The fifteenth annual Worldwide Cool Local weather Chardonnay Celebration (i4C+), a four-day occasion celebrating the wines of the host web site, Ontario, in addition to these from worldwide areas, kicked off on 17 July 2025.
A consumer-focused agenda of wine tastings, meals pairings and gala dinners, hosted by regional Chardonnay producers, included a one-day College of Cool that includes panels and seminars on the Thursday earlier than the weekend’s festivities.
This yr I used to be honoured to be invited to ship the occasion’s keynote handle and reasonable the primary panel.
The three panels mentioned matters that ranged from the ageability of native Ontario-grown Chardonnay, the significance of Chardonnay in glowing wines, and the way Chardonnay appeals to trendy customers.
My keynote, which follows, was a meditation on the place that cool local weather wines and wine areas will absorb the way forward for the wine trade.
Because the world evolves, I mentioned the position that each a altering local weather and demographic shifts play in positioning cool local weather wines, in addition to the connections to pure wines and the inevitable evolution that’s a lot wanted, but nonetheless to return, within the wine ecosystem, notably within the ‘New World’.
Shiraz Mottiar in his eponymous winery on the Niagara Bench. Credit score: Clive Pursehouse
The notion of cool
Framing the dialog, we consider ‘cool’ and people on the perimeter. We consider Miles Davis, certainly, we consider Joel Strummer, we consider Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The Fonz didn’t put on letterman jackets; he wore leather-based.
Cool emerges someplace from the darkish corners and shines its brilliance on these within the mainstream. It doesn’t fairly slot in, and admittedly, it doesn’t need to.
Cool although, regardless of its lingering on the sting, is aspirational. I can’t keep in mind what I wished to be once I grew up, however I do know I wished to be cool.
A difficult local weather
Local weather isn’t just making cooler areas out there to wine manufacturing, although it actually is. Witness the rise of English wine, and the Puget Sound area of Washington, which is now seeing dependable success ripening Pinot Noir.
Maybe extra notably for this dialog, on the rise of ‘cool’. The very fact is that producing balanced wines has change into more difficult for areas which have a protracted historical past of doing so.
Selecting dates are being pushed earlier and earlier, placing the phenolic ripeness of explicit varieties into query.
Warmth spikes throughout veraison, notably in 2022, spelled catastrophe for some producers in Napa, the place in just a few circumstances wines weren’t made, and drove alcohol ranges, even on the Sonoma Coast, up for Pinot Noir specifically.
In components of California and Washington state, we see perennial overripeness. Wines from Washington’s Columbia Valley had been 12 and 13% alcohol within the nascent days of the area. In Paso Robles, Tablas Creek makes wines within the 13% vary. But, many wines from these heat areas push or eclipse 15% abv classic after classic.
Along with rising temperatures, wildfires and drought are making wine-growing a problem in locations the place it as soon as felt like clean crusing only a decade in the past.
There’s a mitigated affect for cool local weather areas, however that doesn’t imply immunity. Erratic frosts and hail, in addition to illness strain, proceed to pose challenges for wine-growers on the planet’s cool spots.
Cool is the longer term on the i4C+ occasion in Ontario’s Niagara area.
The youngsters are alright
The rise of latest wine drinkers presents a chance to re-centre cool local weather wines.
Palates of youthful generations and extra various demographics of wine drinkers are not looking for 14.6% Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. They’re not impressed by the massive, ripe, spherical wines of 15% abv with loads of perfumed oak. They’re searching for an edginess, taut fruit, crisp minerality and hovering acids.
Right here I’ll suggest one thing controversial.
There’s a great alternative for cool local weather producers to enchantment to maturing wine drinkers who’re coming over to superb wine, from their pure wine beginnings. Younger persons are discovering the pure class appeals to them not simply due to the buzzy packaging and farming ethos, however there may be additionally one thing undeniably in regards to the model of wines.
Say what you’ll about pure wine, it’s a crucial class – one of many few areas exhibiting progress within the wine trade, an actual vibrant spot.
If you happen to drink pure wine, you see the markers.
Brightness of fruit, freshness, acidity – generally, it’s even unstable, however let’s be trustworthy. You’re much more prone to have somebody graduate from pure wine to chill local weather wines than somebody who will get into wine ingesting Gnarly Head Zin. Overtly oaky and velveteen within the palate, wines don’t translate to nuances of minerality and texture, and particularly vibrant acidity, the best way that many naturally made wines do.
After I’ve encountered superb eating programmes with a pure wine programme, their so-called ‘typical wines’ are typically from locations like Pfalz, Alsace, Savoie, Burgundy and Oregon. There’s a motive for this.
Cool local weather wine areas ought to embrace and invite their pure winemaking sisters and brothers to the dialog. There’s a synergy there.
As Pete Townshend sang, the children are, actually, alright.
Mason Winery on the Niagara Bench is farmed by Kelly Mason, one of many area’s high skills. Credit score: Clive Pursehouse
The conservative nature of wine
In a time wrought with change, wine’s largest Achilles’ heel is probably not the ‘neo-prohibitionist’ motion or the tendency for youthful wine drinkers to drink much less; it could be its conservative strategy.
Wine is ensconced in previous châteaux and Michelin-starred superb eating; it has cultivated an air of exclusivity that has made it each engaging and unapproachable.
The wine world doesn’t adapt properly to vary.
Transferring away from concentrated ripe wines from the established areas and producers requires the elevation of latest palates. It requires a recognition that right this moment’s younger and aspiring wine drinkers aren’t searching for the identical factor.
It’s not simply on the media aspect.
Winemakers right this moment are cranking out loads of wines that high 15% alcohol; ‘letting it dangle’ and ‘watering again’ are nonetheless de rigueur manufacturing strategies in lots of components of the winemaking world. It leads to wines with cooked fruit flavours, opulent focus and viscosity. Winemakers have been capable of dial in exactly what they consider customers or critics need, including acid in an try and counter the ripeness overload they pursued within the winery.
The wine trade wants new critics, new voices.
Wine areas, notably these making cool local weather wines, ought to search out, have a good time and platform up-and-coming writers and critics who recognise these wines for what they’re.
Institution critics will not be going to vary their tune in a single day. The trade, as we now observe it, continues to be in restoration from the so-called Parkerisation of wine – extraction, oak and ripeness. Typically monosyllabic wines. We’re nonetheless recovering from what has been a 40-year pattern.
It’s something however ‘cool’.
In closing…
The information are {that a} altering world, together with shifting demographics and ingesting habits, have the wine trade on its heels.
Because the trade struggles to get its footing, my hope is that wine could discover itself returning to its roots. It has all the time been within the ‘Previous World’, a factor, albeit a superb factor, one which makes meals and time properly spent with buddies and family members that significantly better.
Wine could make life higher.
The loneliness epidemic is actual, and wine could also be one of many cures. It’s not single-serving; it’s designed for sharing and in the event you’re sharing it with meals, all the higher.
The rise of Parker noticed the US trade, specifically, evolve in order that for a lot of, the first goal grew to become attaining Parker rating. I don’t blame him for this; it’s simply what occurred.
Trophies and works of human design will not be the way forward for wine; as a substitute, they are going to be wines that convey pleasure to conversations, convivial moments with buddies, and meals with family members.
As my London colleagues would possibly say, ‘Hold cool and keep it up’.
The way forward for wine is yours.
