Nigel Greening on navigating the tricky waters wine finds itself in, and the problems with ‘fine wine’: where does Felton Road sit?
Back in February 2025 I attended the Pinot Noir 2025 conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. As well as some great tasting sessions and evening events, the formal programming contained some important talks. For me the best of a strong bunch was a presentation from Nigel Greening of Felton Road. What Nigel had to say was honest, brave and deeply insightful. I think it’s an important message for the wine world, and he’s allowed me to reproduce it here. Read, read again, inwardly digest and share!
This is the text of the talk by Nigel Greening presented on 12 February 2025, at the Pinot Noir conference in Christchurch, New Zealand
We live in strange times… it is deeply unsettling… much of the world we know is changing, and when these things happen, there is always a temptation to look backwards… to better times, or at least that is how we remember them. That is what I want to talk about… how we navigate the waters we find ourselves adrift in. How we resist the temptation to look over our shoulder, and find how to look ahead to a better future.
There is no question that wine faces significant issues. I was talking to a leading port producer, who is in a state of near panic (not without good reason, I’d be panicking if I made port!). He was convinced that the anti-alcohol lobby would put him out of business. I suppose that’s easier than admitting you make something that nobody seems to wants to drink any more, but there is no question that the health lobby is reducing wine sales, especially with young professionals, where, if they don’t stay alcohol free they are often turning to cocktails.
Then we have the effective collapse of Bordeaux sales; the world’s largest fine wine system wiped out of the market for the present, with no clear path back. The big estates now can’t sell it at the prices they have set, and the lesser ones can’t sell it at any price. Burgundy has seen its own wake up and smell the coffee moment with its en primeur 2023, a huge vintage of patchy quality with daft prices and a disillusioned customer base now their established norm. The whole notion of fine wine is feeling stale and tainted: an overpriced piece of snobbery largely created by ageing white and Asian males (and this from an ageing white male!)
Add to that; weather chaos caused by climate change, enormous social instability, the prospect of continued and worsening conflict and political anarchy, it is easy to see that there is a rough landscape ahead.
We need to have the courage to throw away this outdated mess. And we know we need to demystify wine to broaden its appeal. How might we do that? Here’s an example: The snobbery that surrounds fine wine embraces the need for wines to age before they taste right. Wine is only good if it takes 20 years in a cellar to ‘come round’ Why? We know that, historically, winemaking often needed a long period for the harshness of the product to resolve, and so we came to revere the taste of old wine. Look; we can enjoy old wines, I have no problem with that, but it shouldn’t be a requirement. People shouldn’t have to have a cellar before they can taste great wines. And it doesn’t belittle a wine to create it to be delicious on release, it enhances it. Then… Instead of pontificating about minerality, texture and palate length, what’s wrong with deliciousness? Instead of ‘wait a decade’, what’s wrong with ‘it will be gorgeous tonight’? We have to stop clinging to the debris of ‘Fine Wine’ and think about speaking in language our future customers can relate to. That’s not dumbing down, it’s stopping pretension.
Then, critically… I think we need to abandon exclusivity and embrace inclusivity. Wine has a history of promoting inclusivity and camaraderie; we gather, we talk, share ideas, laugh, and commiserate, all while enjoying a glass together, breaking bread. It can be the perfect antidote to the isolation of social media with its illusion of togetherness. Are young people turning away from enjoying wine, or are they forgetting how to be physically together and enjoying each other’s company? We won’t make progress in bringing people together by promoting exclusivity!
What creates resilience in this market? It might be that being seen to be looking to wider social values rather than clinging to outdated snobbery and exclusivity is important: to be seen as socially aware, successful, in demand, environmentally responsible, good value, friendly, the list of possible values is a long one, and being able to wear several undoubtedly can help build resilience. I suppose that’s one reason why Felton Road seems to be collecting certifications like they are going out of style; with consumers more and more suspicious of generalised puff, it’s a way to try and say ‘we really mean it’.
