LETTER FROM ADDIS ABABA
Nestled in the Rift Rift, the Syrah, Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon vines grow under a blazing sun. We are here in central Ethiopia, “one of the few places in the world where vines flourish during the harvest”likes to underline the Alsatian Richard Auther, oenologist who came to end his career in the Horn of Africa for an ultimate wine challenge in the vineyard of Awash Wine.
In this sublime setting, at an altitude of 1,200 meters and not far from the equator, the compass of French winegrowers is out of whack. “I had the greatest oenology teachers in France, but here I have to relearn how to make wine. There are parameters that I still don’t understand”summarizes Richard Auther, 63, that The French Wine Review qualified as “great winemaker” when he held the Domaine de la Courtade on the island of Porquerolles (Var). In his land of plenty in Ethiopia, he has to juggle the unknowns of the land and the uncertainties linked to the rainy seasons. Here, the harvest takes place twice a year.
“Incredible amount of ripe grapes”
“Look at this paradisehe exclaims, lifting a bunch of chenin blanc, green and full of sugar. In France, we dream of that, of this incredible quantity of ripe grapes. » The consequence of intense sunshine and rich volcanic soil. Layer “alive” which contains both transformed organic matter and mineral matter sinks almost four feet underground, four times deeper than in France. The yield of grapes per vine is twice that of France.
The 240 hectares of vines of Awash Wine, which belongs among others to Irish rock star Bob Geldof, are located in Merti Jirsu, a village in the Oromia region, 160 km north of Addis Ababa, on the road to Djibouti. Ethiopia, with its 115 million inhabitants, has only two vineyards. The other farm, belonging to the French group Castel, is also located in the Rift Valley, near the town of Ziway, south of the capital.
Between them, they produce 24 million bottles of wine a year for an Ethiopian market which is not very fond of it. Ethiopia ranked 144e rank of wine-consuming countries in the world in 2019, according to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In other words, an adult drinks an average of one glass of wine there per year.
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