The Torres wine dynasty is one of the most important pioneers in the Spanish wine industry. The family operation was founded in 1870, and currently operates more than 2000 hectares of vineyards, owning wine estates in Chile and California. In this interview, 67-year-old Miguel Torres, president of the group of companies, talks about Tempranillo, climate change, his bioreactor and why organic wine is not good for the soil.

Wein-Plus: Torres is one of the pioneers in Spanish wine. What were the most important factors that put Spanish wine in the position it is now in?

Miguel Torres: In Germany, for instance, Spain today holds a strong position. The market is dominated by France and Italy, but Spanish wines are selling very well. I think people have realised they are getting good quality at good prices. But what is interesting about Spain? We have so many different growing regions, so many different grape varieties. And we have strong branded wines. I do not believe that wine sales in supermarkets can be achieved purely on the basis of the appellation. Wines from the New World, too, are all branded wines. I believe the success of Spanish wines is attributable to a combination of quality, originality and brands. Spanish cuisine, too, with great names like Ferran Adriá has helped us a great deal.

Wein-Plus: Will you in your group of companies continue to focus on the brand, or will you be shifting the focus to single vineyard wines, as is the case with Mas La Plana or Grans Murales?

Miguel Torres: Torres segments its market positions. Our top wines, such as Mas La Plana, follow the terroir concept. The production and the composition of the grapes are the same each year. Then we have the second-level range, the reservas such as Gran Coronas or Atrium. We sell these to good restaurants, to specialist wine retailers and to delicatessen shops. In addition we have the supermarket brands such as Sangre de Torro, these retail at between six and eight Euros. We buy in grapes for these wines, so we do not have a terroir effect there. However, „Near Infrared“ spectroscopy provides us with pretty good methods of analysis, allowing us to determine the degree of ripeness, the colour, the tannin potential. That is a great help for us in ensuring consistent quality.

Miguel Torres (left) in discussion with Wein-Plus editor Uwe Kauss (right)

Wein-Plus: In recent years, Spain has been quite heavily affected by climate change. To what extent are your vineyards affected?

Miguel Torres: So far we have had hardly any problems with climate change – but things could become very difficult for us in future if we do nothing. One has to state clearly that the average temperature has increased by one degree in the past 50 years. Seen on its own, that is not altogether bad. We have less frost in spring, and fewer cold days in summer.

Wein-Plus: At conferences you stand up as a strong champion of climate protection in viticulture. Torres cultivates more than 2000 hectares of vineyards. What is your company doing in this regard?

Miguel Torres: We utilise alternative energies in the company. Eleven per cent of our electrical energy is produced by solar installations. And in the near future we will also be using wind energy to produce electricity. We are building new cellars underground to reduce the amount of cooling required. In our high-altitude vineyards we no longer use cover crops between the rows of vines, but sand instead. The Albedo effect thus ensures the soil is not heated up any further, the radiation is reflected back into space. In the past we had to pick our grapes quite early, as we were afraid they might rot in September. That was a problem. Today we see things differently. We want to harvest as late as possible, in order to utilise the effect of the first cold nights, which has an excellent effect on the quality of our wines. We have implemented various techniques, so this is working quite well. Secondly we are using the Lincoln canopy trellising system, that provides a horizontal roof of foliage over two rows of vines. In the past, these canopies were raised up quite high, today they are lower. This allows the grapes to ripen more slowly. In addition, we used to prune a lot of foliage in late July in order to allow the grapes to be exposed to a lot of wind and sunshine. Today we leave them with more shade. At higher altitudes, we use irrigation from large water reservoirs, and we now use helicopters for spraying, that produces significantly less CO² than the tractors do.

Wein-Plus: Since you mention spraying – does Torres also produce organic wines?

Miguel Torres: We are already producing organic wines in California and in Chile, and as of next year we will also be producing some in Spain. Nevertheless I want to say one thing very clearly: organic wines are not good for our planet! Consumers believe that organic wines are good against climate change. That is not the case! An example, in our wine-growing regions there is a great danger that mildew will infect the vines in July. Traditionally, and if you are working organically, you would have to fight this for weeks on end using sulphur. However, there are also synthetic substances, such as those produced by the German company BASF. They can remove the mildew in three weeks, saving huge amounts of water, as well as diesel used to run the tractors, which again increases CO² emissions.

Wein-Plus: Are there any other concrete measures you have undertaken to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions at Torres?

Miguel Torres: We have purchased 115 vehicles with hybrid engines for the group. I drive one of these myself, they are very good! In addition, the family is providing five million Euros over the next ten years to support reforestation of forest areas destroyed by fire. We are also starting a pilot plant of an algae reactor in our home town of Vilafranca del Penedès. In this plant, special algae are grown in the water, together with a fertilizing agent. This solution binds carbon dioxide released during burning; the algae grow, and turn into biomass. Now we want to try to produce organic diesel from this biomass. We hope this will work.

Terraced vineyards in the Priorato region

Wein-Plus: Have you already established an environmental balance of your wines, in order to be able to quantify the emissions?

