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Para no olvidar que vino he disfrutado. no olvidar que vino he disfrutado. Del blog ?Las blog en punto? extraigo esta interesante noticia que os reproduzco aquí para que tenga conocimiento de ella toda la comunidad de Turivino. A quién no le ha pasado que a la hora de elegir un vino para un regalo o una comida, le viene a la cabeza lo bueno que estaba aquella botella que nos sirvieron en la cena de fulanito, sí hombre, aquel reserva? ¿cómo se llamaba?? Que tenía un color rubí intenso? Estaba Mari Jose y también se quedó mara
Cavas Urbanas Urbanas Publicado por Esther Britos | Guardado en: Accesorios, Experiencias De Ocio, Iniciación al Vino | Sin comentarios Las cavas urbanas son algo desconocido en España aunque relativamente familiar en otros países. Los servicios que ofrecen estas cavas urbanas se centran en guarda y conservación de vino. Pueden ser muy útiles cuando se poseen botellas de valor y no se dispone de un lugar óptimo de conservación o se tienen muchas botellas y poco espacio, lo cual causaría un daño irrepa
I have been pointing out for years that the hardest thing about judging wine is remaining objective. I have shared my own techniques for eliminating variables, which include always using the same glass, and tasting in the same order. Now Stanford University has published a report that illustrates exactly what i have been trying to stress. It is easier to fool ourselves than we think.
The report demonstrates that telling someone the cost of a wine influences their perception of it. This is very similar to telling someone to not think about a barrel of monkeys. Plant the perception, put people in a position where they defer their own opinions to an expert or a supposed fact, and you can make them believe almost anything. This is exactly why I keep my eyes open for wine quackery.
I recently gave a series of lectures at the International Restaurant (and Nightclub and Hotel) Show in Las Vegas (a hello and thank you to al that attended). The show floor was awash new and wonderful gadgets, ideas and do-das. Not to mention half naked women pouring every kind of booze imaginable.
Among the eye and literal candy there were several vendors demonstrating their "wine enhancement" products. The ones I am going to harp on here are not those that rely on unknown metaphysical forces, if I haven't convinced you yet to ignore those, then you deserve them. No, this time I am going after the devices that help wine to aerate.
I have already debunked the expensive crystal glasses in an earlier blog, but even then I wondered how well known wine personalities could be so enamored of them as to lend their endorsement to the product packaging.
The earlier glasses and the aerating products at the show did indeed make a difference to the wine. A slight difference, and one that is easy duplicated without the cost and mess, by simply swirling the wine in your glass.
So why then do these products continue to sell? Or even more to the point why were the reps at the show so surprised that they couldn't win me over when so many others had been praising their products?
The parable of the Emperor's New Clothes is so important to our society that it has become part of our social consciousness, far outliving Hans Christian Anderson. In the story we are told that only those who are worthy can see the clothes. Since everyone wants to be worthy, they all claim to see the clothes, and even convince themselves of fine details that don't exist.
Tasting wine is an odd pursuit in that each of us to some degree doubts our abilities. We almost always ask others of their impressions, and the response can not help but taint our experience, in the barrel of monkeys tradition.
Hand someone a taste of wine and tell them it is worth a great deal of money, and they will think better of the wine. That is the crux of the Sanford research. Tell them your product has greatly improved the wine and when they do taste that there is a slight difference, they will elevate that difference in their minds in an attempt to be worthy of "seeing the Emperor's clothes."
This is human nature, and it is exactly why people have been selling snake oil since the dawn of time. The moral of my lesson is to trust your own abilities and sense of taste. Stand up for what you taste in wine, and don't worry if no one else ever tastes what you do. It is all subjective, and your opinion is exactly as valuable as mine (I just have a better chance of telling you how it stacks up to other wines of the class or value).
