Wine and Anarchy: winemaking by committee

Everyone agrees (though with differing interpretations) that in Barcelona in 1936, something rather special happened. The city and the surrounding countryside witnessed the first ever successful Anarcho-Syndicalist Revolution. Indeed, Anarchy reigned. And it did pretty well until factional disagreements (basically the Communists, who by nature don’t like decentralised power, started being ‘difficult’) and the close of the Spanish Civil War in favour of a Galician monorchid and his rabid henchmen brought the Socialist dream to a close.

Nonetheless, the Anarcho-Syndicalist rule of Catalonia functioned so well, it convinced the likes of George Orwell that a Socialist Revolution was not only possible but desirable. It also passed into the annals of anarchist history and to mention Barcelona in the late 30s renders present-day anarchists misty-eyed and nostalgic for a time they never knew.

Anarchy is too broad a topic to examine in any depth in a wine blog, but suffice it to say that, in very general terms, the anarchist movement is Socialist (it seeks to give all profits derived from labour to those who labour), Syndicalist (control of the workspace and all decisions are deferred to the workforce through democratic unions), Revolutionary (it does not believe centralised governments will dismantle themselves in order to give people control of their own place of work) and anti-State. It does not believe in rule by a state system or in any form of rule by minority.

But I digress from my original thought which was to try to understand whether the likes of a Priorat winery would be able to make wine on Anarcho-Syndicalist principles.

These days, the wine world loves the cult of the personality: Helen Turley, Michel Rolland, Stephane Derenoncourt, Angelo Gaja, the late Robert Mondavi, Warren Winiarski, the late Alois Kracher, Rene Barbier, the late Didier Dagueneau, and so on.

But let us imagine that in 1936, the wineries in Priorat were taken over by the people that worked in them. Indeed, what if all wines were made democratically with input from the people working in the winery? There’s no reason why winemaking by committee is not possible; the debate must centre on whether a wine produced under the direction of all those working in the winery is more desirable (or not) than one made by an individual – a winemaker.

Could it be that ‘dictatorial winemaking’ produces the best wines for individuals (Parker likes Rolland wines, etc.) but that an Anarcho-Syndicalist Grenache might please as many people as it alienates?

I dislike posts in which I am inconclusive but I honestly don’t know the answer. I would, if pushed, probably say that an Anarcho-Syndicalist winery would produce a range of wines that would be much more interesting than, say, a Michel Rolland winery. I would even suggest that in saying that, I’m being quite uncontroversial. But would the Anarcho-Syndicalist wines be ‘better’? It’s a very difficult thing to say but inasmuch as what our accepted notions of quality consist of, they might not be.

Or is it – and here’s a thought – simply that winemaking, as a craft, requires only single voice and a single vision? Is it possible that ‘factory’ winemaking (by which I mean wine made by more than one individual) is an abberation?

It’s a shame that the vineyards of Catalonia were largely destroyed by phylloxera prior to the Spanish Civil War or we may have more evidence on which to base ourselves.

To close, let me tell you about a man I once worked with. Mark (I’ve changed his name) is late middle-aged, works in a winery and is a general cellarhand. Noted for his overreaching apathy, laziness, and unceasing ability to delegate hard work to those younger or less experienced than he, I never saw him invest so much of his own energy, time, money and skill as when he volunteered to make a tiny batch of Pinot Noir discarded by the winery. Did he change because he was in control or because he was properly implicated in something he was making?