Innovation and Entrepreneurial Practices in the Wine Sector: Constant Experimentation and Playfulness

Abstract

Winemaking is a complex process of viticulture followed by a fermentation process with subsequent control of taste development. There are some stages in wine production where innovation practices may be applied: Grape variety, fermentation techniques, skin contact, whether to apply organic production and the collaboration with an oenologist or not are all focus points of innovation efforts. These efforts would have to cohabit in a wine sector where tradition and experience are highly valued. The authors have been studying how experimentation and practices of innovation take place in the wineries at the individual level and at different stages of wine production. The innovation processes are not radical innovation but tend to be entrepreneurial practices of experimentation. The article takes a first glance at how practice theory can be implemented in the study of wine and entrepreneurship. It investigates the relationship between winemaking practice and playfulness and experimentation to make a wine that stands out. The chapter is based on qualitative interviews in New South Wales (Australia), Var (France) and Ribera del Duero and Toro (Spain).

1. Introduction: What is innovation in the wine sector?

How do you discuss innovations and unique profiling for wineries in a sector which, even if they do have new technology and education, in so many countries have been leaning on tradition, practice, and old skills in the family? In the empirical data we have collected, innovation is not radical, which confirms a tendency in the industry [1] but tends to be based on entrepreneurial behaviour and experimentation in practice.

The many production processes of very different nature, and the time perspective of maturing, make the wine field a very interesting field for the study of innovation and entrepreneurial action. The way wine is talked about by experts and connoisseurs is part of the status and special features of the wine sector. No other agricultural sector has this glamour. Making wine includes both pure production aspects as artistic aspects, like performativity.

In this field study we have investigated at the micro level, how the individual growers and wineries tackle innovation challenges, new practices and create a special profile of the wine in relation to others in the region. We have sought to explore how the entrepreneurial actions are revealed in their practice. The focus of our study is how they describe and argue for the experimentation and playfulness of the new methods. The uncertainty of the outcome of experiments is high and individualised, and in this way, it resembles more drastic innovation processes, even if they have to re-connect with traditional savoir faire.

New technologies for testing in the wineries’ own laboratories have provided explicit knowledge to supplement the constant evaluation of implicit or tacit knowledge by the winemakers. All claim that tasting is necessary, as the tacit knowledge of wine production is a fundamental part of wine production. The blending is a “magical moment” and impossible to explain explicitly. The wine sector thus is an interesting case of how the explicit and tacit knowledge are complementary in the innovative practice. Experiments are developed constantly, but the results have to wait at least a year to be assessed.

There has been a search for a strategic approach to legitimising innovation [2], and this article aims at filling some of this void. The field of literature on innovation has less focus on practice on the micro level, whereas the research leading to this paper will be directed at the micro-level entrepreneurial practices. We are focusing on how constant experimentation is contributing to new profiles and features of the wine, and a possibility to distinguish the wine from the neighbouring wineries’ wine. The Research Question is: How does constant experimentation contribute to the practice of innovation in wineries?

We have conducted a series of case studies in Australia, France and Spain to research their perspective, strategy and practice on innovation. Our research indicates that practice theory shows promising results in understanding innovation, entrepreneurial practices, experiments and uncertainty management, in the wine sector.

The chapter presents our analysis of the case studies and are presented thematically according to the themes that appeared in our interviews. The themes reflect the different stages in wine production and are presented in a sequence to mirror the winemaking process.

In Section 2 we present the tentative practice framework that is being used.

Section 3 presents the data and the methods are described.

Then we follow the process of winemaking, as Section 4 covers the innovation in viticulture. The subsections look at how grape variety, managing sunlight, irrigation and water, organic or green management, harvesting, pressing and destemming technologies influence innovation efforts.

Section 5 is devoted to innovation in the winemaking or cellar work. The subsections are fermentation, lighter tasting wines with lower alcohol percentage and blending.

Section 6 is discussing the use of professional winemakers.

Section 7 takes up the analysis and discussion of innovation and entrepreneurial practices, with subsections on experiments and playfulness under condition of uncertainty, and technology and process innovation.

In Section 8 we present the conclusion.

2. A tentative practice framework

Innovation in the wine sector is not easily identified, and we have chosen to not only rely on innovation literature, but also on entrepreneurial practice, improvisation and experimentation in a knowledge management perspective, as we are looking at the practice of viticulture and winemaking.

Most of the literature on innovation in the wine sector is concerned with clusters or systems of innovation, i.e., a regional level of analysis [3, 4, 5, 6], and in relation to wine districts. Thus, Australian wineries are better in organising and have better R&D support facilities, than other New World countries like New Zealand, South Africa and California [7, 8]. Yet others emphasise, “that innovation implementation is a firm-level activity, which should be affected by individual-level and country-level culture” [9]. A sub-field of the regional perspective leans on building networks and use of knowledge brokers in the region [1, 10]. The use of official brokers at the regional level was rather absent in our data, whereas the role of consultant winemakers seems to play an important role. The regional perspective literature tends to stay at the macro level, and does not allow for recognising knowledge as embodied and local, thus focusing on the individual practice and the process of entrepreneurial practices [11].

Theoretically, we define innovations as new methods, new processes and new ways of organising [2]. “The innovation process itself, which involves design, development, implementation and mastery of novel ideas, takes place within an institutional and social context with people engaged in the process bound by repeated transactions over time” ([12], p. 315). Knowledge in the wineries seems to become new knowledge in parallel to the knowledge conversion process [13].

Often the discussion of innovation is around the binary of science versus art or whether wine is made in the vineyard or in the winery, and it does not appear to be in either or [14] but in both ([15], p. 243). The few inventions in the history of winemaking “have actually enforced the strength of the binary,” as McIntyre refers “the characters imparted by terroir are expressed more fully as a result of temperature-controlled fermentation.” ([15], p. 244). Thus, while temperature-controlled fermentation has revolutionised the vinification process, it has strengthened the role of traditional viticulture. Tradition is not a mere condition of institutional inertia but a praised virtue in the wine sector, and a part of the tacit knowledge in the sector.

The basic idea of terroir, which is certified in the “Appellation d’Origine Controlée (AOC ¹),” is the importance of preserving the sensorial expressions such as taste, smell and colour of the terroir. “Where a wine, or more specifically the grapes originate from is important” ([8], p. 510), thus creating path dependency [2]. Other articles on innovation in the wine sector stress the lack of radical innovation [16], and the incremental innovation or small changes, such as Farias and Tatsch [1] on the Brazilian case, Dressler [4] on German winemaking, Lenzi [17] on local governance of innovation in an Italian case or Castellano & Khelladi [2] on the use of open innovation in the French wine sector. Innovation in the wine sector is conditioned by the high esteem that the traditional way of doing things in the local area or in the family has. The path dependency on tradition is voluntary to a degree we do not see in other areas of food production; the high membership rate of the Denomination of Origin, such as “Denominaciones de Origen (DO)” and “Appelation d’ Origine Controlé (AOC)”² being the prime indicator; “yet innovation is not exclusive to the old world,” as Lukacs [14] points out.

The focus on cumulative innovation and entrepreneurial behaviour lends itself to a practice theory perspective on innovation. The practice perspective offers a possibility to look at the “how” of human actions by breaking social activities into several elements [18]. A practice consists of bodily activities, mental activities, tools, background knowledge, states of emotion and motivational knowledge ([18], p. 813). The focus on everyday practice allows researchers to look into how wine workers do the management of muddling through, rather than focus on contrasted success stories [11]. This focus also allows us to connect innovation to knowing, as “know how” in contrast to “know that” is linked to performative, sticky knowledge [19]. As Gherardi has emphasised knowing in practice can be articulated as a “creative entanglement of knowing and doing” [20]. By investigating the practices of innovation in wineries, our aim is to study how tacit and explicit knowledge serve as the ground where epistemic work is done between knowledge and knowing, e.g., how innovation evolves [21].