You don't need to run out and buy the latest gizmo to enjoy wine. Just open a few bottles and have fun with the contents therein. Take the money you saved on not buying that gadget and buy a bottle of wine you have never tried before. Good or bad, the education you get from that wine will almost certainly be a better value than the myriad wine enhancers that keep popping up.
The rep who was so dismayed that someone didn't find their product earth shattering left me with this retort: "Why then do so many wineries buy our product? They wouldn't buy something that doesn't work!" It is hard for me, but I will refrain from a lesson in logic and simply point out what my regular readers already know. Not everything that a winery does, or any other human endeavor does, works.
What a difference just six months has made in the price grape growers in California?s San Joaquin Valley are now being offered compared to spot prices paid at harvest last year.
Some SVJ varietal winery prices have doubled in six months.
Specifically, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 crop prices are double the $150 paid last season at harvest, and it is still six months until the 2008 harvest begins.
Thompson seedless growers can expect to get at least $50 per ton more than the $150 green spot market price offered last fall. For a 10-ton Thompson crop this represents at least an additional $500 per acre.
"In most films, the cast is comprised of seasoned actors who possess a vibrant screen presence and innate ability to charm the audience. But for a handful of movies in which wine itself plays a major role, we might as well add "mouthwatering" to the list of qualities a cast may claim. Encompassing major motion pictures, documentaries and even a mockumentary, our list of top films for wine lovers covers lots of territory - affording viewers plenty to digest when it comes to wine and the silver screen..."
List includes
Sideways * Mondovino * From Ground to Glass * French Kiss * A Good Year * Corked * A Walk In the Clouds * Bottle Shock * The First Emporer * The Jefferson Bottles
Greetings from Asia. I have begun my first tour of duty here in the Pacific Rim, and I started my trip off with a weekend in Shanghai. The fourteen plus hour flight did not seem so bad since I was able to sleep for close to nine hours of it; of course, that was only [...]
I found a really great site for custom wine racks. I found wineracks.com and I absolutely cannot decide which design I like best. They have a selection of smaller capacity wine racks that can store three to forty eight bottles of wine.
Wineracks.com has wine racks in both wood and metal. I?ve found several that suit my current needs and several that I wish my needs would suit! Some of the different styles are just simple stackable racks that assemble without tools. There are other wine racks that are elegant, solid oak racks with tabletop and stemware storage.
The twelve bottle modular wine racks are made of pine and can be configured in many different ways. There are kits available to add and expand these wine racks. Wineracks.com has this item listed for $22.50.
The Cha Cha Wine Racks sold by wineracks.com are made of colored plastic. They snap together with clips and come in four colors. The colors that the components for these wine racks come in are orange, light blue, green and white. Each color is sold separately for $22.50.
I was particularly taken with the Lisbon wall wine racks. They are black wooden wine racks that hold both bottles and stemware. Wineracks.com has the Lisbon wall wine racks listed for $69.00.
I am pretty sure that I do not want the Accordia wine racks that wineracks.com have for sale. My mother had one that looked like this when I was growing up and I always thought that it was ugly. I much prefer any other style.
The Bali fifteen bottle wine racks were inspired by contemporary Indonesian style. I like the wavy look of these wine racks. The price for the Bali wine racks is $96.00. These come in a natural color. There are also twelve bottle Bali wine racks that are $72.00 in either crimson color or black.
I do believe that my favorite wine racks have to be the cellar cubes. Wineracks.com has the cellar cubes in both unfinished Pine and Mahogany. The Mahogany cellar cubes sell for $59.95 and the Pine cellar cubes sell for $34.95. These wine racks require simple assembly and the holes are pre-drilled and the hardware is provided.
One of New York?s most renowned and important collectors celebrated his 50th birthday in fine fashion recently at Bouley?s private ?Test Kitchen? here in New York City. David was at the top of his game for the twenty-some-odd courses that came out. Although the tables were set, it ended up being more of a cocktail [...]
