Art Versus Craft: A Journey Into Wine

For fifteen years, I sold art for a living. As an art dealer, I was trained to think almost entirely in hierarchies: blue-chip or emerging, a collector wearing a Patek or a Rolex or the size of an art fair stand. Luckily, I had the luxury of selling artwork – namely photography – which I truly loved. (Any former clients reading this should sleep easy!)

Still, loving the work never quite kept my internal ranking system at bay. This instinct was partially rooted in the daily rat race against my fellow art dealers. However, at its core was the age-old debate over the value of art versus craft. In my mind, the distinction not only mattered, but justified the very hierarchical paradigm that made me successful in my previous career.

At its core was the age-old debate over the value of art versus craft.

By the time David approached me to co-found Encountr, I had already started dismantling much of this paradigm. A brief stint in art x tech and one published book later, my perspective was shockingly democratised. So when David’s appeal for a partner and strategist in what started as NewCo reached my desk, I saw an opportunity to build a company with values related to people instead of products. What I did not expect was how quickly the wine world would pull me straight back into the very product-centric debate I thought I had left behind. Because if there is one thing every winemaker, sommelier and collector I have met agrees upon, it is a reverence for their craft. Dare I say, that this reverence, among other things, elevates it to the level of art.

Many of those involved in wine making or even wine pairing might refuse the title of artist. This is less about modesty than precision. They know exactly what they are doing and exactly how hard it is to do it well. Even with predetermined, though bespoke, formulas, industry professionals must contend with unpredictable changes to the climate, to daily shifting tariff wars, sometimes even to the whims of script writers and their audiences. (Please forgive the Sideways reference.) Those involved in the making, aging and tasting of wine rather earn the word ‘artist’ through the doing than claim it through the label.

Those involved in the making, aging and tasting of wine rather earn the word ‘artist’ through the doing than claim it through the label.

A certain wine maker once said to me ‘If I’d been born elsewhere, I might have been growing cauliflower’. Something in that landed. The whole apparatus of appreciating wine – its nuance, its terroir, the passion of makers and drinkers alike – suddenly felt continuous with everything I had already learned to see in the art world. Skill and experience blend to become what in the art world we might call ‘technique’ ‑ derived from the Greek word techne, which means art and craft alike. What is termed taste in the art world is even more apt in the world of wine. What we call ‘having an eye’ for art is more akin to ‘having a nose’ for wine.

Skill and experience blend to become what in the art world we might call ‘technique’ ‑ derived from the Greek word techne, which means art and craft alike. What is termed taste in the art world is even more apt in the world of wine. What we call ‘having an eye’ for art is more akin to ‘having a nose’ for wine.

For readers who have never set foot in a winery, who have never smelled oak barrels or the sharp tang of a fermenting vat, never stood on a scrubbed concrete floor at six in the morning or looked down from a hillside onto rows planted three generations ago, it might be impossible to imagine the craft of winemaking as an artform. But it is a concept which truly unites the Encountr community: from its team, its investors, its customers and its partners.

For those from the art world in particular, it might look ironic that I pivoted toward an industry so overtly built on craftsmanship, as if that settles the debate in craft's favour. But the through-line was there from the start; I just had to leave the gallery to see it clearly. Art and craft were never really opposites. Craft is art's engine room. I have always been in the business of noticing craftsmanship and helping other people notice it too. First in photographs, then in digital code and now in a glass of wine. The vocabulary has changed. The reverence has not.

Valérie C. Whitacre