Experimentation in the wine sector is beyond the notion of individual strokes of genius and aligned with the theory of communities of practice; we see collaboration as central to innovation [19, 20]. Communities of Practice consist of people, who share practice, “They are likely to have communal knowhow from that practice” ([19], p. 204). The experimentation could be interpreted as an entrepreneurial decision making [22]. The craft of vine cultivation and winemaking as doing and experiences cover well the perception of learning by doing, and how “people solve practical problems that have emerged as a result of specific and unplanned circumstance/entrepreneurial opportunities” ([22], p. 12). Improvisation embraces creative uncertainty within structured regimes [23]. However, it is important to emphasise that there is much preparation and study behind effective improvisation [24]. It “relies on rules and routines that are pre-established and rehearsed” ([25], p. 203), and knowledge as investigated here “is a capacity to act within a situation” [26]. Improvisation is the search for “making do” rather than “letting go,” as it is a search for novelty and usefulness ([26], p. 205). This perspective is very close to Sarasvathy’s theory and concepts of entrepreneuring as effectuation [27].

3. Data and methods

The study is based on 11 face-to-face interviews with wineries and three with experts in New South Wales (Hunter Valley, Orange and Riverina), seven wineries in Var in the South of France, and five wineries and one expert from the Ribera del Duero demarcated region in the Northwest of Spain. Most interviewees are owners or oenologist or both as they are found to be closest to the innovation process [17]. Most of the interviewees represent the middle-range quality wine of small producers, but a few are very large in Australia and Spain.

The interviews were all conducted in situ, and observations in the vineyards and cellars were noted and served as a useful contextual supplement to the interviews. In nearly all the interviews, the conversations were conducted in the main building or cellar and included field visits, thus enabling the interviewees to show tools or knowledge assets they work with in order to discuss the different methods for differentiating the wine production.

We have employed respondent-driven sampling [28] combined with theoretical sampling as the version of grounded theory methods presented by Glaser [29, 30, 31]. We used referrals from experts and from other wineries to find wineries with a distinct profile in order to avoid the standard table-wine producers in the area, who would have dominated, if we had a representative sampling [32]. We have organised our sampling to look for new patterns that have emerged in the field. For example, in Domaine Tempier in the Bandol region in the South of France, a sommelier from one of the local restaurants who purchases wine in the tasting room, and in the discussion of who is innovative and extraordinary in the Bandol area, both he and the owner recommended the Domaine la Bégude winery. Personal network helped us gather informants in three countries, but once arrived in each country the described respondent-driven sampling was conducted.

Our interview guide was thus structured in few themes void of a sequential order. Our point of departure was a single pre-conceived idea of where differentiation, innovation and extraordinary methods could be found. That made up for a broad interview theme concerning the innovation of the wine producer with the subthemes of innovation in the vineyard, the cellar and marketing. The design would allow the data to produce analytical categories and could generate themes from the interviewees’ references and discourses as they were generated most frequently. We would look for reports from “war stories” to access the accounts for the creation of knowledge within the wineries [21].

In the course of gathering our data, we quickly observed “What the wine producers mentioned as efforts of differentiation and innovative efforts.” However, our focus increasingly shifted to “How the wineries addressed these efforts.” This theme concerns their experimentation and entrepreneurial actions as innovation practices.

Qualitative interviews were used in order to obtain more substance in how the wineries profile themselves. This methodology was deemed essential [33], as a series of qualitative interviews would allow the researchers to investigate across wineries in different contexts, with a sensible economic expenditure on field research, and with naturalistic records that could show the interaction between researcher and research object.

Interviews were conducted in English, French or Spanish, where the choice of interview language depended on how the interviewees felt at ease. Interviews of about 1-2 hours are transcribed and quotes and extracts from these are used in the analysis. We also include a list of main characteristics (in the appendix). In the interviewing, we have probed into how the entrepreneurs acted to differentiate themselves from the others, and how they experimented and did something new, as the concept of innovation was not easily understood.

We emphasise the effort to do something different, and experiment with new grapes and methods at the individual level. Probing was done in the interviews to invite the interviewee to stay with the details of innovation practice. The probing on specifics of concrete situations in everyday life at the vineyards yields importance to phronesis, practical knowledge [11]. Our understanding of practice is thus devoted to theory of action in that we do not focus narrowly on the intentionality of action, but rather on how patterns of practice are enacted, talked about and produced.

Wine marketing is an important aspect of the wine industry, and part of the stories of great wines, castles and wine-experts. However, the viticulturists, winemakers and owners in our sample were actively deselecting this issue in our interviews, and marketing issues will be limited to customer influence on light wine types and organic wines. It does, however, have effects of marketisation as qualculative behaviour [20, 34] [The term qualculative is by the author of the reference]. News and stories of marketing and markets in this sense play a role in how the actors calculate prices of their wine and calibrate the quality of the product [34].

The regional aspects and local restrictions tied to AOC and DO are analysed in another article. Basically, here we refer to the kind of restrictions tied to the regional quality assessments (see [35]).

4. Innovation in viticulture

4.1 Types of grape

When asked about, what makes the wineries special compared to neighbouring wine producers, the winegrowers and owners spontaneously start talking about the area and the types of grape they cultivate. The vineyard is central in their search for expressing their differentiation. The type of grape is very important, and they experiment with new types, such as Mourvèdre in the Var, outside the Bandol and coastal area (Christine Mylene in Domaine des Selves, Var) while Mourvèdre is a grape taken for granted and compulsory in the Bandol wines, it is not evident for the inland areas.

Gerald Naef in Patina Wines in Orange experimented with his white wines (Sauvignon blanc) to make them more like the French Poilly-Fumé with the “white smoke,” rather than the New Zealand lighter and fruitier wines. Secondly, he is elaborating wine with the Riesling and Sauvignon blanc types for a better fit with the high altitude and cool area. Many of the Orange county wine producers emphasised the cool high mountain climate that resembled some of the French wine areas. Philip Shaw says he went to this area, because the climate is “very similar to Burgundy.” The two examples show experimentation and management of climatic conditions.

Terry Dolle used the high cool climate to make his icewine based on Viognier, which is not planted by many in Australia, but he thought “it should be fresh and reflecting the climate, so I made it an icewine,” and James Sweetapple tries the Gewürtztraminer and Riesling, both in the high areas of Orange.

In areas of AOC, there are a number of restrictions on what grapes can be grown, such as the requirement for Mourvèdre in Bandol, and Tempranillo (Tinta del país) in Ribera del Duero. But even here they must assess what other types of grapes they would like to blend.

Some interesting examples of developing old types of vine are found in DO Rueda, Northern Spain. The old vines had been cleared from 1989 with EU subsidies to produce less table wine and more quality wine. Some of the old vine types with very deep roots in sandy soils have survived, and recovered, and are now developed and cultivated in order to get a special and good wine, and it is cloned to get the taste and features of these grapes.

Antonio Arrévalo is certifying that this older clone of Verdejo growing in sandy soils with very long roots and the ability to have grapes lying on the sand directly create a flavour, which is more concentrated and therefore something special. Just like neighbouring Javier Sanz he is going through the trouble of separating and cloning rather than using a commercial Verdejo. The two Rueda grape growers are going back to their roots, literally, to get answers to new challenges.

