The Society's Pioneers

Video transcript

Hi, I'm Dom and I head up sustainability at the Wine Society. Hello, my name's Victoria and I'm one of the buyers at the Wine Society. And we're here today to talk about our collection of wines that we call the Society's Pioneers. So first question, Dom, what is the Society's Pioneers?

Well, so it's a collection of wines from producers that we think are, just going way above and beyond in terms of their care for climate, for their land, for their people and for their craft. So it's wines that have hit certain criteria across their farming practices, their winery practices, their labour practices and their packaging practices.

And what was the thinking behind this collection as you've just defined it now? Yeah, two things I would say. So one, a lot of our members quite often talk to us at tasting and events, things like that. They talk about other things that they care beyond just price and quality.

So price and quality is always like a big thing but, but beyond that they care about things like how the wine is grown, what sort of pesticides and herbicides have been used in the vineyard. They care about what's gone in the winery in terms of additives into the wine, they care about the packaging.

They don't really like these really heavy bottles. So they care about a whole bunch of things. They care about the countryside, they care about buying wines from family owned businesses, all these kinds of things, but they just don't know where to go to find wines like that.

There is no simple kind of guide or simple stamp that says buy one of these wines. So that's on one side and then on the other side we work with just amazing producers, that are really farming brilliantly. They're going way above and beyond.

They're removing chemicals from the vineyards, those herbicides and pesticides I was talking about, their vineyards are just buzzing with life and energy and butterflies and bees. All those things in the vineyard, in the winery, they're reducing energy, they're reducing water, they're composting, they're just doing fantastic things.

So what the Society's Pioneers does is it just brings those two together. So it's a one stop shop place where members can go to buy wines from producers like that. So can you tell us about the selection process for the Society's pioneers and what criteria they need to fulfil?

It's a really rigorous selection process, but it's not perfect by any means. And we're the first to say it's not A perfect criteria, sustainability is rarely black or white or pass or fail. There's always so many nuances, but it's really rigorous. The first thing that every wine must meet is it has to have been nominated by a buyer who's visited that vineyard in person or that producer in person.

Yeah. So obviously, as, you know, as buyers, the heart of our role really is producer visits. I would say it's kind of where everything begins. It's where the, those relationships begin. The importance of us being on the ground as buyers, having conversations with producers as we walk through the vineyards, as we walk through the cellar, sometimes as we watch the wine being bottled, it can't be overstated in terms of understanding not just the wines that they are making, but their approach to how they treat the entire ecosystem around them.

So by that, I mean the nature and the life in the vineyard, I mean, the people that are working there and this just, it is something you and I have talked about a lot, but it's something that, it's a feeling you get. You see how the winem or the director, you see how they talk to their staff, you see how they interact with the pickers in the vineyard, you see how full of life the vineyard is or isn't or isn't.

And I'm just recently back from a trip that has really demonstrated that to me. So I think that first step being a buyer nomination is critical to the success of this overall as a project. Yeah, definitely. You can just tell sometimes, can't you, when you walk through a vineyard and you see one that's just sort of dead apart from the vines and another one that is just full of life.

So, so that's the first step. It's got to be nominated by the buyers. And then it goes through like a whole verification process. So the wine must be in a lightweight bottle. It must have a sustainability certification. There must be 100% traceability on where all the grapes have been grown that have gone into making that wine.

And then, we go into. And if they, if they meet all of those criteria, then we have like a 45 minute conversation with the producer and we quiz them on their practices. So we talk about chemical use in the vineyard, we talk about water use in the vineyard, we talk about biodiversity, we talk about soil health and soil management.

Then we go into the winery and talk about energy use again, water use, waste management, the winemaking itself. So what kind of interventions, additives have gone into the wine, because what we're looking for Is low intervention, minimal, kind of messing around with.

And then we talk about labour and we talk about people and how they take care of their people, particularly their seasonal and temporary workers, those workers that are brought in at harvest time or pruning for to do picking and kind of what they call the green work in the vineyard, as you know.

So every question is scored, and they have to meet a certain score. So what we call kind of distinction level score. What are the benefits for members of the Society's pioneer collection of wines?

