Environmentally Sustainable Wines

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1:50Don Opici:Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.

2:03Chris Wirth:Carol, you can always count on Bloomberg Pursuits for some good wine-related content.

2:08Don Opici:Listen, their reporting is incredible. And, you know, they go a lot of different places, but certainly when it comes to alcoholic beverages.

2:16Chris Wirth:It's been a week. Ellen McCoy writes for Bloomer Pursuits about how white wine should be looked at when it comes to value investing. She writes that, quote, sadly, most people, even those who love white wines, buy into the narrative that collecting and investing are mainly about reds because their powerful tannins allow them to last. This received wisdom is woefully outdated, she writes. Top whites can easily age 10 or as many as 20 years or more, almost as long as reds. She says the acidity plays the role that tannin plays in preserving reds.

2:47Don Opici:Well, our next guest is nodding as he's listening to this. We're talking about wine because it is Friday or Friday. We're joined by Christopher Wirth. He is director of sustainability at Opeche Wines and Spirits. He joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Happy Friday. Welcome, welcome. Nice to have you here.

3:04Chris Wirth:Thank you for having me. Pleasure.

3:05Don Opici:Tell us about Opeche Wines. What do we need to know?

3:08Chris Wirth:So, Opecci Wines, family-owned, the import side of the business has been around since 1913, so we do have a little bit of pedigree and some history behind us. We focus on family-owned estate wines from around the world, heavy on Italy just because of the family's heritage, but then we've also branched out into some of our own proprietary brands that we source from family growers, but we'll put our own label on them. So, one of those, like our La Luca Prosecco that we have, that's named after Don Opecci, who's my boss, his son Luca. So, it's all in La Familia as we go through it, yeah.

3:37Don Opici:Has it gotten easier or harder, though, in terms of making wines? We've had a lot of conversations about the wine industry over the last few years. Some of it has to do with you have younger generations not drinking so much. But we also talk about climate change and people shifting where they're growing. So tell us a little bit about tariffs, too. And tariffs also.

3:55Chris Wirth:Absolutely. No, it's a lot. All of those things are absolutely true. And it's kind of coming at the industry from all angles. But, I mean, in terms of climate change, growers are having to adapt and build resilience into their plans. What do they do? So it's a combination because it's not like it's just getting hotter. Like that's kind of one of the misnomers is that every year will get hotter and hotter, while there may be extremes are also dealing with a lot more frost and cold. So there's a lot that they have to do. The biggest thing is they don't want to contribute to make it worse. So they're cutting down on their own emissions.

4:23Chris Wirth:You know, they're starting to not use any synthetic pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, starting to move to like cover crops to like naturally regenerate the soil and just be more responsible stewards. And it's not just in the vineyard, like being certified organic or something is good, but it also comes down to your packaging, to your glass, to your shippers, to how you're messaging that to customers and to the younger generation that's looking for more stories on what to drink. The stories element and the messaging element is part of it, but all those things that you mentioned, it's got to affect taste, too.

4:56Chris Wirth:Absolutely. I mean, I think there's nowadays... Or consistency of taste. When I got into the industry, if you had the organic wines that were marketed, they didn't last as long. They were a little bit of a lower quality. But a lot of it is we didn't have the verbiage to even classify these things or how to talk about them. And while organics, that is one of the best levels you can be at, sustainability is more of an overall holistic style to do it. So you can maintain that flavor and maintain your business without sacrificing the flavor and the sales and things like that.

5:30Don Opici:The other thing that we've talked about is regenerative farming. That has also made its certainly presence, if you will, when it comes to wine. We've talked about that a lot around this table.

5:40Chris Wirth:Yeah, I mean, one of our producers, so Carpinetto from Tuscany, they're known for their Chianti's. We have their Chianti Classical Reserva that we'll be tasting in a minute. But they're one of our kind of most prestigious sustainable producers that we have. And they do what's called a green harvest, where they'll cut grapes that they're not going to use, but they'll let them kind of break down on the soil to naturally regenerate and put nutrients back in. They'll use cover crops to help with erosion and things like that, so you don't have to put the synthetic fertilizers or any of that into the system.

6:11Chris Wirth:So, yeah. What? What are we drinking? Oh, yeah, let's do it. No, let's start. Enough talkie-talkie. Let's go. So we're going to start with that La Lunca Prosecco that I was talking about. So we'll start there. This is one of our most well-known national brands. This is from the Treviso area up north in Italy. Okay. That was for our radio audience. It's for the radio audience, too. Okay, sorry. You were talking about the Treviso. Yeah. So, like, you have your area of Prosecco, and then in that area, the grapes are called Glera. They used to be called Prosecco, but they changed them so they don't get confused with the actual town where they're from.