The choice of grapes is in France involving some innovative entrepreneurial action on older vine:

Laugier: Viogner has been over grafted and planted from the beginning, when it wasn’t known at all, Viognier, the grape; and it was quite smart, well, or risky to go this way, when it was not already very known, very successful, but we were, in the beginning the first ones with this grape.

Interviewer: OK. So others would have Rolle? In this area, Vermentino.

Laugier: At that time none, no one at all, now everybody have a few rows, to be able to make a few bottles, because it was quite efficient this grape.

New types of grapes are sometimes introduced by overgrafting of existing vine, as was the case in Triennes and Jas D’Esclan, when the existing old vine did not provide good quality, but only quantity, and they wanted an organic production.

Radical choices of grapes, however, do have consequences for wineries. Triennes, e.g., is not allowed to use the AOC Var for their Viognier wine, as this grape is not allowed in the AOC.

4.2 Managing sunlight

The pruning of vines and the desuckering for premium wines are very intensive handwork, but mainly left to casual labour.

In the very intensive cultivation of Patina Wines (Orange), Naef is talking about “managing sunlight”:

Gerald Naef: I definitely believe that the wine is made in the vineyard more so than in the winery. It's about managing sunlight, I suppose, more than anything else and just the amount of sunlight that you get on the fruit. It varies from red grapes to white grapes and especially the season. …. In a very wet year, you get a lot of leaf cover and you've got to look at removing some of those leaves. In a dry year, you're battling to get enough leaf cover and you end up getting some sunburn. The sunburn, I've learned from experience that sunburn gives bitter characters to a wine and if you don't get a little bit of sunlight onto your fruit, something they called ‘dappled’ sunlight to… What you really want is one layer of leaf over your white grapes, your red grapes not necessarily; your red grapes maybe need a little bit more sunlight.

You kind of manage that so you get that “dappled light” on your white grapes, and I think probably on your red grapes as well, it’s just that you are going to see more sun coming through onto your red grapes and less coming through onto your white grapes, if you manage it correctly. I think it’s not so much being innovative; it’s more just being a little bit pedantic and being small enough to be able to do that sort of thing. (Naef, Orange).

This is a very intensive cultivation, a practice which most of the larger wine producers are not doing. The Naef quote describes very well the entrepreneurial practices he is taking to manage the sunlight. In a continuous effort of experimentation with leaf cover he is building knowledge of how to avoid bitter tones in his green grapes. He insists on managing his vineyard by being pedantic, thus holding his hand over, as the Italian term manegiare, the root of managing would mean, the nurtured grapes. The quote shows how knowing in practice has technology and doing intertwined. Performativity runs in parallel with scientific behaviour in the innovation practice.

All producers are concerned about the hot years and the impact on grapes, and the level of sugar versus taste:

Tyrrell’s: we test [grapes] regularly in the vineyard, and we are testing pH, acid, and sugar, of which pH is the most important. As a general rule, during vintage, 4 o’clock, the winemakers, my son Chris and I, and the vineyard manager, go to the testing area. Any juice that’s been tested that day has been kept in a bottle. So we’ll look at the results and we’ll taste the juice, and the two most important things are the pH and the taste of the juice. If it’s red – let us say most of your answer is in your eyes. If you have got Shiraz and there’s any greenness at all in the colour of that juice sample, the wine’s not right, and it just does not matter what the chemistry test says, it’s not right.

(Tyrrell’s, Hunter Valley)

The new technologies of lab testing methods for the quality of grapes are in all cases supplemented with the manual, visual and tasting as traditional methods by the expert leaning on his expertise and tacit knowledge. Knowledge assets, such as sugar tests, do not constitute knowledge by itself. The winemaker will add his or her “personal knowing” to translate a given measured sugar level to the alcohol level in the finished wine [36]. The question is viewed similarly in Var, France. In Triennes, the winemaker also checked the grapes regularly, allowing himself to supplement automated testing with personal tasting.

The management of humidity and the management of sunlight are a series of tricks of the trade that the viticulturist can perform to manipulate with the natural conditions that are given to everyone in the area. The innovation can come from new ideas or as Antonio Arrévalo describes it from a technique that is developed in the past, but is re-used in a new setting. In terms of innovation this is interesting, as it shows the new use of knowledge and value of combined knowledge for special features of the wine in this area, and entrepreneurial perception of new possibilities.

4.3 Irrigation and water: managing water with technology

In many of the areas irrigation is a serious discussion, whether or not to irrigate, and in some areas like the hot Riverina in Australia, the river provides the possibility to get irrigation, which is a necessity in this hot area. But in many of the small wineries in more traditional vineyards, they do not irrigate and actually have lots of arguments against irrigation, as they have to get vines with very deep roots, and a less “diluted” flavour. Irrigation is related both to the types of vine, the conditions of the soil, access to water, regulation and climate. Some of the efforts to create innovations are tied to the water handling, both how to irrigate and in order to save water, rinse water and recycle water.

In Australia there is a licence to secure a balanced system for those producing more than 30,000 tonnes. This is to protect water resources in the river and the soil from pollution. De Bortoli in Riverina who is crushing 65,000 tonnes has been especially active and had a large research project paid by the family and the Government to create green technology in the production. Lindsay Gulliver is health safety and environmental manager and he runs many projects on wastewater, but is basically looking into different ways of saving energy and cleaning water. The wastewater problem was serious and had “odour footprints of something like 15 km.” He works on this both with ammonia to bring the pH up, and with a new low-energy systems of aeration.

The latest project is having 10 mill $ funding from the Government to create different forms of clean/green technology. This is both “smart-pumps” that can work at night, filtration of water, low energy bottle line and bottle warmer system to help clean bottles and make labels stay on the bottles.

All of the large wine-factories above 30,000 tonnes have to work on the wastewater and environmental issues as these are part of a Governmental contract.³

Both the Matarromera group and Bodegas Fariña in Spain are controlling drops of water and feeding water in trenches digged along the rows of vine.

The decision when and how to irrigate can thus be supported by root electronic control, but the technological development of measuring the humidity and irrigation is also an important control variable for farming as such. Rosa Zarza is an oenologist who works in several wineries and has similar experiences from Toro:

Zarza: It has a double face. Now I can see on the sensor under the leaf that the humidity under the leaf is raising, and this is because the producer has treated the vines and the farmer does not tell me anything.

I: Aha, so you can control it from your home?

…….

Zarza: Now I can go to Denmark and if the ground sensor says it is not raining and the weather forecast says sun, and still the leaf sensor says humid, then I know something is not as it should be. (Rosa Zarza, Oenologist, North of Spain).

The new methods of controlling humidity makes long distance control much easier, and allows for involvement of oenologists on many separated fields.

Yet farmers in other areas such as Bandol and Rueda are bound by restrictions in the AOC (DO) of the area so they do not irrigate. The wineries, we have interviewed in these two areas, however do not see it as a problem, but a quality of the terroir.

The permissive legislation in Tierra de Castilla y León and Australia allows vintners to apply technology to improve the management of water. The application of technology relies on existing models of thought; that there does exist an optimum level of humidity by the leaves and root of the vine.