Yeah, good question. So I think if you're so everybody when they buy wine they think about price and they think about quality. But I think more and more people think about other things as well. They think about how was that, how were the grapes grown?

Were pesticides and herbicides used in the vineyard? What, happened in the winery is lots of things been added to the wine. They care about kind of countryside and wildlife and land and they care about families. Is this a family owned wine?

And actually interestingly, so far, every one of the Society's pioneers is from a, family owned vineyard. And I think that's really telling. It kind of speaks to this idea of family commitment and stewardship, like passion and love that they, they have and a long term vision and that long term, long term thinking.

So I think if, if things like that interest you, this is just a one stop shop. Go, go and buy one of the Society's pioneers. You know, these are real standout producers that we think are just going way above and beyond. And, and, and I think it, you know, what I hear from them is it also shows in the taste as well, that kind of love and passion. Yeah.

Obviously from a buyer's perspective, these are wines that we've already selected for our range because we think they're delicious. But I think while it is sort of, it's difficult, it's difficult to prove sort of scientifically the relationship between vineyard practices and the wine in the bottle.

Although there are some amazing advancements going on there. What you tend to feel, what you feel about these wines which have been grown in a thriving ecosystem, as you say, that's buzzing with life in a vineyard that just feels vibrant and vital is you find that sort of same energy in the wines and it's not, you know, it's a, that's a subjective term.

It's not a term we can't measure energy in with numbers, but we feel it, we taste it, we feel a freshness and A kind of life force which is, as wine lovers, is super compelling. Exactly. And that's what the producers that I talk to, that's how they describe it as well, about their wines.

And they say those are the improvements they've seen since they have started farming differently, for example. And we see it particularly in the. In regions which are suffering with kind of increasingly hot temperatures, increasingly dry conditions. We see how farming in a way which puts soil health at the heart of what you're doing in the vineyard, actually maintains freshness in the grapes.

That's something we can measure because we can see it in the PH levels. So that is. That. That is something that we can actually talk about from an analytical perspective as well as from a taste perspective. Yeah. Would you say that this is a way to help members navigate what is a hugely complex world of certifications?

Definitely. Definitely. It's something like 45 sustainability certifications in wine. And they're all different. Some are really robust, some are just not at all. And none of them fulfill all of these pillars of sort of production. So both the cellar and the vineyard packaging, as well as people and labor standards. Exactly.

Or some are just really good at the vineyard practices, but don't have any. People don't have any. Or really sort of low standards on the people side of it. So we've kind of created our own in a way, and then done all this check. So all of the Society's pioneers will have to have reached a certain standard, you know, our sort of highest standard on all of those.

And how do you see this evolving? Because obviously both you and I know how quickly things are changing, both in the vineyard, in the winer, wine industry. How. How is the Society's pioneers going to change? I think it's got to evolve constantly. So I think the. I think the wines themselves will.

Will evolve. So every three months will. Some wines will drop off naturally because we've sold out of them. Some new wines will come in because the buyers have gone out and found. Found new wines. So. So hopefully the wines themselves will evolve, but I think we're also going to need to evolve the criteria as we go.

And this is the first time we've ever done anything like this. And. And I've already said it's not perfect. It's a start. I think we'll need to get more and more robust with this criteria as we go, and hopefully it will help raise standards across the board and so we can make the standards even more rigorous over the years to come.

How do members find the Society's Pioneer collection of wines. Okay. So it should be really easy. So, they go onto our homepage on our website. Across the top there's a navigation, and they'll see buy at the top. So you click on buy, scroll down, and then you'll see the Society's Pioneers.

So click into that and it gives you all the information about the Society's Pioneers, what it is, how we've selected these wines. And you can buy the wines, obviously. But also look out for an icon, the Society's Pioneers icon, which should be on screen now.

And every wine that has been selected as a Society's Pioneers will have that icon attached to it in some way. So if you see that icon next to a wine, they're a Society's Pioneer. Perfect. That's the Society's Pioneers in a nutshell. Yeah. And really excited about this whole project.

It's been a proper labour of love putting together the criteria, been really rigorous, the process we've been through. As I said, earlier, we've spoken to 50, 60 producers to create this collection, and we really hope that it helps members find the wines that they want to drink.