The wine industry has not only not been very innovative; the steps it has taken have too often been focused on making life better for the producers rather than the consumers.

Over the last few decades, the quality of the wine most people drink has improved extraordinarily. But so has almost everything else. Bad, vinegary wine belongs to the days when watches kept poor time, cameras took blurry photographs and there were cars that struggled to stay on the road in the rain, on bends, at over 50 miles an hour .

We have seen lots of innovations in the wine industry, but which, apart from the introduction of a few new regions, grape varieties and blends, the bag-in-box and very recently the 0.0s, has really brought an identifiable benefit to the consumer? Of course, one could mention the screw cap and Diam, but neither has become ubiquitous, and both solved a problem of which the average wine drinker was unaware. Very, very few ever complained about cork taint or oxidation.

Almost all of the many innovations we have seen at the production end - from canopy management, to enzymes and fermentation yeasts, rotofermenters and flexitanks - have gone unnoticed by the large number of people who have gradually been moving away from wine.

(I know someone will probably chip in at this point to mention natural wine, which I’d counter with pink Prosecco. Neither is anything like the global game-changer we saw with the arrival of Starbucks coffee bars [and all the brands that followed] Nespresso pods, Frappuccino and Latte.)

Formerly known as hybrids

The latest industry-focused innovation is, of course the PIWI; the disease- and possibly climate-issue-resistant varieties we used to know as hybrids.

For a grape grower, the burgeoning number of these varieties may appear to be a gift from the gods - especially at a time when the EU is pushing hard for the industry to go organic.

And, after tasting a quartet of attractively-packaged bottles from Winzer Krems in Austria which is part of a PIWI Austria working group, I can confirm that the quality of the wine they are producing is improving too. There was a Donauriesling, a Donauveltliner, a Blütenmuskateler and a red Pinot Nova, each of which was clearly intended to be a potential replacement for the ‘classic’ grape that forms part of its name.

My favourites were the ones based on Grüner and Muscat, both of which were not only closest to the ‘originals’, but also the ones with the greatest complexity and length. Maybe I - and the MW student with whom I tasted them - were slightly tougher on the pair that seek to replace Riesling and Pinot Noir, but we could see them getting scores in high 80s from critics who use that kind of scale.

Green Austrians

The fact that these wines are Austrian may be relevant. With 11% of its retail food and drink sales by volume and 13% by value, this small country has one of the world’s most developed organic markets. A quarter of its vineyards are apparently already organic, at a time when many producers elsewhere in Northern Europe are admitting that the climate is making that a difficult discipline to maintain.

None of the PIWIs I tasted was organic, but all were certified as sustainable.

I noted from the Winzer Krebs website that “More and more wine consumers get interested into this new fungus-resistant (‘Piwi’) grape varieties” but, I struggled to imagine why I’d choose drink either if the ‘real thing’ were available.

The first piece of text about the Donauveltliner on the web site reads “This new grape variety was cultured in the research center for viticulture in Klosterneuburg. It is characterized by a high level of resistance to certain fungal diseases. As a result, the need for plant protection measures in viticulture may be reduced.”

This may not be the most important information for the nearly 90% (and higher elsewhere) of Austrians who are, first and foremost, looking for a bottle of something enjoyable to drink.

Admittedly the next paragraph is headed ‘Characteristics’ and  offers a good description: “Lots of exotic fruits in the nose, notes of mango, passion fruit and bananas also come through on the palate, coupled with delicate fruit spice. Crisp acidity structure and balanced yet, creamy, finishes with beautiful length and fine harmony”. But, positioning this after the viticultural stuff suggested to me that being flavoursome was not the main priority. The statement that “the Grüner Veltliner, Riesling or Blauer Zweigelt will not get replaced” by the PIWIs reinforced this view.

Memory overload

For what it is worth, I don’t think that expecting consumers who already struggle to remember too many grape varieties, to add a few new similarly named ones to the list, is a wise move.

I also wonder about the wisdom of expecting English speakers for whom ‘pee’ and ‘wee’ are words used when talking to children about urination, to embrace PIWI as a term. However convenient it might be as an abbreviation for the cumbersome German Pilzwiderstandsfähige Traubensorten.

If I were advising Winzer Krems, or any other PIWI-curious winery, I’d say that a) they should be prepared to use the 85:15 rule to add some classic grapes to the blends (even if this means having to remove PIWI from the back label). And b) that they should focus on making as good a drink as possible from these grapes and/or blends and to give the result a proprietary name.

In other words, get people to fall in love with the product and then tell them that it also happens to be environmentally laudable.

I sincerely applaud Winzer Krems’ and others’ readiness to experiment, especially if the results are good for the planet, but please, please, please start to think about the men and women we want to drink the wine we are all making. Without getting them on board and paying our bills, it really won’t matter how green any of us may be.