Lorenzo Biscontin
The necessary premise of this post is that Josko Gravner, whom I do not know personally, does not need official defense, much less mine.
However, it came to me spontaneously after reading some disrespectful, at least, comments following the interview that Gravner gave to Gambero Rosso because I believe that those who have had the vision, conviction, ability and perseverance to create a new category of wine, the orange wines, doesn’t deserve to be treated like a poor old man who loses his mind under the influence of the summer heat.
Reasons for the mockery was the caustic response that Gravner gives to the question of what he thinks of wines without alcohol: “Bullshit”.
Please keep in mind that we are talking about a winemaker who uprooted his own Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio vineyards, with which he produced wines acclaimed by critics and the public, because he considered them alien to the Collio territory and from there he began the research path that led to the creation of orange wines, a new and ancient typology/philosophy of wine that has spread throughout the world.
It would have been surprising if he had given a different answer.
Personally, I am not against wines as a drink, if only because I prefer there being a vineyard in the countryside rather than an industrial warehouse.
Instead, I agree with Gravner’s idea that the idea that these drinks are not called wine, not so much because of a sacred vision of wine, but rather because it shifts the emphasis to the concept’s “wine” and “alcohol-free”, while the reason the success of these drinks is the taste, or rather the flavouring. Dealcoholizing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. What is sufficient is the flavour, as demonstrated by the cases of Stella Rosa and French Bloom.
Gravner’s perplexity regarding the actual advantage of the Piwi is also considered a “shoot-out”. He thinks that is stretch nature will make us pay with the onset of new diseases to which the Piwi will not be resistant.
Here too I do not share Gravner’s vision, but I do respect it for the authoritativeness of the source and it pushes me to want to delve deeper into the issue.
I agree with Gravner 100% on one thing: it is not the alcohol content that makes a wine heavy from a sensorial point of view.
Everybody in the wine sector, from producers to opinion leaders, are first and foremost wine enthusiasts and therefore the question of taste compared to the decline in consumption is automatically underestimated, because it is debated by people who like wine from the start. Yet the examples in the field of wines with low alcohol content, the popularity among young people of natural wines, orange, etc… and the decline in consumption on red wines clearly raise the question of taste. Gravner’s interview, which you can find here (In Italian), ends with the question “Have you thought about leaving?”, answer “I’ve thought about it, but I’m not ready”. I say: thank goodness.