4.4 Organic or green management

In many ways we could ask, what is the innovation challenge in organic production? The demand is coming from the market, but it is a field, where many are making entrepreneurial and innovative efforts. We have met several examples of organic production and especially nearly organic production, as a kind of “reasonable farming,” which in France is regulated by a contract with the Ministry of Agriculture to use less chemicals for insecticide, herbicide and fertiliser. Only a few of the organic wineries actually sell their wine under the organic label, as they claim it does not give any real value in the market. In relation to innovation, this is an interesting aspect, as the ideology and the effort are to avoid the many chemical additives in the different stages of the production of wine. However, all informants discuss how difficult this is, and for exports, the demands for certification in the USA make it nearly impossible to fulfil these criteria. The need for innovation and new methods clearly exist but the methods so far do not meet the demands.

The concern of limiting chemicals is very clear in all the medium-sized and smaller wineries with quality wine. Some were explicit about their efforts to make the production organic.

Philip Shaw in Orange has been on a 24-year journey towards organic production, but sees the organic labels on Organic farming as unattractive as it allows the use of copper and sulphur on the field.

In another Orange county winery James Sweetapple is into holistic farming, which is an overall ideology of organic production and balance in nature. He distinguishes between chemicals that he labels “pesticides” and “natural elements.” He has sheep in the area to eat the grass and produce manure, and he worked to put organic matters into the soil to soften it as well as compost tea and a special soft rock phosphate. All the concerns were to create balance in nature. These practices form part of his strategy to manage the question on whether to be an organic winery or not.

Both Domaine des Selves, Val d’Iris and Chateau Roselline in Var are not doing organic, but have a “terra Vitis” contract with the Ministry of Agriculture on reasonable farming. Chateau Roseline clearly indicates that the climate is important for doing this:

We are very lucky because we have the area with a lot of Mistral (wind), so after the rain, very often the Mistral blows the plant dry. And if we compare with a farmer in Bordeaux for example, we have to treat, but we are doing half of the treatments because of the Mistral. (Chapelle, Var).

Domaine de Triennes is doing organic production: The white and red wines are organic, and this is indicated at the homepage. Mr. Laugier admits that the innovation strategy is to place the Rosé with bought grapes from a larger area as a cash cow. And these are not organic. It brings a lot of revenue to the winery, and it allows Laugier and his colleagues to experiment with the other wines they commercialise restricted to own grapes.

In Domaine Tempier:

Rougeot-Peyraud: ..It is the soil which is the important, and the Spanish Mourvèdre. The soil is important, but it is not the same and not exposed in the same way. The soil is clay and chalk (limestone)…Here are different flowers, and insects also, but some flowers and draining help. It is natural. Natural fertiliser. (Rougeot-Peyraud, Bandol).

The strong identity as being viticulturists who serve as a starting point for their innovation strategy [35] is in this quote aligned with a position close to reasonable agriculture.

Only two of the wineries in Var have organic produce, and sell it as organic, yet Jas D’Esclan does not see it as a change nor as an innovation as they continue the old tradition.

Jas D’Ésclan it is organic since 1939. It never changed …. when we bought the estate in 2004 it was like that. (de Wulf, Var).

Tradition seems to weigh heavier than organic argumentation. In Bandol they are more challenged:

Tamayan: We are organic since 2009, then certified. It is a lot of work with soil and the vine. This year is very complicated as there is a lot of wind, and it dries the soil. (Tamayan, Var).

Yet they could not irrigate to solve this problem as they are not allowed by the AOC Bandol, who put restrictions on types of grape, fertilisers and irrigation.

The conditions for organic or reasonable farming in Var in the South of France are good, as the soil, the climate and the wind all support the relative dry leaves, and it appears as if the insect attacks and usual diseases are few.

Epifanio Rivera in Ribera del Duero puts it this way “I am ecologist as of philosophy.” When asked whether he is certified organic he nevertheless puts the foot down “no because I am not denying modernity in agriculture.” Epifanio puts a lot on emphasis in that he is treating the soil with as few products as possible to work with the field in as natural a way as possible. However, he is keeping the opportunity to use a chemical directly on the weeds on certain extraordinary occasions.

Right now we are working with vegetal covering although it is more difficult in the area, because of the lack of rain gauge and because of the rain. (Epifanio, Ribera del Duero).

Antonio Arrévalo in Matapozuelos is belonging to the viticulturist of Rueda that targets for the higher price range of white wines; Arrévalo does strengthen that they use very small amounts of pesticides. He would use sulphur twice or three times in a production, not more than that: “That is biodynamic, but listen, I am not looking at the moon, nor the stars…”(Arrévalo, Rueda), and he is not certified organic.

The consensus on doing as little harm as possible to the soil, and allowing for some chemistry, although self-labelled as “ecologist as of philosophy” would however both in Arrévalo and Epifanios cases fit in to what the French would speak about as “reasonable farming.”

It is a theme where innovations and experimentation are needed, and most of the wineries make experiments and many entrepreneurial efforts to reduce chemicals and come closer to organic agricultural production. None of the respondents finds it easy. When it is such a challenge, it has been a surprise that the wineries on the one hand are so concerned about ecological or nearly ecological farming and a practice of limiting chemicals, but still few of them go into certification or labelling on bottles. The marketing value apparently does not play an important role for this behaviour. All are concerned about the chemicals, but they do not argue that the taste of organic wine is better. The small steps towards organic wine production are along with other innovation efforts part of an experimentation to make a job “well done” or “comme il faut” as Gherardi and Perrotta find in their study of craftsmen [37].

4.5 Harvesting: managing technology and machines

The innovation has mostly been with better machines for harvesting, i.e., more adoption of new technology, than their own innovations. Most are stressing how important it is to harvest with machines, also because this can be done by night, which is better for the grapes. The price difference is quite substantial. Tyrrell’s says $775 per tonne to hand-pick and $45 per tonne to machine pick.

The harvesting has changed in most places and for most vintners’ grapes will be machine harvested. But there are regional AOC demands and certain high-profiled vines, or old vines, which are still harvested by hand, as machines destroy old vine This appears to be seen as a quality stamp, though again only advertised on the homepage, and not on the bottles. So, in the sense of Drucker [38], of taking the novelty to the market, it is difficult to label it as an innovation. There are other benefits from machine harvesting, as this may be done by night, and therefore protect the grapes from the heat after picking.

4.6 Pressing and destemming technologies: Process innovation

A number of the Australian wine producers had an education and experience in machinery. They discussed the different machines and how they have been improved. Some of the older types of presses are used for the premium wines, even if they do not get all of the juices out. These old machines are gentler to the grapes. It seems to be one of the fields, where technological innovations are coming in, but this is mainly adoption of new technology rather than innovations.

An example of solving the harvesting and destemming problems is presented by Manuel Perez (Bodegas Fariña), as they take the machinery to the field:

Manuel Perez: Yes. We de-stem, we crush the grapes and we pump it into a tank in the field. The tank is carried by a truck. This tank is without oxygen, we introduce nitrogen or carbon, normally nitrogen to avoid the oxygen in there. ……….From there we take it to the winery. In the winery we just use a pump and introduce it in the tank to start the fermentation. If we want to add yeasts or not, with the reds we do not use it. (Perez, Ribera del Duero).

Destemming in the field is an example of process innovation that builds on the management of time and temperature. The management of temperature in the fermentation process was the major technological innovation of the 1980s, and it was done by controlling the temperature when the juice was in the metallic tanks. By destemming in the field, the temperature control is expanded to go beyond the cellar and can, in this sense, be seen as a radical process innovation.

