Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/869387
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2017 15 Interview Malta's wine industry faces unprecedented demand, but its indigenous grape varieties are also under severe threat from drought and other factors. Marsovin CEO JEREMY CASSAR argues that the time to save our local vines is now... the vine... positive. I've had a lot of people contacting me, asking me ques- tions. There is clearly an interest. And this is a sign that, as I was saying before: Maltese people are giving these wines a chance. They want to continue drinking them. And foreigners, too, like what's being produced locally. Why? Because we are producing wines to a DOK-IGT standard: it's an EU certification, a proto- col which has been approved by Brussels... it is the backbone for offering a standard. We led this process, together with the farm- ers and other wineries, around 10 years ago. I think that all Maltese wine consumers really want is to see that there is a quality prod- uct; and the wineries are showing how credible they can be." Another issue highlighted in pre- vious reports is the lack of people willing to work on the production side of the equation. Agriculture is an ageing sector; could it also sim- ply be unattractive to young work- ers? Not profitable enough? And are there other ways to service this demand... one hears, for instance, of agri-tourism industries based on grape-picking in famous wine regions such as Bordeaux... "I would say it is profitable for the farmer... though it depends how much land they have. The price of grapes is going up every single year. This year, the price went up by 6.7%: and that is quite a lot. I think there was that feel- ing around five years ago. In fact I'd say there definitely was. But things have turned around in the last three years, with demand and prices going up. It's also a case that not everyone who works as a farmer does it for the same rea- son. There are those who do it be- cause it is their passion: they want to do it. For others, the money as- pect may be more important. "But to answer your question, I would say that, yes, it is viable to produce vines... the difficult part is that it is hard work. You men- tioned grape-picking in Bordeaux, for instance. I've done it. It's very tiring... but in Bordeaux, it's not 40 degrees in the summer. I've done it in 40 degrees, and it's ex- hausting... and I was very fit at the time. All the same, thankfully we still find foreigners living in Malta who are willing to do it. But even that is becoming a bit difficult..." Labour shortages can, however, be addressed by the right ap- proach. "I think if we continue to invest in this sector... I think there are so many beautiful aspects to it that make such a huge difference, even to the environment. It is a sustainable method of protecting the environment. There are many unused fields; and the vine, in it- self, does not utilise as much water as other fruits and vegetables. It uses much less, because you gen- erally only irrigate when you need to 'adjust'..." All the same, water is needed: and there is now talk of a possible national water crisis. At present, borehole extraction for agricul- tural purposes is carried out for free... which some argue places a strain on the water table. Doesn't this create a dilemma? "If you charge the farming sec- tor for water, you will destroy it. But there are solutions. There is second-grade water which is un- fit for human consumption: if the network of this second-grade water is made more available to farmers across the island, the issue can be mitigated. It doesn't stop there: history also shows that if the government invests in a water efficiency system, the payback is great. There are experts in the field who can obviously talk about this much more than I. But there are certainly things that can be done. We have to try and find solutions. Because doing nothing is not go- ing to improve the situation. We have to do something; we don't have a choice."