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WWTV Winery Survey 2021

The following 69 questions are a fairly comprehensive survey of your winery’s operation. This survey should take less than 10 minutes. There are several questions with specific numbers or ranges. Don’t spend a ton of time researching the answer. Your best guess is fine. While it isn’t critical that you complete this survey immediately, I’d like to be able to have a good amount of results by August 25th. I tried to get this out before most of you in Europe went on holiday in August. So if you’re just getting back on the 23rd as many of your automated replies have indicated, please still take the survey as I’ll still be writing most of the scripts for these shows.

Many of these questions are a result of the growing trend of “healthy” or “healthier” wines I’ve been seeing over the past few years. In addition to the growing interest in organic, biodynamic, and natural wines.

I will be creating a series of episodes about how wine is made. The purpose is to inform the public of what is common across many levels of wines.  I approach this with the hypothesis that while there are plenty of “Industrial” or mass produced wines out there that may have a lot of adjustments, high levels of sulfites, well above 10 g/L of RS, additives, etc. in order to produce a consistent wine each year, I believe a significant number of quality wines are not highly manipulated.

The results of this survey will also help with episodes concerning farming practices in addition to winemaking techniques and winery operations. However, I intentionally did not ask about a wide range of questions as these are not necessarily relevant to my goal with this survey.

This survey is anonymous. I don’t have a definitive way to know who is answering the survey. The survey DOES record your IP address. So, technically, I could backtrack an IP address to an area if I was so inclined, but I’m not. I have too much in my life to bother with that.

However, if you’re super paranoid, then you can contact me by replying to my email or use the contact form on my website. I’ll walk you through a couple ways in order to anonymize yourself. But seriously, I really don’t care about going through your individual survey results.

The point here is I’m looking for national and international statistics and not trying to be sneaky in getting a winery to reveal some super secret information. I’ve built a reputation for over a decade of not being a member of the press that engages in deceptive tactics. And I’m not going to start doing that now.

Also note that every question has a “Prefer not to answer” option. This can also be used for questions that are not applicable to your operation. You can also choose to not answer any question including the Country question. The survey doesn’t require any question to be answered.

One last thing, I’ve sent this survey to many wineries I’ve visited in the past. I have also sent this survey to many, many wineries I’ve never visited, including those I may have reviewed. Plus I’ve asked via social media and others in the industry to help in recruiting wineries to participate.

For those wineries I’ve never visited, while I’m not using this survey for the purpose of scheduling a virtual or actual in person visit in the future, if you want to do a Skype interview concerning this survey or just a regular interview at some point in the future, I’d be happy to figure out a good date and time to do it.

I can accommodate your schedule regardless of your time zone. That is, I’ll do it at 3 AM my time in order for you to do it during normal business hours. Not that I expect a huge amount of requests, but realize that I’m sending this survey out hundreds, if not a couple thousand wineries via email and social media posts, so even with a 1% response rate, I could easily have a few dozen interview requests.

If I have visited you in the past and would like a follow up interview about this survey via Skype, definitely let me know.

Thank you in advance,

Mark

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1. Which country is your winery located in?
2. Which of the following farming practices do you use for estate owned or controlled vineyards (select all that apply):
3. Which of the following farming practices do you use for non-estate owned or controlled vineyards you source fruit from (select all that apply):
4. If you or your growers use intensive farming, are you planning on switching to sustainable or organic farming within the next 5 years?
5. If you or your growers practice organic farming (regardless if certified or not), are you planning on switching to certified biodynamic farming within the next 5 years?
6. Is your winery certified in any of the following (select all that apply)
7. What percentage of fruit do you purchase overall:
8. If you or your growers use Intensive farming, which of the following do you regularly use (select all that apply):
9. Do you or your growers use mechanical harvesting:
10. If you or your growers use mechanical harvesting, what percentage would you say is done that way:
11. Is irrigation allowed in your area:
12. If irrigation is allowed, do you or your growers irrigate:
13. What, if any, of the following challenges do you or your growers have during a normal year (select all that apply):
14. In the past 10 years, has your area faced drought?
15. Which of the following viticultural practices do you or your growers regularly follow (select all that apply):
16. In the past 20 years, how many vintages were negatively affected, in terms of fruit quality rather than yield, due to climate change, adverse weather, disease, etc.:
17. In the past 20 years, how many vintages had lower than normal yields, but fruit quality was normal or improved, due to climate change, adverse weather, disease, etc.:
18. Do you or your growers have what are traditionally considered old vines (at least 35 years):
19. If you or your growers do have old vines (at least 35 years), what percentage of those vineyards are old vine:
20. Depending on your laws, at what sugar level is most of your fruit picked at, excluding styles that require early or late harvest (select all that apply to create a range):