1) – What is your story ?
My name is Marko Kovac. For the last nine years, together with my small team, I’ve been organising and running Karakterre – organic, biodynamic and natural wine festival now based in Vienna, Austria. I believe that throughout this period we’ve become one of the region’s and Europe’s leading wine salons. One can really find the wine avant-garde represented at our salon (kudos to Vale da Capucha for supporting us throughout the years!) Based on this focused profile of growers we gather, we have good folks, professionals and wine lovers alike, coming from literally all corners of the world!
Then, I work with Gaggan group of restaurants in Bangkok, Thailand, on importing and spreading the word on good wines in that part of the world. Gaggan Anand is one of the globally leading restaurants, so I believe we work on a unique platform in that part of the world. I think we, and a handful of people in Singapore and Hong Kong, are the ones strongest pushing for organic, biodynamic and natural wines in Southeast Asia. We’re actually a rare fine dining restaurant with an all organic, biodynamic and natural wine list in the world overall.
There are other projects that I also do. But my year evolves around these two biggest ones. Otherwise, I am Croatian by origin.
I was a journalist back in the day. I used to work for the BBC and one of my colleague-friends, Tin Radovani, was living in London (he still does!). He taught me much about wine, as he did about restaurants in Paris and London. He opened my first French natural wine for me, Puzelat-Bonhomme’s Cot. How amazingly delicious that was! This was now 20 years ago. I was based in Croatia and would travel the region for the weekends, making plans each Monday where to go Friday. The winegrowing regions of Collio and Carso in Italy, as well as Slovenia and Austria as such, were really close to my place. So I visited a lot of winegrowers quite often, as well as restaurants. I got to drink wines from growers like Princic, Vodopivec and Radikon quite often. Another mentor in my beginnings was Valter Kramar of Hisa Franko in Slovenia. Man, he opened some mean bottles for me! So I kept drinking and collecting as a hobbyist. We didn’t call them natural wines back in the day, we just. called them- wines! Tin, one other friend Robert and I then started an anonymous food blog in Croatia back in the mid-2000s where we would write about our experience, review stuff and point to the best we found on our travels. We were the first such thing in the region! Little anyone knew who we were and there we were talking about some of the world’s leading food and wine. Romantic times without Instagram or Facebook or even a proper phone camera!
At some point, I decided to make a living out of my hobby. Never looked back, really! I started working professionally with wine a little over 10 years ago, importing organic, biodynamic and natural wines into Croatia and organising Karakterre. It was also around the time when I ran into a person, a winegrower who is now a huge influence on the way I see things – Sepp Muster in Styria, Austria. I discovered him by chance. One day I took this small Austrian guide and Muster’s description in there was by far the « weirdest ». I went to meet Sepp. There was no turning back, a big turning point in my career. I was shocked to learn that he was selling only to Japan. No one wanted to buy his wines back then! Today he’s one of the biggest growers in the natural wine scene. Now I joke that at that point Croatia was his second market, after Japan, as we used to buy for ourselves and our friends. Me and another friend, Niko, used to carry Sepp’s wines across Europe. People thought we were crazy: two Croatians, showing Austrian Sauvignon – in Paris. WTF! The whole thing evolved since then and here we are today.
2) – One element that pushes you within, through your passion as a wine athlete?
What pushes me within is the symbol of organic, biodynamic and natural wine as a very concrete connection to likeminded people and – all of us together – to nature. It is the spirit that these wines have as a result of their connection to a sense of a place. This spirit is able to carry your spaces in your mind you would never imagine. Imagine being 26 in 2004 and drinking sulphur-free wines of Paolo Vodopivec. No social media. That can only be an alternate reality. And obviously a strong connection to that Carso soil and Paolo’s « philosophy », as well!
3) – What does Viticulture represent for you?
Viticulture for me represents two things. First, care for nature. And, secondly, a focus on expressing a certain sense of a place, and a certain time of a place, in a bottle of wine (call it terroir?). Non-organic viticulture is not a culture for me. It is vitigenocide. One can not make wines of terroir from non-organic vineyards. It’s just impossible.
4) – What Classification would you give to theses 4 elements?
1/ Viticulture
2/ Winemaking
3/ Enology
4/ Commercial Approach
5) – Sulphur, Is it a real question on its own or just a part of the process?
Sulphur is very much a real question. It definitely alters the taste of wine. The best winegrower will know if his terroir is best expressed by adding nothing or adding little. I do not believe in adding a lot of sulphur. Some winegrowers say they need to add a lot of sulphur so their wines can age. I believe this to be nonsense and have drunk delicious aged wines with no sulphur that can prove this theory wrong. I am not a zero sulphur dogmatist. Some wines would definitely be better with a touch of sulphur. But some of the best wines I’ve had have been those untouched by sulphur. It all comes down to the skills of the winegrower in the end. Balance is king, as in life in general.
6) – What have you tasted or heard of, as being exciting lately about Portuguese wines?
The organic, biodynamic and natural wine movement seems to be developing in Portugal, too. There are individuals pushing for a more « cleaner » wine future. However, it seems to be slower than in other parts of Europe, I must say. If you look at a region like Central and Eastern Europe – which is having an organic boom, basically – I have to say that it seems Portugal is a bit slower to adopt and adapt.
Or maybe I just don’t see it around enough? Should the Portuguese winegrowers be going to organic, biodynamic and natural events more- showing their wines or, at least, seeing what the rest of the world has to offer, so to be able to see the full potential? I mean, the restaurant scene in Lisbon has been having a renaissance in the last five years or so. It’s amazing, right? It would be great if that same renaissance would be followed by a more sustainable wine presence, too. That’s what I’d like to discover – more Portuguese winegrowers that care for the environment and the customer to an extent of actually producing wines with less intervention. The market is there and we can’t deny that fact. Also, it would be great if more restaurant and wine professionals showed interest in organic, biodynamic and natural wines. There are great wines available in Portugal, so that decision should be easy.
Honestly, if one is not a corporation (which in turn doesn’t really care about making wine but making a pure profit), it is difficult for me to understand why you would not work organically. It is good for the environment, it is good for the consumer, it is good for you. And information certainly is available. The only level more challenging for me to understand than non-organic are those that used to be high on spraying their vineyards with all possible kinds of chemicals and now, all of a sudden, making natural wine, having their vineyards certified overnight, making funky labels etc. The conviction to grow organic should be a natural one – not market-driven.
I mean, the only way to do terroir wines is to farm organically and stay pure in the cellar. You can’t call a wine terroir-driven if you’ve sprayed your vineyards with commercial chemicals and then intervened in the cellar, right? And, if you’re a restaurant, do you really want to support farming which is poisoning the land and the environment? For me, that’s a question of personal responsibility! And if you’re a winegrowing region, you would like to show terroir, right? Let’s stop pretending that spraying Roundup & co AND talking about terroir is just not possible, ok?
Maybe people will understand the current virus crisis as the crisis of human identity and loss of connection to nature. Maybe then people will see that it is us to blame for all that’s happening. It is a bit of a depressing note, but isn’t it true, in the end?
Portugal has amazing potential. An amazing country with amazing nature. You should use it properly. Don’t think about demand-create it.
