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Wine Vision Live News Blog: Paul Henry sets out key challenges for industry

Published:  18 November, 2013

3.15pm:The wine industry can learn a great deal from how the restaurant and food sector has found ways to cut through to the masses by connecting with consumers by promoting artisan and authentic food styles and restaurant trends, according to wine consultant, Paul Henry, chair of Wine Vision, London's biggest ever wine conference which opened this afternoon.

3.15pm: The wine industry can learn a great deal from how the restaurant and food sector has found ways to cut through to the masses by connecting with consumers by promoting artisan and authentic food styles and restaurant trends, according to wine consultant, Paul Henry, chair of Wine Vision, London's biggest ever wine conference which opened this afternoon.

Henry, who runs the Australian wine consultancy, Wine Hero, kicked off the three day event at London's London Museum by setting out what he sees as the key challenges facing the global wine industry that need to be addressed at Wine Vision.

He said the agenda for Wine Vision showed the industry is good at knowing what issues and what questions it needs to ask. The big problem it faces is not knowing what the answers to those questions are.

He said the way in which the restaurant sector has transformed the way we eat and what styles of food we want to buy over the last two to three years was a big lesson for the wine trade. He urged the sector to look at how restaurateurs and food companies have been able to influence mass consumer opinion way. In some ways, he argued, food has become as radical, as inspiring as disruptive and as political as music has been.

He spoke of the 3.0 revolution taking place with food, particularly Asian food which is on course to replace Meditteranean food as the dominant food culture around the world, including Europe.

He questioned how far the global wine industry can continue to use agricultural practices that are "exhausting" the land and said it was vital the industry took the issue of climate change seriously.

Energy and the search for new energy sources to help in global winemaking was another critical issue and he predicted a time when wine companies and producers would become energy players themselves.

He also looked at how far public companies can operate in wine where the economics of wine investment and mechanics of return are so difficult. He wondered whether the best wine businesses were family companies with a longer term view.

Ultimately he said the industry has to look at sustainability. Not just in terms of the environment, but in making a basic profit. Everything, he argued, needs to revolve around making a profit.

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