Our dinner at The Restaurant at Meadowood was lovely. The restaurant has a pleasant, relaxed décor which is still elegant. This casual elegance is reflected in the food from Chef Christopher Kostow. The meal was very enjoyable and we would happily return.
This Bordeaux Cotes De Bourg wine is another 05 value. It has a black cherry hue with tight fruit of black cherry and some raspberry notes with minerals and steel.
In the mouth this wine is sweet with some tannic structure, bready notes but needs to open. With breathing it is a tad hot but nice flavors and body with good structure and a good food wine. Buy this wine and two more to lay down for another year and reap the rewards. All this for only $14 so raise a glass to a great vintage!
Following the theme of my last post about Americans? increasing awareness of the quality wines that many artisan producers of Argentina are exporting, I?m pleased to post the first installment of my interview with Ed Lehrman of Vine Connections. Along with his business partner, Nick Ramkowsky, they formed a company that not only imports the wines of artisan Mendoza producers, but selectively forges meaningful, long term relationships with them. As Ed Lehrman explains in the interview, this type of involvement encompasses much more than shipping and distribution, extending into representation, consulting, label design and many other crucial aspects which in the end, bring American consumers the types of genuine artisan wines that multinationals couldn?t even conceive of delivering.
Based out of Sausalito, CA, Vine Connections has been at the forefront of the changing of the guard, in terms of tastes, that I described in my last post. Their portfolio includes excellent California, New Zealand and Japanese Saké producers, alongside the wines of star Mendoza winemakers Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevsky, along with others to look out for, such as Mapema, Tikal and La Posta del Viñatero. If you really want to know what Argentines really like to have at the table and moreover, the breadth that Argentine wines are capable of achieving, I encourage you to explore the types of artisan producers that Vine Connections represents and whose work, over the coming years, will ultimately triumph over the characterless, corporate-backed South American wines saturating our shelves.
I would like to thank Ed Lehrman for taking the time to provide his in-depth responses concerning Vine Connections, its vision and inspiration. Our conversation unfolded over e-mail:
*What is the vision behind your company and what were some of the key experiences that led you and your business partner to get started?
- My partner, Nick Ramkowsky, and I have both been in the wine business since 1986 (we started very young), and we could have done any number of things together. Nick was a small California distributor at the time, and I had just sold my direct-to-consumer wine business where he had been one of my suppliers. A fateful trip together in May of 1999 launched us into the importing/national sale & marketing business. We spent about a week in Mendoza on that trip tasting wines from bottle, barrel, tanks?you name it?and we met some incredible winery owners and winemakers. By the end of the week, we were looking at each other and asking, ?How does the 5th largest wine producer in the world hide incredible wines like these from the US?? It seemed like this must be the opportunity of a lifetime for wine guys like us to lead the charge in introducing Argentine wine to the US, and in a way that they would be fully appreciated for their quality and authenticity, and not just their price. As an aside, of the first 12 wines we imported from Argentina, the LEAST EXPENSIVE wine was $22 retail! So in fact, Vine Connections was originally formed in order to be an Argentine wine importer. *Compared to other importers, what is the depth of Vine Connection's involvement with the producers its represents? (in terms of consulting, marketing, other assistance, etc.)
- It is hard to speak about other importers, since some do quite a lot and some just taste and buy. As for us, we take the approach that we are the winery?s own sales & marketing department and they can use us for as little or as much as they need. That may mean writing back label copy, helping with label design, or determining whether a new blended wine is even a good idea to add to their portfolio.
For all of our wineries, we do the copywriting for all printed materials since we can communicate their stories in English more effectively, and along the same lines, we handle most press relations since we are here and readily available. And I guess the most valuable thing we do would be called ?consulting? since we offer our advice on many topics based on our 40 years of working in the U.S. wine biz. *How does your company forge relationships with producers? In this vein, what is the process like for you when considering an addition to your portfolio? Do the producers come towards you in the way of trade events, do you travel to areas to scout, so to speak, or some combination thereof?