There are different practices, where some are clearly related to technology and knowledge of machinery, and others are tied to the process of organisation of the production. Specifically in the wine sector, there are very different levels of technology improvement and innovation. It is a range from large government-funded water projects (De Bortoli), and exploitation of residuals as skins (Matarromera) to buying new machinery at smaller wineries. Innovation in wine production can be seen as a process where experimentation and formal knowledge are mutually interdependent and intertangled [20]. At the individual level in smaller wineries, this is also a part of the improvisation [22], where the entrepreneurs are “reworking precomposed material and designs in relation to unanticipated ideas conceived, shaped, and transformed” ([24], p. 544). An example of such Improvisation could be the movement of destemming equipment to the field as Perez outlined above.

5. Innovation in winemaking: happy accidents

Some of the wineries are involved in different kinds of innovations or experimentation in the winemaking process. The main new fermentation technology is old by now and found everywhere with the temperature adjusting steel tanks. However, other aspects call for experiments on fermentation, blending and ageing.

These are much more difficult to get a clear answer from the respondents, as it is much more a discussion of who are involved. It is a field where experiments take place, but they rarely define these issues as new methods.

5.1 Fermentation

Controlled fermentation seems to be pretty standardised now, e.g., Lukacs sees temperature management “as the second most important technological innovation in the entire history of wine, following only the invention of securely sealed glass bottle” ([14], p. 227). Temperature control is used during fermentation but also afterwards to stabilise the wine.

In a market of fresh wines based on Verdejo using commercial yeast, Javier Sanz develops luxury wine based on maceration with long skin contact. For the avant-garde of Rueda, like the two old family firms, Javier Sanz and Antonio Arrévalo, it has become obvious that the next step in their innovation strategy is to develop wines that aim for the market above 10 euro:

Antonio Arrévalo:… If we talk about prices, if we talk of the products that are in the market now, we can find a verdejo wine at 1-1,50 euros. … you do not take care of the integral palate, nor the acidity which for me is very important.

Interviewer: By all means, the nose, no?

Arrévalo: Exactly, exactly. Well they have gone for the nose. They have been after the special aromas and have used banana, passion fruit, apples and they have forgot about the primary aroma, that is the terrain, the minerals, forgot the mouth most importantly, that a wine is long, that it is powerful, that it has a good degree (of alcohol), and a good balance between degree and acidity. Well like that … (Arrévalo, Rueda).

Even though we have observed steel tanks with temperature control everywhere, even with the smallest wine producer, not all wine is treated in these steel tanks. Westend Estates Wines, which is a pretty large winery, uses 60-year-old open concrete fermenters, which are used today for premium red wines.

Also in Chateau Roseline and Triennes they use concrete tanks for some table wine, even if the temperature control is not as good as in the steel tanks, but there are other benefits, as they can stir the solid part of grapes in the liquid (pigeage).

Also the time to ferment with the skin is used for experiments, and a specially strong and concentrated wine:

Dor: Le Grand Foudre 2012 is based on Merlot, experiment of fermenting in a large wooden tank for 3 weeks, and then clean the mass and skin and back to the tank again. It is very concentrated, and I only make this every 2nd year. (Dor, Var).

Both French cases are based on experiments with skin contact and pigeage. This is a very clear effort to create certain aromatic flavours for special wines.

A very different innovative or entrepreneurial effort exposed by Gerald Naef from Patina Wines (Orange) is his “Tea Riesling,” which he describes as a “happy accident”:

I think that’s the way I approach my winemaking and like to approach it, is thinking the process through. I’m intrigued by different flavours in the wine and just saying, “How would that work with the wine that I’m making? What would it look like?” Yes, just have fun experimenting with it. The most innovative wine that I’ve got is the one that I call the ‘Sticky Tea Riesling’.

That one, I also call it my ‘happy accident’. There’s a part of its success that I couldn’t predict; I couldn’t predict that it was going to turn out that way. What I’ve got is I got tea characters out of the skins of white grapes. Normally from white grapes you do not get tea characters, you get bitter characters from skins, so that part was really unknown for me.

What it was, was being a small producer, at the time I made my first Sticky Tea Riesling I only had a basket press. Even some of your bigger wineries, their premium fruit they do in a basket press because it is very gentle, but you never get as much juice from the grapes. In Riesling grapes, the juice is tightly bound inside the flesh and so it’s hard to get a lot of juice out of Riesling.

With a basket press being a gentle press, I was always only getting probably about two thirds of what I could potentially get out of the grapes. Then I was always dumping the skins out on my wife’s compost heap out of the press, knowing that I was losing this 20/30%, whatever, of juice.

In 2009, the first one that I made after I dumped them out of the press, I just on a whim decided to just sprinkle some yeast over the top of the skins. Then I shoved them back into the winery for five days, and then I took them out and pressed them again.

I really thought that I was just postponing the trip to the compost heap, because I fully expected it to be bitter, but it wasn’t; the tannins that extracted from the skins were not bitter at all, they were just drying and then it reminded me of tea.

Then a little bit of creativity had to come in, because what do you do with a white wine that tastes like tea? I’ve never tasted wine like that before (laughter). I thought, “Iced tea is a very good drink.”

I just decided from that that because I could take some honey characters and some citrus characters in there that I’d just stop the ferment very early while it was quite sweet and make an iced tea wine, basically.

It typically is only around 8 or 9% alcohol and the rest… It has a potential, if it fermented all the sugar to alcohol, it had the potential of getting to 12/12.5% alcohol. Yes, so just the combination of sulphur, using a little bit of sulphur and putting it in very cold storage in the freezer room, I’m able to stop the ferment and then just release it as the wine and let in residual sugar.

It’s a huge success; people love it. (Naef, Orange).

This is an innovation in the winemaking and targeting a market for lower alcoholic wine. The fermentation process and experimentation resulted in something quite new. The quotation exemplifies what Gherardi and Perrotta [37] call formativeness. Naef is combining playfulness, experimentation, materiality, tactility while forming the object of practice (ibid). In the quote, it is clear than the object of practice is being done as Naef is practising in a sequence where knowing and doing are intertwined and even the name of the wine is subject to its formation.

Gerald Naef is also experimenting with the Riesling, where he experimented with “stirring lees up to add texture to lengthen the palate.” This was an effort in spite of what they had told him at the university, warning to have Riesling with lees contact, and shows an entrepreneurial and innovative experimentation.

In Domaine la Bégude, we found a surprisingly red rosé and Mr. Tamayan explained that they obtain this through having a longer skin contact than rosés would normally have in the area. “We have decided not to follow the fashions of the pale rosé.” The very clear strategy to create the skin contact in order to get a different profile from others is an innovation effort.

The experimentation is mostly within the process of stirring (pigeage) and how the skin contact is used for the flavour and for the colour. The most innovative process is the production of the “sticky tea Riesling,” as it involved a new process of getting more juice and flavour out of the skins after the first soft pressing. Also it fits well with the effort to cater for a market for low alcohol wine.

It is surprising that the old cement tanks have been re-introduced both for special good wine in Australia and for table wine in South of France. The testing at the lab seems to be supplemented by expert tastings in all areas as the laboratory testing is not seen as sufficient.

5.2 Lighter tasting wines with lower alcohol percentage: managing tactility

Wine is tied to fashion and trends, and to the type of food the wine is paired with that is subject to fashion. This creates a pressure on certain types of wine. This is a clear case of market-driven innovation. In the very hot areas of Australia, the level of alcohol has been pretty high going to 14.5 or 15%. It has been a discussion in both Australia and Spain that the change in food demands wines with less alcohol:

Tyrrell’s: One of the great things for us in this area is, you know, our Hunter wines are lighter and more delicate; they are cleaner, they are lower alcohol, so they really work with Asian food. Where, say if you go to a McLaren or other areas they are heavier.

