Why make wine in Finland?
Pictures copyright Liisa Valonen
Hollola Finland, 02 April 2021
Staying in Finland wasn’t a given for us.
A few years back, after we started Ainoa but before we had any success with the company, David was offered an engineering position in France. The man making the offer, knowing of our interest in wine, sweetened the deal by also offering to help us find a winery that we could purchase within commuting distance of the company.
How can an aspiring winemaker turn down an offer like that? In the end, there were many reasons we decided to stay in Finland, but one of them was that we were not just interested in making wine, we were interested in making great wine. So how does that support making wine in Finland instead of France? France is the center of the wine universe and is famous for producing some of the best wines in the world. There is a good reason for that; some of the best grapes are grown there, and the key to great wine is great fruit. But not all French grapes are at that level; in fact, most are not and we were under no illusions that we would have access to top quality grapes. Those only go to winemakers that have the right connections. If we had gone to France, at best we could probably produce average French wines. Not bad stuff, but we saw a better opportunity.
Finland has the best berries in the world, but unlike wine grapes, everyone has access to top quality Finnish berries. As noted above, the key to great wine is great fruit, so we knew it was possible for us to make great wines in Finland. It isn’t easy; it is harder to make berry wine than grape wine. Grapes want to be wine. Throw some grapes in a bucket, walk away for two weeks and you end up with wine. Berries need to be convinced. To complicate things further, different berries have different needs. Just as winemakers use different methods for Riesling than they do for Chenin Blanc, you can’t treat blueberries the same as cloudberries and expect to get the best results. It takes us years to figure out how to process each particular fruit, so it reaches the potential we see for it. But when it does, WOW!
Finland isn’t famous for great wine, but it should be. Berry wines will never replace grape wines in the broader world market; grapes have one advantage over berries that ensure they will always remain supreme. Grapes are cheap. Even the best wine grapes are much less expensive than good Finnish berries. But when quality is the most important criteria, Finnish berries can compete as equals.
When it comes right down to it, a good portion of our success as winemakers is simply due to luck: we ended up here in Finland.