The OIV hosted representatives from the “World Wine Women” project. This is a women-led project touring the world's vineyards, in order to learn more about the environment and understand the role of women in this traditionally male sector.

Alexandra Dubar, Alice Bergeras, Atalante Ramé and Louise Douvry departed on their journey with the idea of working alongside winegrowers in vineyards and wineries to gain real, day-to-day experience of local working methods. In the order visited, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, China and the United States were the countries on the route.

While their aim was to examine the image, role and place of women in the vitivinicultural world, these Economy and Marketing students also sought to discover and analyse the different facets of new challenges for the sector. This is within a context of evolving supply with the emergence of new producer countries, changing patterns of consumption and where the impact of climate change on production methods has never been so great.

This project reflects the OIV’s desire to promote the role of women in the wine world. “I am proud to be the spokesperson of the OIV in promoting the presence of women in this sector,” Regina Vanderlinde, the Organisation's President, reiterated recently during the Wishes for 2019 ceremony at the OIV headquarters.

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The Ambassador was accompanied by ProChile’s Trade Commissioner for France, Ignacio Morandé, and by ProChile Adviser Camille Péron.

Participants at the meeting expressed their satisfaction at the quality of the relations established with Chile, a member of the OIV since 1952 and the first country from the southern hemisphere to join the Organisation.

During the meeting, the Ambassador highlighted the importance of his country’s wine industry, with its deep cultural roots and the positive image enjoyed by Chilean wine. With a production of 12.9 million hectolitres in 2018, Chile ranked seventh place worldwide. The Ambassador also stressed the importance of table grape production in Chile, which historically has been the world’s main exporter of table grapes.

H.E. Juan Salazar Sparks and ProChile drew attention to the significant advances driven by Chile’s international wine trade, in quality and price, as well as efforts in recent years to use native Chilean grape varieties.

Strengthening and disseminating Chile’s technical expertise for the benefit of other Member States

In this regard, participants also spoke of promoting relations with the Organisation, and of strengthening and disseminating Chile’s technical expertise for the benefit of other Member States, through the increased participation of Chilean experts in the OIV’s different commissions, sub-commissions and expert groups.

Pau Roca welcomed Chile’s role in organising the OIV’s 43rd World Congress of Vine and Wine, set to be held in Chile from 22 to 27 November 2020. The Congress will be an opportunity to showcase the successes of the vitivinicultural sector in Chile, which last hosted an OIV Congress in 1986.

The OIV hosted 21 students from Hochschule Geisenheim University. An enriching meeting, where students' questions focused on how the OIV operates and what are the new Director General's objectives for his 5-year-term.

In this sense, Pau Roca, has slightly unveiled what the future OIV strategic plan for 2020-2024 will be about, mentioning three main axes: sustainability, digitalisation and the improvement of services proposed by the OIV to its member States. Actually, digitalisation is at the centre of the new Director General’s concerns who seeks to anticipate the changes and repercussions of technologies such as block chain in the wine sector.

The promotion of a moderate wine consumption and its authenticity as a product were other aspects emphasized by Pau Roca. "In an ecosystem biodiversity must be preserved. The same goes for the multitude of small wineries in the sector. The promotion of this diversity doesn’t come only with marketing or branding. We need to focus on the cultural way of understanding wine consumption”.

Climate Change – a major concern

Nowadays, Climate Change is a major concern and was obviously an issue addressed during the meeting. Pau Roca recalled that the plantation of vines has a human oriented approach: “varieties were created by man”. Therefore, “the wine sector is very sensitive to climate change and has never been in denial regarding this problem”. In relation to this subject, the Director General will participate in the opening ceremony of the “Climate Change Leadership - Solutions for the Wine Industry”, to be held in Portugal, on 6th March 2019, where he will deepen this question. This event, under the OIV’s high patronage will provide a forum where the industry can discuss and share personal experiences and practical short and long-term solutions to mitigate the impacts of a changing climate.

The Director General of the OIV, Pau Roca, took part of the official opening ceremony where he transmitted a note of optimism: “we should look at Climate Change as an opportunity”. And why should it be an opportunity? “It will generate a new model of economy based not on growth but on sustainability. Sustainability is the new value of global economy”, stated.

“Wine is well placed to adapt to Climate Change”

In Pau Roca’s opinion “wine is well placed to adapt” and explained: “better than other sector, the wine industry has a big capacity of adaptation and has already shown its performance and resilience”.

In a sector based on a multiplicity of actors, “when wine leaders work on something it quickly expands to producers, suppliers, and small businesses”. Therefore, the OIV Director General applauded the Climate Change Leadership Conference for “being an example to transmit to the wine industry”.

It is urgent to reduce greenhouse gases

Nevertheless, “we must underline the importance of mitigation. It is necessary to create political measures in view to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases”, defended Pau Roca.

Several solutions praised by the different speakers were in this direction as well. It can be mentioned the implementation of renewable energy resources, use and reuse of rainwater, reduction of water consumption in irrigation, adoption of lighter packaging and bottles, reduction of fossil fuels. All have a common objective: reducing the emission of greenhouse gases produced by the wine industry.

The speakers were peremptory in stating that it is only collectively that efforts can have optimal results in the future, underlining that knowledge sharing and investment in research and innovation are fundamental in this evolutionary process.

More information:
Climate Change Leadership 2019 website

The President of the OIV, Regina Vanderlinde, and the Scientific Coordinator of the OIV, Jean-Claude Ruf, took part in the 31st session of the Codex Committee on General Principles (CCGP) held on 11-15 March 2019 in Bordeaux, France.

During discussions on emerging and future issues, the President highlighted that several topics under discussion within the CCGP were also being dealt with within the OIV, which illustrated the need to pursue and increase collaboration between the two organisations.

Regina Vanderlinde specified that the OIV was participating in several projects that were also being discussed within the Codex, namely:

• consideration of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,
• the issue of food fraud, and the integrity and authenticity of food products,
• consumer information, through the work of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL),
• observation of the application of standards,
• mechanisms with the aim of improving coordination with other international organisations.

The President of the OIV concluded by stating that it was necessary to pursue cooperation and coordination in relation to activities that present a common interest for the OIV and the Codex, and that it would be important for the Codex to draw upon the expertise of the OIV as a reference organisation for vitivinicultural products.

Speech by Regina Vanderlinde (in French with English subtitles)