The thing is, if you eat most Asian food, and the heavy reds are awful there, because they do not, you know, they are not cleaning your palate. They’re overwhelming what you are eating.

Wine is supposed to complement the food. It’s supposed to leave your palate fresh, ready for the next mouthful, not attack it with a baseball bat…. This is what the Americans call “food replacement wines.” (Tyrrell’s, Hunter Valley).

This is interesting as a market-driven innovation and relates to the great export adventure of Casella Wines for the American market. They bought a great number of the most popular wines in the US, studied them and worked on making a fit within the price category of $10 ([39], p. 125).

Bodegas Fariña is commercialising many different types of wine under the DO Toro and Vinos de la Tierra. They have introduced wines that “respect the fruit.” Rosa Zarza, oenologist bound in Toro, has also used green-harvesting in many of the Toro vineyards where she is working. This is done to develop Toro wines that are less heavy and more fruit-driven to meet a market demand. In this respect, Manuel Perez from Bodegas Fariña is also seriously considering introducing a de-alcoholised (5% alcohol) frizzante style of wine.

This is a new trend, and both in the Spanish and the Australian area, wines traditionally have been quite heavy and with a high level of alcohol. The market has changed as food has changed, and we had several wineries who were concerned with the effort to get high quality and taste but with lower levels of alcohol. This may be difficult and a dilemma, as in hot summers the sugar is rising much more than the flavours.

5.3 Blending

Even if blending is not mentioned in any kind of innovation or differentiation strategy, the blending is mentioned as “the magic moment,” which is important for the family owners, for oenologists and for the big decisions on how to make the best wine. It is often stressed that this is an important moment and a practice where the owners have to participate. This is also the place for experiments of how to mix different types of grapes, which is a clear example of tacit knowledge. The magic moment is both relational as it gives owners a chance to raise their opinions and a moment where past experiences are compared with the technical language of the development of the taste of the unfinished wine.

Blending is much more elaborated in Australia. The larger wineries have vineyards in many different places and may use the grapes from hot areas to mix with the cooler climate types of grapes. They always indicate the types of grapes on the bottles, whereas the region is not always mentioned. The blending in France has a lot of restrictions, both regionally and in terms of types of grapes, if they want to be AOC certified:

Tyrrell’s: We’ve been through the thing here, the Chardonnay boom, the Sauvignon Blanc boom, which has been unbelievable in this country. I reckon the next one’s a white, that’s clean and fresh, but got some fragrance and a bit of complexity. We’ve actually got a wine that’s a blend of seven different varieties, one of which is Pinot Noir, decolourised Pinot Noir, which makes it smell like strawberries. It’s fantastic. (Tyrrell’s, Hunter Valley).

Blending is also suitable for making sure of a certain level of standardisation. In the case of Casella, the winemakers are specialists, and they use standardisation as a strategy, and it takes a special experience to do this tacit knowledge for sameness or standards:

Les Worland: For us, with Yellow Tail, which in Australia is a $10 or $11 product, it has got to taste the same and we do blends of millions of litres, 10, 11, 12 million litres at a time and that has got to taste the same.

I mean, I’m a winemaker; I’ve got a wine making qualification but for these guys, the expertise is to get it to taste the same. Now, for us, we do it with, as I said, 35 other winegrowing areas so we are blending options from cool, warm, hot regions to make that taste the same. (Worland. Riverina).

In Domaine de Triennes the winemaker Remy Laugier is discussing how his role is in the blending:

Laugier: so our barrels where we keep all the cepage (grape variety), grapes are kept separated. Syrah, cabernet sauvignon, especially because we know now our best part, so we keep the different part separated. Then after one year of growing here, we put it then back in the tank. And blend after tasting……That is when the chefs comes in and we have to argue, exchange views. (Laugier, Var).

Also in Tempier the family owners and the director are important in the blending, and are always present for the tasting and decisions on how to blend, and what should be the 1-2% other than Mourvèdre.

Rosa Zarza has a strong focus on cellar work; however autonomous in most of the work in the vineyard does always include the owners of a winery in picking the right blend. However, they usually follow her advice, as they trust her judgement and market knowledge.

The blending and the decisions for further treatment are considered the “Magic Moment,” where family owners and winemakers are innovation drivers. The effort is very different whether the goal is the best wine, finding the special characteristics of the winery, or as in Casella the purpose is to get the same taste as last year. The “magic moment” is hard to explain, and it is a classic example of tacit knowledge [19, 36], where taste and feelings are a fundamental part of this. The blending has long consequences, as the result is only to be known much later approximately ½-1 year. What is central here is not a proper realisation, as Gherardi and Perrotta [37] found, but rather a respect for the uncertainty of such experimentation that involves living organisms.

6. The use of professional winemakers

In all the Australian cases except one the winemaker is either the owner or employed at the winery. Some of the wineries also take in grapes from small growers and produce their wine for them. Basically, they emphasise the role and skills of the winemaker as the “Chef du cuisine” and the rockstar.

This is less the case in the European samples. When we talk with the daily manager of the winery, who are winemakers in Domaine de Triennes and Domaine la Bégude they also put less emphasis on the winemaker’s role. Both Chateau de Roseline and Tempier have oenologists employed, but do not stress their role as in the Australian cases. They more often employ winemakers as consultants, and their names are not mentioned on the bottle or homepage.

In Domaine Jas d’Esclan the winemaker is a consultant who has experience from other wineries and is not involved in the vineyard. They stress that the knowledge of the markets is used in the winemaking. Val d’Iris started using the consultant a lot but use him now on a less frequent basis.

Also in Spain the oenologists are often working outside the firm. The purpose of hiring an external oenologist is twofold. To make the blend and give guidance and very importantly to provide knowledge about the market to the viticulturist:

Interviewer: And the oenologist he, since how long is he working with you? As a starter you only had the knowledge of your father, right?

Arrévalo: Well, we have always had people who helped us, from other wineries or oenologists, but little by little, after 20 years of making wine you get the ideas, your way of making your wine and well, what I missed in terms of chemistry, the thing about laboratory analysis well that is supplemented by a person. And a bit of market knowledge, how the tendencies are, or what I want, that is a bit what I do. (Arrévalo, Rueda).

The winemaker is the expert on the whole process of growing vine, grapes, fermentation, blending and the chemical processes during the whole production process. In Australia the winemaker is the Chef and the hero, and in some cases nearly a “Rockstar.” The role is highlighted and the name may be on the homepage to show his/her reputation. In France and Spain, however, she/he is an expert consultant. Australia has been developing wine educations, and wineries have this competence in house in most cases. The more traditional wineries in Europe stress the power and competence in house, but the need for some consultant expertise, who also bring some experience from other wineries and the market. In two cases in France, the winemaker is employed and running the winery. Generally, this is a role closely tied to the winery, even if it is an external consultant, she will be part of the local practice. But even with professional assistance, the tacit knowledge of both owners and oenologists is emphasised. To conclude, the external winemaker at times goes beyond her role as a technical advisor to become part of the learning organisation of the winery.

7. Discussion of innovation and entrepreneurial practice

Why is the wine field so special as compared to other agricultural areas? The wineries seem to have a very strong feeling of identity with the quality of their wine and often with the region as a hint of terroir or a regional-based quality stamp like AOC/DO. There is very limited reference to customers and marketing. The way of identifying what is quality is not uniform, and in their stories, the agricultural cultivation of grapes plays a very important role in the wine production. The selection of grapes and the treatment of grapes and use of water and fertilisers are emotionally explained; why they are so important. Only when asked, the process of winemaking in the winery is described.

