Want to make great wine? Plant a forest! Moderated by Isabelle Legeron MW. How quality, terroir-driven wine demands vibrantly alive soils and a biodiverse environment

Vines are woodland plants that, left to their own devices, naturally creep and grow in environments filled with a multitude of plant, animal and microbiological species that interact with the vine. Modern, conventional vineyards, however, aren’t that. Most have stripped biodiversity back to the bare minimum creating monocultural deserts that not only damage the plant, and its environment, but also ultimately compromise on quality in the glass. What if there were another way? What if helping the vine to actually thrive was not only beneficial to the plant itself, but also to the resilience of the vineyard as a whole (particularly in the face of the extreme weather patterns of the future), and also to the production of quality grapes and ultimately quality wine? Join Isabelle Legeron MW, Hoss Hauksson and Arianna Occhipinti to find out how biodiversity, combined with low intervention in the cellar, translates directly into quality in the bottle. Organic and biodynamic natural wines to be tasted include: a wild vermouth from Switzerland; a Frappato from Sicily; and an Albariño from Galicia made from the fruit of 100-year-old, ungrafted vines

Hauksson Weine - Traditional Method “Hvítur Wermut” N.V.

Arianna Occhipinti - Terre Siciliane Igt Bombolieri “Vino di Contrada” 2022

Constantina Sotelo - Gazafello 2022