Miguel Torres: “I would love to be able to create a new wine category: organic-sustainable wines”

One of the most important publications in the Austrian wine sector interviews the chairman of Grupo Torres

07/16/2012

In the article Miguel Torres takes a look at a wide range of his projects aimed at environmental protection

In one of its latest issues, bimonthly magazine, Wein.pur, one of the most prestigious trade magazines in the Austrian wine sector, has published an extensive interview with Grupo Torres’ Chairman, Miguel Torres, in which the executive expressed his deep concern regarding the prevention of climate change. As a result, and as an alternative to the dichotomy of, on the one hand, organic and on the other, environmentally friendly viticulture, the executive proposed a third possibility: “I would love to be able to create a new wine category for the market: organic-sustainable wines; which for me would mean an organic wine which has been made using environmentally friendly practices”.

In order to make it happen, Torres is a strong advocate of the Wineries for Climate Protection initiative which has the support of more than a hundred Spanish bodegas, the UN and the Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (OIV). “We want to make it possible for a study to be carried out on the practices used to protect the environment in the winemaking business and train winemakers so that they can contribute to the cause. Right now there are around 150 wineries involved”.

Miguel Torres is optimistic about the impact of the initiative on the public arena, especially in the case of wholesalers. “Tesco in the US, the large companies in Canada, the Rewe Group in Germany and the state monopolies in the Scandinavian countries have all expressed their interest”, he explained while predicting that over the next few years owing to demand from wholesalers in all probability around five hundred wineries will be producing wine certified as environmentally friendly.

Furthermore, his concern for the environment has led him to set himself a series of new objectives. For example, in 2012 he plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 per cent more than the figures from 2008 and, although Torres currently recycles 15 per cent of its water, having built special tanks to collect rain water and excess water from the vineyards which is drained off via channels to the tanks and reused, it still expects to increase the figure to 40 per cent this year.

At the end of the interview Miguel Torres announced his retirement plans; although he will continue as Grupo Torres’ chairman, he aims to leave the running of the business in the hands of his children. “Although I will be retiring, environmental protection will still occupy all of my time”, he stated.