6:51Chris Wirth:So, yeah. So, Prosecco is the area. Inside Prosecco is the appellation of Treviso. That's the D-O-C Treviso you'll see on there. Right. And then, yeah, this is done in like an extra dry style, so it's fruity, but it's still really fresh. Am I drinking the right one? I don't know if I'm drinking the right one. You got some bubbles? Is it bubbles? It should have bubbles. Bubbles is where you want to start.

7:08Don Opici:This is what we're going to do third.

7:10Chris Wirth:Okay, thank you, Carol. Okay.

7:11Don Opici:Always looking out for me.

7:12Chris Wirth:I think Tim would have already been having some. Yeah, I'm thinking so, too. You know what's shocking to me about this is it's$18? Mm-hmm. And you'll find it in a range of like$16 to$18. Wow. And that's the beauty of us owning this brand and importing it. So there's like one less set of hands touching it. So it's a real value-driven, and we have a great relationship with the co-op of farmers that produce this for us, and that's kind of the highlight of their sustainability efforts on that. Is a co-op, is that not typical, or is that typical in this part of the world when it comes to farming? So for El Cotto and Carpanetto, those are going to be all estate fruit, so the winery actually owns them.

7:46Chris Wirth:But for La Luca, we buy it from this large co-op, and it's about, I can't recall the exact number, but a large number of farmers that all operate under the same sustainable guidelines that the parent winery dictates. Love that. And on the back of the bottle, you'll see that 3E, Equalitas on there. What does that mean? So that's environmental, ethical, and economical. So those are the three values of their sustainability program, and that's guided by the Italian ministry and then certified that they are actually following those procedures by an independent agency called Valor Italia.

8:20Don Opici:How does sustainability matter? We've been talking about that this week, and there's been a real pushback against diversity, equity, inclusion, those things, but also sustainability initiatives, at least publicly. But you guys are still doing it. It's important, right?

8:37Chris Wirth:One of the biggest things is it needs some teeth, because I think a lot of it comes off as greenwashing, or it's just kind of like surface stuff. So one of the things that we did, when I first came on with this position, I was like, I need to know what they're doing, how they're doing it, who's certifying it, who's actually guaranteeing that they're doing it. So that's why you have not only their certification on the back label, but you also see the certifying body on the back label, which is cool. It is important.

9:04Don Opici:Bigger deal in Europe?

9:05Chris Wirth:I think it is a big deal in Europe. and they get a lot more support from the government in Europe. But a lot of it was done more just towards the social, like the charity, the philanthropy, and then in the vineyard. But it's got to be a little bit bigger than that. And when you kind of put all these things together, then it starts to make sense to the consumer and to people that you don't have to really sacrifice much to get this. It actually just makes sense. And it's the way that we've been doing it for a long time. We're speaking with Christopher Wirth, Director of Sustainability at Opeechee Wines and Spirits.

9:36Chris Wirth:He joins us along with quite a few bottles of wine here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers. Let's go to El Cotto. Let's go to El Cotto. You want to go to Spain?

9:43Don Opici:Yeah. You want to go to Rioja? Yeah.

9:45Chris Wirth:Rioja region. Let's do it. So we go to Rioja.

9:46Don Opici:Pack your bags. Let's go.

9:47Chris Wirth:A little European tour here. All right. So we'll go to El Cotto. This is one of my favorite wines in our portfolio. This is like my official summer wine. If you come to my house, you'll have a glass of this in your hand immediately.

9:58Don Opici:Well, just invite us. Yes.

10:00Chris Wirth:Sorry. Come to the Finger Lakes. Love the Finger Lakes. We'll do some wine tours as well.

10:04Don Opici:Okay.

10:05Chris Wirth:So this is their El Cotto Blanco. This will be a blend of mostly Viura, which is an indigenous grape to Spain, some Sauvignon Blanc, and a dash of Verdejo. All stainless steel, all dry farms, so no irrigation on this one or anything like that. What do you mean stainless steel?

10:20Don Opici:Barrels, right?

10:21Chris Wirth:When you ferment a wine, you can ferment it in stainless steel and then put it in oak for aging. Sometimes, especially with whites, they'll barrel ferment them, so you have a little bit oakier, a little vanilla feel. This is all stainless steel to maintain that acidity, keep it really fresh. You'll get notes of citrus and maybe some pineapple and a little bit of acidity and minerality in the aftertaste. I got bubbles because I drank the wrong one. You went backwards? Yeah. It's all right. It's okay.

10:45Don Opici:Oh, it's really soft. I could see in the summer when it's hot, it's really lovely.