Climate Talks
Grape Varieties and Rootstocks
Dans le contexte dans changements climatiques, les cépages jouent un rôle important dans les solutions adaptation. Sachant que selon l’OIV, il existe 6000 cépages et que 13 d’entre eux couvrent le tiers des vignobles, est-il nécessaire de considérer les hybrides? Alors que certains ont la certitude que les hybrides vont jouer un rôle positif dans le futur, d’autres prônent l’exploration des cépages existants et de leurs clones ainsi que des recherches plus avancées sur les porte-greffe.
HOST
MICHELLE BOUFFARD. CANADA
TASTING CLIMATE CHANGE
Originally from Quebec, Michelle moved to Vancouver to complete her Bachelor of Music degree in classical trumpet where she unexpectedly ventured into wine while working in a fine dining restaurant. Determined to make her mark in the wine industry, she graduated with the highest honours from the International Sommelier Guild in 2003 and completed the Diploma from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) in 2005. Michelle was the co-owner of House Wine from 2003 to 2015, a highly regarded company based in Vancouver that specialized in cellar management and educational events. She also founded and was also the president of British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers. Michelle now lives and teaches WSET courses in Montreal and gives numerous training sessions including for wine associations such as Inter Rhône, Wines of Portugal and Wine Australia. She works closely with the nursery Lilian Bérillon located in the Rhone Valley acting as a wine educator. Michelle first book “Dis-moi qui tu es, je te dirai quoi boire” was published by Cardinal Editions in 2017, and has contributed to the recipe book “Le Secret des Vietnamiennes” by Kim Thùy. For the past seven years, she has been the sommelier on the popular Quebec cooking show Curieux Bégin. She also writes for Quench, Véro, Extra Brut and Meininger’s Wine Business International magazines and can be heard regularly on CBC radio. In 2017, Michelle founded Tasting Climate Change, an international symposium to explore the challenges and solutions in the wine industry. In 2018, Urbania Magazine recognized her work by selecting her as one of 50 extraordinary Quebecers. In continuation with her work on climate change, she co-wrote a book called “Quel vin pour demain” which was published by Dunod in September 2021. The book talks about the solutions available for the wine industry to adapt and mitigate climate change. Michelle is often invited to sit on various panels and judges at numerous wine competitions in Canada and abroad. Ever the eternal perfectionist, she is continuing her studies at the prestigious Institute of Masters of Wine.
GUEST
MICHAEL MARLER. CANADA
DOMAINE LES PERVENCHES
Michael Marler knew he wanted to make wine his profession in 1995, during an exchange to the South of France. He studied agriculture at McGill University and is now a pioneer in Chardonnay production and biodynamic viticulture in Québec.
Michael and his wife, Véronique Hupin, established Domaine Les Pervenches in Farnham, Québec, in 2000, making organic wines that express the character of the land. Their methods are rooted in tradition and innovation. Supported by enthusiastic sommeliers, the artisans of Les Pervenches like to push the limits.
Each year, they develop their know-how and wines through reading, travelling, meeting other winegrowers, and numerous tastings!
GUEST
Lilian Bérillon. FRANCE
PÉPINIÈRE BÉRILLON
Lilian was immersed in the Viticulture Nursery from his earliest years. Both his grandparents and parents provided plants to winemakers with a view to creating tomorrow’s vineyards.
Lilian is a wine lover: he naturally evolved towards technical training in viticulture and oenology. In the meantime, he began to realize the full extent of the nurseryman’s role in providing high quality raw material to winemakers.
In 1998, he established his activity using an existing model: the hyperproduction of plants. In 1999, already known for speaking is mind, Lilian Bérillon became the president of the Vaucluse wood and vine plant producer’s union, the Vaucluse being the primary plant producing region in France.
Lilian began to realize that there was a serious sanitary problem in the vineyards. Wood and vine diseases started to appear. One started to evoke the fact that some vineyards were withering away for no apparent reason. Lilian Bérillon questions a large number of practices applied by the entire industry and also those used by some winemakers. He attempted to convey his vision of using qualitative plant material to an industry who he felt were largely responsible for this situation.
In 2003, having become tired of the industry’s immobility, Lilian resigned as National Vice President of the union. That was it, he decided to pursue his convictions by creating a new model: a model that respected the plant material being delivered to winemakers who were eager to produce wines that were an expression of their terroirs and have to face climate change.
Lilian knows that one of the essential parameters to establish sustainable vineyards is high quality plant material. Since 2007, his model is therefore uncompromising: massal selections rich in diversity and in an irreproachable sanitary state, rootstocks from trellised mother-vines for a better quality of wood, a whip and tongue graft to better respect the sap flow, a nursery committed to an environmental approach, a drastic sorting to keep only the most beautiful plants and the hot water treatment applied to the whole production to finish eliminating any sanitary risk.
In 2019, a new page in the history of the nursery is written! By acquiring a property of 85 ha, Lilian Bérillon will be able to reach the total autonomy he was looking for to finalize his production model. The site of La Manufacture now allows him to have the necessary land to accommodate about 15ha of annual nursery and to establish the mother vineyards necessary for the sought-after autonomy.
GUEST
YIANNIS PARASKEVOPOULOS / GREECE
GAIA WINES
Mr. Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, born in Athens, Greece in 1959, studied agronomy at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece. He did his graduate studies in oenology at the University of Bordeaux in France, from which he graduated in 1988 with the title of Doctor (PhD) in Viticulture and Oenology.
Since 1994, Dr. Paraskevopoulos has taught in the Department of Wine Sciences, Vine and Beverage Sciences at the University of West Attica, where he held a position as Professor of Oenology and Director of the Department from 2016 to 2020. Alongside his responsibilities teaching, Dr. Paraskevopoulos has participated in several research programs related to wine production.
In 2011, together with Mrs. Majda Anderson, they founded “SANTORINI BREWING COMPANY S.A.”, which currently owns a micro-brewery in Santorini.
In 1994, together with Mr. Leon Karatsalo, they founded “GAIA wines S.A.”, which currently owns two vineyards (in Santorini and Nemea) and 20 hectares of vineyards.
From 1989 to 1994 he worked at “Y. Boutari & Son wine company” as winemaker at their vineyards in Santorini and Nemea.