- We are very careful in this regard since our objective as an importer is to build brands and not just sell wine. That requires long-term relationships, so besides tasting backwards and forwards through a winery?s production, we spend as much as time as we can with the owners and the winemakers to see whether there is a good fit for working closely together. When we meet people who already think they know it all about winemaking, marketing, etc., we politely walk away no matter the wine quality. Our initial screen is the wines?they have to be particularly good since that is what we are known for importing. Then we start talking about their philosophies, their dreams, their business objectives, and where we should all eat dinner together (a meal with a potential supplier is always a good way to gain more insight).
This process means that while we have run into some wines that we like, we have sometimes been unwilling to take the winery on. The most common stumbling block for us seems to be that the winery lacks a strong winemaking philosophy, and often because they have abdicated this cornerstone to a consulting winemaker (and most often to foreign winemakers). As time has passed, we have pretty much settled into the idea of only representing wineries owned by Argentines and with Argentine winemakers since the winemaking vision is usually clearer and more grounded in expressing what makes Mendoza so special compared to other regions.
From the first moment that we meet a winery team, it usually takes about 18 months before we come to an agreement, do the ground work, and then start selling the wines in the U.S. It seems to work--we have never lost an Argentine winery and every brand that we represent has achieved a significant level of success.
I wish I could say that finding these producers followed a particular recipe, but in truth, all of our brands have come to us via different sources. The key is to have your radar on all the time so that the best ones don?t slip by accidentally.
*You represent Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevsky's Dominio del Plata Winery?how did that relationship come about and how far back do you go?
- Well, if it weren?t for the ?dynamic duo? of Mendoza, we may never have been Argentine wine importers. We met them on our first trip to Mendoza in 1999, and they were so obviously talented and knowledgeable that they got us thinking a lot about the possibilities. We also formed a trusting relationship so quickly that it became obvious that we would work together, and together push forward a common vision of making Argentine wine part of the daily American fine wine conversation. That seems like an ominous task looking back now?we had no company yet and they were renting a very small winery at the time?but at the time it just seemed like destiny.
Scott Paul Wines is a boutique winery dedicated to producing ultra-premium Pinot Noirs from the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Proprietor and winemaker, Scott Paul Wright, came to winemaking as a second career. For thirty years, he had a career in the radio and music industries. As a disc jockey, his handle was “Shadow Stevens” and those of you from the East Coast remember him well. His financial success in the music world allowed him to cellar and drink good wine from an early age. As the music business became more and more a corporate-driven industry, Scott lost interest in continuing in that field, and left to learn winemaking.
Under the mentorship of Greg Le Follette and others, and taking inspiration from Burgundy, he developed his winemaking skills. After ten vintages in Oregon, he is now very comfortable with his career change.
I scraped myself up and out of Hong Kong to go grab the ferry to Macau. I later found out that helicopters are also available and a lot faster, although the boat trip wasn?t that bad, lasting only an hour. The ferries leave from Hong Kong every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, and [...]
For an entry level wine, this is extremely delicious. Crystalline and pure, this smells of a sticky childhood afternoon (with mustard fruit and toffee apple). Vibrant, juicy and precise, this should carry a dental warning and come in a bigger bottle. . .
Californian and American wine has lost one of its greatest leaders. Robert G. Mondavi, wine industry scion and founder of the the famous eponymous Napa winery passed away at the age of 94 on Friday, 05/16/08. Arresting and vibrantly engaging even towards the end, Mondavi is widely regarded as the greatest influence ...
The best kinds of cheap wines are the kinds that have a rich story behind them. Well, The Tillerman White wine brought to you by the Hook & Ladder Winery certainly fits the bill. At first glance this wine label made no sense to me… Hook & Ladder? The Tillerman? After doing some research, I feel enlightened knowing the origins of this fine cheap wine, so I’ll share:
The owner of the family-run Hook & Ladder, Cecil De Loach used to be a firefighter! “Hook and Ladder” is just another name for a firetruck. And The Tillerman is guy who drives the back end of a firetruck. A firefighter and a wine-maker! What a life!