Miguel Torres: We are currently having CO2 fingerprints of our wines drawn up, and our aim is to be carbon neutral in around five years time. We use around four megawatts of power in our cellars. A single wine energy installation produces about two megawatts for us. In addition, we are shifting our vineyards from the warm parts of the region, close to the ocean, to sites in Catalonia at higher altitudes. For instance, Riesling did very well for many years in the warm plains. Now we have planted the variety close to the Pyrenees, at an altitude of around 1000 metres. The climate there is cooler. We fortunately have these options in Catalonia, this simply is not possible in some other wine-growing regions. In an old wine-growing region there is a balance between the CO² that is bound by the vines and the dead vines that are uprooted and burned. The vines themselves absorb around 30 tons of carbon dioxide per day. But traditionally one has simply burned the old vines, thus again releasing large amounts of CO². Since last year we have transported the old uprooted vines to a power plant, were they are used to produce warm water. These are all small things that will help us to be carbon-neutral in our wine production in future.

Wein-Plus: How do you cope with the shortage of water?

Miguel Torres: We are recycling more and more of the water we require. We are currently recycling around 15 per cent of our needs, and we plan to increase that to more than 50 per cent in future. We try to collect rain water wherever this is possible. On the other hand we are looking to develop viticultural procedures that require less water. Our vines in Catalonia have very deep roots, and require very little water. That is different in California or Chile, the roots of the vines there are not very deep in the soil. In future, we will look to establish new vineyards primarily in regions with a shell limestone soil, that has excellent water retention properties. That will help us save 25 to 30 per cent of water.
 

Wein-Plus: What was the trigger that made you decide to concentrate so strongly on climate protection?

Miguel Torres: Al Gore’s movie “An uncomfortable Truth“ impressed me a great deal. When I had seen the movie I decided we must do something. The experts have forecast further increases in temperature – perhaps of the order of one degree, perhaps of five degrees. We can handle increases of another one or two degrees, for instance by improving our cultivation techniques, or by continuing to move our vineyards to higher altitudes. On the other hand, the climate in Chile has not changed at all in the past 50 years. There is no increase in temperature there. But paleoclimatology proves that global changes in temperature have usually started in the northern hemisphere. Even today the effects are greater in the north than in the south. I want to do whatever I can, in the interests of my children and grandchildren. I at least want to be able to say we did whatever we could.
 


Wein-Plus: Do you see yourself in a pioneering role in the field of climate change and viticulture?

Miguel Torres: Yes, I do see my role as being that of a pioneer. But I want to be very careful. Nobody in our business likes to be told what he should be doing. So I simply tell people about what I am doing. I have already held at least 20 lectures, and usually the wine producers have come to me afterwards and said, well, you know, we have already installed solar panels. That is great, these are people who have started doing something. There are many reports of wine producers in California, too, who are starting to think about the ecological balance of what they are doing. We happen to be the first in Spain. Viticulture is very sensitive to changes in climate. It is much easier to grow potatoes than vines.

Wein-Plus: Torres is experimenting intensively with indigenous varieties. Which of these have been found to be of interest for your company?

Miguel Torres: In 1982 we had the idea for the first time that we wanted to rediscover old Catalan varieties. We currently still have around 30 varieties in our incubator. Our experiments have been quite successful, and we intend to produce more wines from these old varieties in future. The microvinifications we produce each year always provide big surprises. In the process we have discovered two varieties: Garró and Samsó, for example, are now being used in our top wine Grans Muralles. Unfortunately it takes at least five years before you can expect a reasonable yield from a young vine. The experts and ampelographers at the universities in Montpellier and in Tarragona are assisting us. Neverthless, sometimes we simply cannot identify the varieties being planted, not even with DNA tests.

Wein-Plus: Torres uses hardly any Tempranillo in its top wines. Why?

Miguel Torres: Naturally, we had Tempranillo, Garnacha and Carinena in Penedès 30 years ago. But our knowhow at the time allowed us to achieve at best a medium wine quality. Today we are much better at this. We know how we must cultivate Tempranillo in order to achieve the best quality. At the time we were particularly keen to plant varieties such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Jean Leon had already planted Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1960’s! We then also added Merlot and the other international varieties, we wanted to make wines they way they did in Bordeaux. Later we came to the realisation: this could be a mistake! Today we certainly would not plant any more Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards. That time has passed. All our new wines are produced from traditional varieties.

Miguel Torres and his German wife Waldtraud

Wein-Plus: How old, on average, are the vines in your vineyards?

Miguel Torres: On average they are around 15 years old. We have some very old vines that are more than 60 years old, and we have also been planting less in recent years.

Wein-Plus: Why has Torres never been active in Rioja?

Miguel Torres: Following on our engagement in Ribera del Duero, we will be doing something in Rioja next year. We are currently building a cellar in Rioja Alavesa. We will be launching a Crianza wine next year. We produced it in 2006, and we have been maturing it in oak barrels. Rioja is the really big category in Spain. But I prefer not to talk about the reasons why we have not yet been very active in this region. There are also some weak points there, but I donÂ’t want to discuss them here, I have too many friends in Rioja. But I do hope we will be able to initiate a lot of new things there.

Wein-Plus: Right at the end, will you tell us what your personal favourite wine is?

Miguel Torres: We produce a wine in Chile that is totally unknown in Germany, It is called Manso de Velasco, is made from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and is sourced from one-hundred-year-old vines in a vineyard in the Valle de Curicó. It really is a pity that this wine has not found its way into the German market. It really is a wonderful and quite unique wine! If I had some here, I could drink two bottles of this wine with you on the spot.