We have tried to illustrate where in the wine production innovations or entrepreneurial practice is taking place. We have shown several examples of entrepreneurial practice and experiments to illustrate the research question, “how does constant experimentation contribute to the practice of innovation in wineries?”

Most of the existing innovation analysis is based on the regional support structures. The R&D and oenological development support in Australia seemed to be important, and the development of institutional competence and regional oenological expertise appear to have an impact and are more dominant than referred in our European cases. In a later article, Aylward et al. [40] emphasise how South Australia “has successfully integrated the core ingredients of viticulture, oenology and the organisational and marketing requirements into a highly evolved mix of innovation activity” ([40], p. 46), and that Victoria and New South Wales have less developed clusters (ibid.). This is also the main focus for Farias and Tatsch [1] in Brazil, where they find that the Serra Gaucha region has a well-developed innovation structure, yet when asked, respondents claim that 95% of the innovations are conceived within the wineries.

We have found that drivers for innovation might be at the local level (as also indicated by Farias and Tatsch [1]), such as the scientific laboratory of Matarromera studying how to treat the soil, how to use the skin of grapes, to experimentation with skin contact and how the skin is involved in the fermentation.

In relation to innovation and need for new methods, there are many informants who emphasise the uncertainty of wine production, both in relation to the climate and seasonal changes, and the winemaking. For understanding the processes of innovation and experimentation, this time perspective is fundamental. You may be able to adjust something, and you may blend or add other flavours, but experimentation in the early stages is quite determining for the later result. Here the entrepreneurial actions are revealed in the practice of the wine producers. With the high uncertainty of the outcome of experiments, it resembles more drastic innovation processes, even if it is based on existing knowledge and competence.

It is a challenge to ask for innovation and change in a sector so much dominated by the great stories of tradition and quality, and where very many of the owners are in old family firms, where the great grandfather and the grandfathers have been establishing the winery. Family and tradition have been quite dominating in the French and Spanish firms, but also in some of the Australian firms, where some present owners are fourth generation. This emphasis on the traditional values and qualities however does not mean that they are not developing and experimenting. They act like entrepreneurs and try new methods. Some are very well organised and work on technological changes, and some are playful in their experimentation, trying new ways and new types of wine in a process that resembles entrepreneurship by improvisation [22].

Even if they do not want to relate to the concept of innovation, the effort to “distinguish and differentiate” themselves from other local winemakers is easily understood, and gives a good response on what they do, as they compare their wines to others’.

The wineries build on existing knowledge in the tradition and a strong identity as winemaker, but also lean on chemical knowledge as, e.g., the oenologist as the knower. Most innovation processes are clearly incremental and build on existing knowledge but with some new methods or adaptation of technology and product, which is seen as a personal strategy and effort of experimentation. But a few are experimenting, such as Naef when he creates lees contact with Riesling, against the university knowledge.

When we stress the entrepreneurship and the practice in wine production, it is because we have been asking about “how they do differently,” i.e., their practice of experimenting. It is not innovation at a macro or regional level but an effort to make better wine in all the parts of the complex process from agriculture to winemaking. It is the individual level strategy and practice we wanted to address. In this perspective, we have found experimentation and playfulness in an entrepreneurial approach, which has been convincing.

Peter Drucker stresses that “Entrepreneurship is neither science nor arts, it is practice” [38]. Johannisson concludes “hands-on action and concrete practice for very good reasons dominate everyday life in entrepreneurial firms” [41]. If entrepreneurship is practice and the effort to be open to serendipity in an iterative process, such as also in the process perspective in Sarasvathy’s theoretical approach on entrepreneurship as effectuation and practice [27], then it fits better with the behaviour and explanations we observe in the field. It is a step-by-step experimentation as a strategy for innovation and improvement, which answers our research question. In this way, the present study adds to the knowledge in the field on how playfulness and experimentation form the nucleo of innovation in wineries.

7.1 Experiments and playfulness under conditions of uncertainty

Wine production is very complex and involves many processes from agriculture, to fermentation to blending and ageing. It is a process of risky experiments, as the time period to get results is so delayed.

The high level of uncertainty, which is embedded in innovation and in climate dependent production, is at play here. Many wineries do not have irrigation and are thus highly dependent on the weather. Also the efforts in the fermentation, as Naef puts it: “Wine is a complex soup of molecules.” Thus, they can experiment with certain wines from time to time but have to keep most of the wines stable to secure a permanent income. But we find that they all talk about the experiments with such engagement, as they find it highly challenging and exciting. It appears to be a playful experimentation, and the happiness if it works is obvious. Such as describing the “happy accident,” this is not an accident but an effort to try to get a new taste out of the skins after the first pressure. This is a clear innovative experimentation, which created a new successful product.

The winemakers in Australia compare themselves to “Chefs” in the kitchen, but they emphasise: “winemakers, we’re kind of like chefs with a lot of patience; instead of putting it in the oven and the next day or the next hour learning how it turned out, we’ve got to wait for a whole year” (Naef, Orange). This is underlining the emphasis on uncertainty and the perception of entrepreneurial practice.

Ann D’or experimented with longer fermentation with the skin in the red wines, and managed to get a much stronger and concentrated red wine, than the other local wineries. Her special experiment takes more effort in the winemaking process to get her high quality-high price wine: “Le Grand Foudre,” and she only does this every second year. The way the technology and methods are discussed is very much like technological actors are understood in an Actor-Network-Theory perspective [42].

The many laboratory tests on the grapes and the juice in the tanks are in all cases supplemented by tastings and visual judgement. When winemakers explain how they experiment or innovate a good procedure, it is attached to the judgement of the type “I can do it again” in the sense of Schutz [43]. They need new methods to evaluate sugar content and acidity, but they all talk about the necessity for tasting and their use of tacit knowledge and tactility. In the blending, it is a sacred moment to estimate the quality, sense the feeling and colour and find the “magical moment.” The family and owners are always part of this. It is not left to the oenologists, whether employed or consultants.

Experiments in vines and types of grapes were found in all areas. This is a long process as growing new vines takes time to mature for proper grape production. But quite many do experiment with new types of grapes; first, within a small area, and if it works, it can be expanded. The efforts are analysed well before comparing the local soil and climate to find other types of grapes that will fit the area. This can be the Gewürtztraminer (Sweetapple), the Riesling (Naef), the Viognier (Dolle) or the Mourvèdre, which is known to be best close to the coast (Christine). These types of grapes are not found before in the area, and it is a deliberate strategy to create a different profile of wine than the local competitors. However, most of the cases are experiments, and in the description, they tend to a certain playfulness in the exploration of new types of grapes for blending.

All in this sample of the smaller wineries, which are in the middle range of wine, i.e., good wine, but not the cheap table wine or the extraordinarily very expensive wine, emphasise the effort to reduce chemicals and pesticides. Many are very close to organic production but hesitate to call it such, as they perceive the US market as “impossible to live up to the standards.” In some cases, the owners say that it does not contribute to the marketing to be organic. We find many efforts of experimentation and improvisation within this field, but also a lot of frustrations as they find too many barriers and limitations and that what they can do is not sufficient for their perception of what should be organic production. The whole discussion of organic is more like a very competent assessment of the many constraints in organic production and the way they try to create a practice that matches their philosophy of organic production. However, they are not very happy with the existing solutions, and they accept the necessity still to use sulphur, even if they are experimenting to find new solutions.

