Future of the Wine Industry Since COVID-19

By Karen MacNeil
April 17, 2020

In response to a question posed to me by a wine blogger regarding the future of the Alcohol Beverage Industry in the wake of the corona virus outbreak, I said: “My fervent hope is that there’s a silver lining here. For 8,000 years, wine has brought us together and nurtured us. Wine is not just pleasure; it’s solace. In the modern era, we’ve too often neglected to appreciate wine for the deep emotional sustenance it provides. Maybe staying at home and having a glass of wine with someone else (even if they’re on a screen), will renew our love of the world’s greatest beverage.” I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know here.

Some winemakers are adding seawater to fermenting grapes in order to improve the wine’s longevity and amplify its flavors.

Answer: True.

As most wine drinkers know, wine can taste pleasantly salty—even when there’s no actual sodium chloride in it. Certain grape varieties, for example, can taste a bit salty (sangiovese is one), and wines made from grapes growing near a sea coast can, too. So maybe it was only a matter of time, but several winemakers in France and Portugal are now experimenting with adding salt to their wines, a practice that was described in ancient Roman texts. In particular, adding seawater was typical since it helped preserve the perishable beverage, in the same way that salt was used to preserve meat.

Contemporary vintner Hervé Durand’s family estate, Mas des Tourelles, in the southern Rhône Valley, stands atop the remains of a Gallo-Roman winery. Known for his “Archeological Roman Wines,” Durand makes a version of Turriculae, a wine made from an ancient recipe that includes seawater as well as ground fenugreek and iris flowers. In Portugal, Port producer Dirk Niepoort learned of the practice from a traditional wine producer in the Azores and convinced fellow vintners Anna Jorgensen and Anselmo Mendes to join him in experimenting with salt. Filling their fermentation vessels to 1% seawater, they found the results had a tangy, saline flavor that gave “more life” to the wine without overly diluting it. “As it is common with food, a pinch of salt is important to ‘awaken’ other flavors,” says Mendes. He has a point.

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