How the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) works
Meininger’s: How has OIV changed in the last years?
Barker: The wine industry has changed enormously, so has the structure and the focus of the OIV. And the nature of the membership, it has e.g. changed to reflect the emergence of wine in southern Hemisphere countries, and its resurgence in many other parts of Europe or Central Asia. Many members are from Europe and there’s South America, Australasia, and Africa.
Meininger’s: How much of your activity is focused on table grapes and the non-wine part of grape business?
Barker: It's definitely part of our activity. An example: We have been working with China on the potential that they will become a member and they have over 700,000 hectares of vineyards, probably 90% of which is table grapes. We're having a very active and positive dialogue with China at the moment, but I couldn't tell you how long it will take. But that's not specific to China. every country's got a different process for negotiating and finally ratifying international treaties. When we moved the headquarters from Paris down to Dijon, we needed to change just one word in the treaty. Some countries have ratified that quickly, some need a lot longer, because the political processes are much more layered.
Meininger’s: How does a lawyer from a country that wasn't even making much wine 50 years ago, get to be at the head of an organization like this?
Barker: It’s a long path. I've been an expert for New Zealand in the OIV for more than 20 years. I've always worked in the field of wine as a lawyer, in the government and in the national industry organization. And I did a lot of work in private practice for businesses, governments and organizations, in New Zealand and all around the world. But it's an elected role.
Meininger’s: How big is the OIV budget?
Barker: About €3.7 million. So it's quite small.
Meininger’s: Shouldn't it be a bigger organization financially?
Barker: I campaigned on the basis of making the OIV bigger and stronger and I think that communication is an important part of that. Obviously, with the tight financial situation in many states, it's difficult to look at significant budget increases in terms of contributions from members. But, for the new strategic plan, we want to look at what we can do in the future to expand resources, maybe with partnerships.
Meininger’s: International organisations, are, arguably, in danger of spending a very long time discussing things, because it's quite hard to get consensus on subjects when you get representatives of countries with their own vested interests. How does that strike you?
Barker: Our role is to be a reference. We need to take a science-based approach. Sometimes it takes quite a long time as we have to find a consensus amongst some quite divergent opinions. But it's worthwhile, I think, because a lot of existential questions eventually come before us. For example, we’ve worked on dealcoholization, for a very long time. Over time, the markets change, the technology changes and viewpoints change. All in all, I think the OIV has played quite an important role by creating definitions for these products, and the approved techniques. And then they become European law. EU legal definitions quite closely reflect the work we did back in 2012.
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