Some, however, work on tradition, where they never went into the use of chemicals, such as Jas D’Esclan. Traditional agriculture from before the Second World War was organic. In this way, tradition and novelty in demand are coupled.

The improvisation and playfulness in most of the aspects of winemaking are closely tied to routines and tradition in most parts of the winemaking stories. There are many routines and similar traits of winemaking, but how they include experiments and innovation often in a “corner” of their practices is usually told with a high level of engagement and humour, as if these aspects are the interesting part of the winemaking process. The playfulness of experimentation and improvisation forms the creativity of the entrepreneurs in winemaking. Just like in the study of Gherardi and Perrotta [37], we have found empirical evidence for playfulness in how the winemakers experiment in every phase of viticulture and winemaking.

We find that most innovation efforts in the data are examples of playfulness in a craftsmanship setting. The knowledge that is needed for being playful in such a setting has strong connotations of tacitness. The tension between explicit and tacit knowledge in the innovation process is seen in the strive towards educational efforts and me-too innovation and yet most of the innovation process is described as being playful and experimenting in a craftsmanship setting where only actors that are immersed in the community of practice are involved [19]. The question whether to have a winemaker employed at the winery or to have an external consultant is rephrased into: Do we want an oenologist working closely with the winery in both the field and the cellar? The wineries that stress playfulness and experimentation are all nodding affirmatively to this question. Only by being a member of the community of practice can the winemaker gain the tacit knowledge that is essential for improvisation and playfulness. Because the knowledge is so tacit, the “magic moment” needs people with experience of repetitive practice to form patterns to see if the blends are typical or deviant [36].

The engagement and efforts to do something different, even without knowing the result, are clear in many of the quite entrepreneurial wineries. They explain that the result is extremely uncertain but try to make new combinations or methods. When we call it playfulness, it is because of the eager engagement of the entrepreneurs and their identity feeling as entrepreneurs [44], as well as the way they describe the process as exciting or playful. The way they proudly describe the experiments and their joy when they succeed makes us use the concept of playfulness. In this sense, the entrepreneurs in the wineries expose traits of homo ludens; while, for a while, hiding their homo economicus [11].

7.2 Technology and process innovation

The range of technological development and innovation is very large. One firm in Spain participates in very large EU projects both in agriculture and in developing other products from the vine. One firm is very innovative in the water and recycling of chemicals. But most are to be considered early adopters and have different ways of organising and creating smaller changes. New technology such as steel containers to control temperature is found everywhere now, but old cement open containers may supplement, even in very advanced wineries, such as Triennes in Var, France or in Westend Estates Wines (Riverina), where the 60-year-old open cement containers were used for premium wine. The open cement containers allow for the possibility to use tactility and stir the juice with the skins and watch the process. They emphasised that it is not rocket science, yet often unpredictable.

Some of the owners and employees are trained in technology and focus on technology and machines. This is true in some of the cases in Australia and Spain, where viticulturists are developing machinery. Also, the effort to innovate the water cleaning system is found in one of the very large producers (DeBortoli in Riverina). This is a case of a clearly defined problem, and a planned large-scale radical innovation project, which is recognised by Government funding. It covers a range of method development in cleaning water and recycling potassium and represents a very different and well-planned method to innovation. Such process innovation within climate, water and recycling chemical additives is quite exceptional. It is only possible in very large wineries, like in bodegas Matarromera, Ribera del Duero and DeBortoli, Riverina, where an engineer specialising on this has the possibility of running such a large innovation project.

Perez has turned around some of the challenges in the harvesting, where he identifies a problem of time from harvesting to the tanks in the winery. He has changed the organisation of the harvesting and transport process by moving the de-stemmers and tanks to the field to shorten the time from harvesting to tanks. He has developed the machinery adaptation himself (Perez, Toro). This is a very original and innovative organisational process, involving some technological adaptation and renewal as well. It is a good example of process innovation, where Bodegas Fariña has identified a problem of grapes crushing and starting the fermentation while still on their way to the winery after being harvested. Technology-minded entrepreneurs use their engineering background for measuring water humidity along the roots of vines in different layers of soil (Perez and Zarza), and as we can see, the new technology may reveal for the oenologist whether the grape-grower is irrigating or not. Bodegas Matarromera had big European research projects on how to create irrigation by drops in the most efficient way.

These types of technological innovations are important and technology-driven. They are very different from some of the other locally developed experiments.

The irrigation issue is seen to vary in different regions and by different growers. In some of the areas in Orange, in France and Spain they emphasise that they do not irrigate at all or in certain periods. For some, this is because they do not have water access, and for some, it is an ideology or, in several cases, such restrictions by the AOC/DO. In these cases, the distance control of humidity becomes an important innovative method.

Both activity theory and sociology of translation (or Actor Network Theory) recognise the importance of describing the network features of action, but they disagree in how they come about. Activity theory focuses on culture and historical paths, whereas the sociology of translation gives importance to humans and non-human elements ([20], p. 682). In the field of wine, it is imperative to give explanatory power to both forms of causality. Machinery and technology in the vineyard and the cellar shape the way knowing in practice is constituted in the community of practice. Simultaneously, the tradition of how to do things strongly influences how knowing in practice is done. This is more dominant in the wine sector than other agricultural sectors because of the strong positive associations a winemaker or viticulturist can make by connecting to local tradition. A study design of practice in the wine sector would have to cater to both research traditions.

8. Conclusion

The innovation and entrepreneurial practice in the wine sector is a very complex pattern, everywhere, with aspects of experimentation and entrepreneurial practices in different parts of the wine production. As we do not have a representative sample in the three countries, standardised comparisons are meaningless.

There has been an emphasis among the wineries to focus on the practice in the viticultural aspects, and they describe how they deal with different types of experiments with different kinds of grapes, which are unusual in the area, or working on organic or nearly organic production. The interviews have emphasised how the interviewees focus on the doing of practices rather than the intentionality of those practices [20]. The effort to do organic production is full of challenges, and even with these challenges of the technology, very few use organic features in marketing.

Our results lean towards innovation that could be labelled as “creative” yet tactile, where existing practices are put together in new relational patterns [11]. The experimentation is quite entrepreneurial and an interesting feature in such a traditional sector. The practice of wineries is in focus, and the entrepreneurial practice seems to be a promising way of explaining innovation in the wine sector. Such practice-based explanations could include empirical data with longer field observations and focus on the relation between knowledge, objects and participants in wine-growing and -making.

In our material, winemaking is represented by the interviewees in such a way that the knowing and doing of wine practices are inseparable [20]. When the viticulturist speaks about managing sunlight to get the right amount of leaf shadow to the grapes, it is a practice that is embodied in the work, where knowledge is embedded in the culture and savoir faire of doing and undoing the same practices over and over again with different grapes under varying climatic circumstances. This is learning by doing in an improvisation.

Our contribution is to show how experimentation and practices of innovation take place in the wineries. This is an illustration of how the practice of innovation is performed at the individual level in the innovation process.

Wine production is a very complex process; experimentation and innovations can be found in several aspects of the production process, from viticulture to winemaking. Experimentation is to be found in the cellar, where the winemaker engages in playfulness to improve the wine. We have seen that the quality wineries manage their portfolios of wine in such a way that some wines are cash cows, a certain part of the production is saved for playing around with. There is never a stand-alone rational management in the wineries. Playfulness and improvisation are always an integrated part of day-to-day practices when the owners and winemakers are engaged in the long quest for a wine commercial.

There is a need for further research on strategies to act entrepreneurial in wine production and the regional differences between these strategies. We still know too little about practice, improvisation and playfulness in wine production.