The growers are complaining bitterly about the long
established system of paying for grapes per kilo instead of for quality. The
bodegas don’t want to change this as it is cheaper for them, especially with
the resurgence in Sherry which is closely linked to the differentiation of
pagos as the maximum expression of quality. Until now all the grapes were mixed
regardless of the pago of origin or terroir, but some bodegas are now pushing
for differentiation of pagos, although they are reluctant to pay more for the
grapes, the only way to achieve classification by area, since the cooperatives
mix all the grapes which arrive irrespective of the pago or terroir from which
they come.
Asevi has asked the Consejo Regulador to define
the quality of the grapes so they can be classified, but not in terms of sugar
content, which is done elsewhere in Spain, “but which wouldn’t work here”, but
in terms of other parameters such as the soil and climate which have been
widely studied and would serve as guidelines.
 |
| Francisco Guerrero (centre left) foto:diariodejerez |
Up till now, attempts by the independent
growers to get the bodegas on side have failed. “We raised with Fedejerez the
need to make the vineyards profitable. Some vineyards have incorporated new
cultivation techniques which offer higher sugar levels, like in Balbaina where they
are historically low but are now up from 11° to 13° Beaumé, which saves the
bodegas money on alcohol, but no benefit has filtered down to the growers.
Guerrero recalled that since the National Competition Commission ruled on grape
prices in the area a few years ago, imposing heavy fines on many bodegas, “the
growers have been obliged to negotiate prices individually, and they thus have
a lot to lose as the bodegas are squeezing them and grapes are perishable”.
“We are very worried; the state of the
vineyards is constantly getting worse and only the minimum possible is being
done so as to reduce costs, and that shortens the useful life of the vineyard,
which is also suffering from mechanised harvesting” complains Guerrero, who
claims that a vineyard’s useful life has been halved from 50-60 years before to
25-30 years now, reducing growers’ margins further. He says that pessimism is
growing that vineyards will be abandoned and growers will leave, and so the
possibility of them joining cooperatives or joining together has been raised,
and that is something which would give them more power against the bodegas
given that between the independent growers they own some 2,500 hectares of
vineyard out of the slightly over 6,500.
The recuperation of old traditions of the area,
such as unfortified wines or using overripe grapes offer a sliver of hope since
these are more expensive wines which would translate into better prices for the
growers. But time is running against the interests of the growers who blame the
boom of the 1970s and 1980s for doing much damage, not to mention the
oenologists who decided that wine should be made in the bodega and the source
of the grapes was irrelevant. Although nowadays it is no longer like that, and
the terroir is regaining importance, in practice the growers are still not
seeing any benefit from the recovery of Sherry and its prestige of old.
In fact, as Guerrero points out, many growers
have turned to planting table wine grapes like Tintilla for Vinos de la Tierra
de Cádiz and winemakers can’t get enough of them at much higher prices than
Palomino which, he says has lost 40% of its price over the last 20 years.
This report by A Espejo appeared in yesterday's Diario de Jerez
This report by A Espejo appeared in yesterday's Diario de Jerez
No comments:
Post a Comment