The New York Times recently featured an article about a winemaker in the Yarra Valley of Australia named Luke Lambert and his recent journey to abandon the many wonderful wines he makes today (mostly Chardonnays and Syrahs) in the pursuit of making the greatest Nebbiolo outside of Italy (the Nebbiolo varietal is most famously grown in northern Italy where it is bottled as Barolo or Barbaresco depending on exactly where it is from). The article had me thinking about a couple things relating to our class.
First, we talk a lot in business school of international copycat businesses (Didi = Uber in China) and it seems that the exact same concept can and, over the history of new world wine, has been applied to successful winemaking ventures. We heard it throughout our emerging regions presentations and we see it in some of the most popular new world wine regions today (Napa primarily just the Bordeaux varietals and winemaking style brought to California), but it seems like there is still a lot of opportunity to successfully bring old world varietals and winemaking techniques to new parts of the world. Sure, there are lots of unique regions in the world, but there must be places other than the Douro River Valley that can make a great Port or other than Italy that can make a great Nebbiolo or Sangiovese. Successfully importing these varietals and techniques could likely invigorate and give direction to many emerging regions.
Second, the post makes me think about diversification vs. single-minded pursuit to excellence in one product category. I think most of us would think it makes sense to grow many varietals and make many types of wine, but is doing so trading-off on the ultimate quality of a producer’s best wine? It seems that most international winemaker renown usually comes from single varietals or specific types of blends. I wonder if more producers should be focusing specifically instead of diversifying broadly.
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