Examination of Witnesses (Questions 740
- 745)
WEDNESDAY 16 MAY 2007
MR PHILIP GREGAN
Q740 Viscount Brookeborough:
Although in Europe there is crisis distillation, do you distil
any wine for any reason?
Mr Gregan: No.
Q741 Lord Plumb:
I have a question on technology: screw top, plastic or cork? We
had representation in writing from the World Wildlife Fund, extremely
worried about pulling down forests because a lot of cork trees
were going and so on. Now these wicked New Zealanders are putting
screw tops on the bottles and causing trouble. Is that fair?
Mr Gregan: No, we do not think so. The cork
in New Zealand had 100% of the market five years ago. Screw caps
now have 90% of the market.
Q742 Lord Plumb:
In white and red?
Mr Gregan: Yes. Why? The industry got sick of
five or 10% of its product being affected by cork taint. The World
Wildlife Fund blames the wine industry for the problems in the
extremadura with the cork forest, but they are blaming the wrong
people. What they should be doing is blaming the cork producers
because they produced a totally inferior product. If there are
issues about protecting the environment, you do not protect that
environment by paying people to produce inferior corks; you do
something about providing funds that are going to help the environment.
You do not offload the problem onto the wine industry by saying,
"Here's a second rate product," and that is what they
were attempting to do for years. There are all sorts of issues
there and we have no stance on whether cork or screw cap or plastic
is the best way to go. Our stance is that you should seal the
wine with the product that is best going to preserve the quality,
and maybe sticking a rotten old piece of bark is not the right
way to do it. But they are going to lose market share around the
world because they were a monopoly provider and they have abused
the monopoly that they had in place. That is about as honest as
I can be about it.
Q743 Viscount Brookeborough:
Screw top obviously has an advantage if the wine will survive
it in that you can seal it up again?
Mr Gregan: Yes.
Viscount Brookeborough: Are there some
developments in creating wines that will survive being opened
and then re-opened in a few days time.
Chairman: I do not think that is necessary
actually!
Q744 Viscount Brookeborough:
I just wondered whether you could go back to the cupboard in three
or four days' time?
Mr Gregan: I have a little bit of advice. We
are masters of wine in New Zealand and the answer to that intractable
problem is to actually go and put the wine in the freezer.
Q745 Chairman:
Is there anything else you think you really ought to tell us but
we have not asked you?
Mr Gregan: The New Zealand wine industry is
very small; Europe is very big and there is so much more history
here. I think the best wines in the world are still produced here
in Europe. There is no doubt about that, but the worst wines in
the world are also produced here and there is no point perpetuating
their production. I think that what Europe has to do is to move
from basing its regulatory model on assisting producers to a regulatory
model which is based on facilitating a competitive market place.
That is a big change and it is going to take time. But, unless
they do, you are not going to solve the problems and you will
invite me back here in 10 years' time and I will be saying exactly
the same things to you because the market will move on but regulation
does not; it is fixed. Particularly with the way they approach
the law in Europe—unless it is specifically permitted, it
is specifically disallowed. The common law in the UK and New Zealand
is different. With the European model, if they cannot say you
can do it, you cannot. By definition that is fixing things and
that is not the right way to do it.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
That has been a very refreshing session. Thank you for coming.
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