wines is the lack of a competent organic certifying body in several key wine producing countries," says Howard Winn, quality manager at Sainsbury’s.

 "There is also a lack of existing organic vineyards and it takes time – at least three years – to convert non-organic vines.  There is also a lack of incentive to convert to ‘added value’ organic, as many of the New World countries can sell all the wine they produce at premium prices without having to implement restrictive organic procedures."

That’s not to say that European producers don’t have some of these problems too. Robert Steel of For the Love of Wine, says that many of the organic producers he deals with already use organic principles "because they feel it makes better wine", but have not gained official organic certification because of the long and complex processes involved.

He also says that some wine makers need the flexibility to use chemicals in bad years, "One of our producers this year told us that he had not been able to grow the grapes organically this time because he needed to eat. It has to be a balance between making organic wine and making a living."

Growing organic wines is possibly even more difficult than at first you might think, as most organic farming methods rely on crop rotation but, obviously one cannot pull up vines every other year and plant more.

And, even if all this were overcome, there remains the issue of what actually constitutes an organic wine. "Really there is no such thing as an organic wine," says Tesco’s Howard Winn. "An international agreement has not been reached on the subject of what that would constitute.

Virtually all products sold are actually ‘wines produced from organically grown grapes.’" If all this sounds incredibly negative then perhaps we should spend some time looking at some positive aspects of the organic wine industry and the improvements that have been made.

Elliott (of Planet Organic) says that she used to work in the wine industry and remembers a tasting of organic wines she attended in the late 1980s.  "It was awful, the quality was really bad.

After I had set up Planet organic in the 1990s I went to another and couldn’t believe the difference in under ten years.  These days I believe that organic wine is better wine and that’s because it comes from producers who really care about the product and know about the terroir.

They are more interested in quality than quantity."  There are similar sentiments from Angela Mount at Somerfield: "I did a big organic tasting around three, four months ago and there is a dramatically improved draft of products around the £5 mark.

I think organic wines are an important part of our range going forward and I think it will develop more now as people start to trust the product in the bottle. I think in the past there has been a negative reaction because people have bought organic and then been disappointed by what they’ve tasted."

We should also not forget how far organic wines have come in terms of their image. Once the domain of beards and sandals, now it is the choice of urbane professionals. "Organics are going from passion to fashion to way of life," says Simon Legge of the Californian organic brand, Bonterra.

"By that, I mean it has developed from the passion of the hippy brigade to the ab-fab fashion world – ‘Try this organic wine darling, isn’t it fab?’ – to it being recognised as a better way of life. We’re not there yet, of course.

Generally the organic movement has been held back by lots of cottage industry type organic committees, who have not had the wherewithal or nous to make it appealing beyond the already converted beards and sandals but that is beginning to change dramatically.

That’s where a brand like ours can really add value to the whole organic movement."  Part of this means that the packaging on organic wines has had to make huge leaps forward in the space of a few years.

"I think generally there was a dichotomy in the packaging styles of organic wines," says Angela Mount, "There was either the very earthy, recycled paper – I mean there’s nothing wrong with re-cycled paper but very simplistic, no frills attached route – or it was a standard or smart label and you almost didn’t know it was organic.

I think that has changed now and at Somerfield our organic range, Terra Organica is smart, modern and says very clearly what the product is, so that people know they are buying organic wine."

Other supermarkets have developed their own range organic wines, to go with their other own label organic lines. In this way supermarkets are giving the industry a high profile by using these ranges in the PR war.

"They may have been slow on the uptake ten years ago," says Bonterra’s Legge, "but now you can walk into any supermarket and they are majoring in organics.

They are using organic ranges as a reason for people to shop with them now.  Shouting it in their PR battles to look good to the consumer, as opposed to having, you know, the widest range of GMO."

What the movement really needs now to move it forward, in Legge’s opinion, is some sex  appeal.  In the view of the producers it’s easier certification. For the buyers it needs to be consistency and volume.

For consumers it’s value for money. And, while it seems daunting that everyone wants something different from the industry, let’s face it, that’s no bad situation to find yourself in.