So, where does Felton Road sit? We are uncomfortable being seen as part of the tradition of fine wine, which is tedious, snobby and pretentious. It seeks to create exclusivity and I’m through with that. We no longer want to be a surrogate Burgundy; wines that are about insane prices, often unreliable quality and increasingly tenuous clinging to outdated ideas of terroir. We are definitely not fitting into ‘Natural’ as a gang, though our wines are as naturally made as anybody’s. Organic? Biodynamic? IWCA? B Corp? These are hats we wear rather than a broader banner to head out into the market under. So who do we belong to?
This brings me to Pascaline Lepeltier and her wonderful book: A Thousand Vines. Although Lepeltier doesn’t use the term to create a category, she regularly refers to Living Wine. By that she means wines that are artisan made and grown; wines of integrity, individuality and interest. But Living Wine has some much more interesting ideas within its name: Wine grown in a way that respects life… broader life; not just vines but the whole living ecosystem. In other words: inclusive, not exclusive farming. Wine made in a way that surrenders control to the age old process of native microbes making the wine happen rather than trying to control with a winemakers ego, laboratory products or technology. Again… it’s inclusive of one’s winery biome as a philosophy. Wine created by people who understand that everybody involved needs to be living, not just surviving: rewarded, healthy and supported just as much as the land and the wine needs that support and health. That needs a wine producer that values ethics as much as aesthetics. This idea encompasses social, ethical, climate, environment, low impact, light touch, sensitivity, to create something that is both aspirational and inspirational. Not exclusive wine, but inclusive wine. That’s the core of the idea: Abandon wanting to be exclusive, embrace being inclusive.
Most groupings have requirements; certifications, points scores, price, pretension, whatever. They are all fences, when what we need are gates… an inclusive approach. We may need a manifesto: a set of shared values, but not a set of rules and that manifesto would need to be both flexible and dynamic rather than fixed and dogmatic. There is a significant opportunity here in regenerative viticulture. Regenerative has the advantage of being very focussed on carbon, and thus climate change, which is the defining threat to our industry as well as to most of our customer’s wellbeing. But it isn’t like the organic and biodynamic “our way, or the highway” approach.
Biodynamics and organics are barely speaking on the subject of climate, or not saying anything very credible. Even worse, I see people effectively saying things like: ‘I don’t need to do anything else about climate change because we’re biodynamic’. Organic is restrictive in that it bans the use of both materials and techniques, not on the basis of their being appropriate, but on a dogma that chemicals are evil. Organics does have a value in that consumers and media find it a simple handle that says that one is respectful of the environment and the health of the product. But it carries the price of prohibiting many things that would be beneficial for both the wine and the environment.
We remain organic, not because we think all chemicals are evil, but because there isn’t an alternative with a clear consumer message. Biodynamics is exactly the same but with added weirdness. On the plus side it emphasises the focus on the dynamics of the living ecosystem, which is great. On the bad side it can descend into fake science and irrelevance. We remain biodynamic because so much of it is evidently effective. The certification regime allows us to not do the things we feel conflicted with, while adopting the ideas that we think are helpful. We are also very mindful that for a lot of people who work in vineyards and in cellars, as well as those wider in the field, it forms an important bond; a cult would be far too strong a word, but a grouping which a lot of people find motivational and supportive. So, we’ll stay in both groups, but we don’t use them to define us.
Both organics and biodynamics are exclusive and not inclusive: you have to conform to be allowed in. Regenerative is not about an exclusive list or requirements, but an inclusive idea that embraces flexibility.
To conclude: I’m happy to leave exclusive wines behind. The word exclusive should be an oxymoron when used to describe the word wine. Wine is about inclusion. It is about sharing, camaraderie, a coming together, not a locking out. A great wine is a conversation piece, not in its majesty or its scarcity, or its price but in its unique interest and wonderful flavour. So, that’s my plan to weather this storm: Be socially cohesive, demystify, be inclusive not exclusive, and, embrace living as the core of our communication.
