Mastering Wine

Unlike that other perennial question – the completely unanswerable ‘what’s your favourite wine?’ – this one is easy. It was the community of fellow wine lovers I encountered along the way. But ‘community’ is a word worth contemplating. We use it readily – in trade conversations, at tastings, in the pages of magazines like this one – and perhaps precisely because it feels so familiar, we seldom examine what it actually means or what it truly requires. At a time when the industry is facing increasing headwinds, it seems reasonable to look a little more closely.

Wine has community in many forms, amongst collectors, the wider trade, and enthusiasts new and old. But arguably, the foundational one is producer-to-producer. For a small industry at the bottom of the world, community is not merely a nice idea, it’s a practical necessity. Perhaps more than most industries, wine depends on shared identities and collective reputations. No single producer builds their region’s reputation alone – it is patient, cumulative work over decades.

Knowledge passes informally between winegrowers and winemakers, sometimes across boundaries that might otherwise be perceived as competitive. Establishing a consistent and coherent regional story opens doors that individual producers couldn’t hope to unlock by themselves.

The regions that have understood this, operating on ‘co-opetition’ rather than pure competition, have often fared better, as it carries tangible commercial currency. None of this happens in a vacuum of course. Regional bodies, industry organisations and the informal networks people build over years of shared experience provide the scaffolding, but these only work if people maintain them.

Yes, this takes work, and honesty requires acknowledging the tensions that come with it. Producers are ultimately competitors. Interests and winegrowing philosophies diverge. Community doesn’t automatically happen, or sustain itself – it always requires something from people. It can be all too easy to draw from the communal asset without contributing much to it, or even inadvertently undermining it. And things can erode startlingly quickly, and more quietly, than we ever expect. The wine industry has seen examples of that, some uncomfortably close to home.

Community matters most when times are hard. People are resilient, but only to a point. When pressure is sustained – as it is now – having a genuine community to draw upon is vital. People who share knowledge freely, who support rather than undercut, who hold the collective story together even while under strain, these are the things that make a material difference to how an industry weathers difficulty, and whether it emerges out the other side stronger. Community sits at the core of what is most important in wine. I know I remain consistently humbled by and grateful for the time, energy, knowledge, shared wines and kindred spirits of the generous, passionate people who populate every corner of this industry. It remains one of the great privileges of working in wine.