The Business of Wine and Food – By Patrick Skinner
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Last Friday (29th June) saw the last of four public tastings of the gold and silver medal winners in the 2007 Cyprus Wine Competition organised by the Vine Products Council. It was held at the Coral Beach Hotel & Resort, Paphos. By all accounts it was the most successful of the four; more than 400 people attending during the evening. The foreign community of the Paphos district was much in evidence, but many Cypriots also came, saw and tasted.
Nearly all the award-winning wineries were showing their wares. One of those missing, Costas Tsiakkas, had good reason to be absent. As my wife and I checked in at the Coral Beach for the tasting and a weekend of R and R, the receptionist told us that Costas had left a few minutes before, after receiving a telephone call that the wooded area around his family winery in Pelendri was fiercely on fire, and that it seemed the winery was doomed.
On Saturday morning I managed to reach Marina, Costas’s wife who told me of the small miracle which had saved their buildings and equipment. “We recently planted vineyards in some cleared land between us and the forestâ€, she told me, “The vines are very young and small, and did not catch fire. So the fire couldn’t cross to the wineryâ€.
Of the wines on show, I have to marvel at the progress of Cyprus wines and winemakers, which I have frequently commented upon. This progress also impressed a notable visitor at the tasting, Angela Muir, who is a UK Master of Wine, and who was really the first non-resident writer to produce a thorough and objective review of Cyprus wines in “The Book of Cyprus Wineâ€, (the Intercollege Press, 2003). She is a regular visitor now to this country, where, among her activities she is a consultant to Zambartas winery.
The happiest winemaker in Cyprus, I think, is the effervescent Ioanna Ioannides, of the Ayia Mavri winery, Koilani. Many years of hard work, and the production of a wide range of dry, medium and sweet wines, have been crowned by awards – mostly for the dessert wine Moschatel. It is a superb wine, and worth the £10.00 the winery asks for it (why should good Cyprus wines have to be cheap?) – I rate it world class. Sweetness, yes, but layers of flavour with a satisfying dryness at the finish.
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— The Location
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The Coral Beach is a lovely property: spacious and comfortable, with every facility. Its considerable business/functions amenities make it an ideal location for wine and food functions. Early in the evening, the relatively small number of people present in a large room emphasised the space, but at the peak of the evening, around 9.00 pm, it came into its own.
Acting General Manager George Kassianos has a considerable Food and Beverage experience behind him and I can see him enhancing food and wine at the Coral Beach, not the least with special events. He is founding father of a successful wine club (which ensured the swelling of numbers for this tasting) as well as writing knowledgeably on wine in the Cyprus Sunday Mail’s SEVEN Magazine. He has interesting plans for the Coral Beach, of which more another time.
The organisation of the event by the Vine Products Council is praise-worthy, and I trust it is one of many it will come up with in the future. The Council’s Director Yiannakis Georgiades has commented upon “marketing problemsâ€, saying they are global. There is truth in this, but as a former marketing consultant, I have long noted that marketing, in general, in Cyprus is of a very low standard, both nationally and internationally. I think this is due to the national psyche. In the wine industry, wine marketing was cramped for many years by the dominance of KEO, LOEL, SODAP and ETKO, all of whom in my view largely ignored market trends and went their own sweet way as grape processors until too late. But now, with the emergence of many good wineries the VPC has a unique opportunity to encourage and aid good marketing, much of which is common sense. In this, first and foremost, they must seek unity among ALL in the industry. And, they must heal a potentially damaging schism that is emerging – the two production factions: Oenologists and Winemakers.
Finally, the VPC must share its skills and its programmes with everybody. One of the medal winners told me at the tasting that he was embarrassed at being there, because he felt that good winemakers who had not won gold or silver were being left out.
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