I sampled several bottles of The Tillerman White, and I am glad I did. Not being a fan of white blends with a lot of oak, I enjoyed everything about this wine. The peach/apricot aroma was the most prominent feature of this wine as it approached my nose. The wine was very dry, tasty, had an awesome finish. Just a perfect all-around table wine. For about 16 bucks or less, this Sonoma County wine is a steal. If you see it in your supermarket, snatch it up! I look forward to trying some of their many other varietals. This same vineyard, the Russian River Valley produces Chardonay, Gewurztraminer, White Zin, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the “Third Alarm” Reserve Chardonnay. Oh, how I would love to visit the vineyard one day. Rating: 9/10 - Excellent! The only reason I’m not giving it 10 is because I promised my readers “cheap wines less than 15 dollars” and this wine retails for 16. Look around though, I’m sure you can find a good deal! Even if you can’t, it is worth the extra dollar.
Extra Info:Hook & Ladder - Founded in 2004 2027 Olivet Road Santa Rosa, CA 95401 phone: 707-546-5712
Innovation in wine tasting notes is a frequent topic across the wine blogs; little actually seems to develop with a universal attraction and most stick to the tired and tested written description refering to a wines flavour, length and so on. There is an article in this months Drinks Business that should interest all, sadly I can't find the article on their website.
Entitled 'An Artist's Palate' the piece details the work by artist Johnny Jonas. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the luminaries of the wine world let alone the sphere of portrait artists but Jonas has painted such people as the Queen Mother, a Field Marshall and sundry parlimentarians.
He has also developed a 'wine recognition system' that displays a wines flavour though graphical representation. He even refers to each finished piece as a 'portrait', which strikes me as typical artist pompousness but he has managed to encompass the strength of a wines aroma and whether the wine is soft and rounded or crisp and acidic.
The system is now refined and patented worldwide; not convinced myself that it is easy to 'see' the wine as yo can in, say, a photograph but then the information being imparted is more specific than a feeling or mood invoked by a picture. The final wine 'portraits' are quite complex but the premise is to display flavour in a graphical form which they certainly do. There is a 'scientific' overtone to the finished image.
The Drinks Business article finishes with an interesting thought:
If Jonas's thinking is just too blue-sky for us busy Westerners, consider for a moment the enormous potential of the Chinese wine market where people have been writing in 'pictures' for centuries."
Compassion and California wine-making skills have combined to create a home for 90 mentally disabled "students" of all ages and to craft some surprisingly good wine. Coco Farm, founded in the 1950s, has been making wine since the 1980s, using mentally-challenged students to tend the vines, harvest the grapes, and perform a range of responsibilities from labeling to scraring crows away from the vines. In 1989, the winery brought in Sonoma wine-maker, Bruce Gutlove and the quality of the wine has been improving. So much, in fact, that Coco Winery's sparkling wine, "Novo," was served at the recent G-7 Summit of world leaders.
Coco Farm and Winery is located about one hour north of Tokyo. Because of its small production-just 150,000 to 180,000 bottles annually-Coco wines are not available in the United States. However, the winery welcomes visitors and has a tasting room and cafe.
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This week I'm focusing on a pair of organic wines to highlight the increasingly wide range of options consumers have if they want to drink wine that has been made with organic grapes.
There was a time when wines made with organic grapes were difficult to find, but that is certainly not true any more. In fact, you are probably drinking wine made with organic grapes and not even realizing it. One of the things that has struck me is that some wines don't identify themselves as using organic grapes on their labels.
One of the reasons for this may be that current regulations require that a wine labeled "Organic" must not only be made with organic grapes, there must be no added sulfites. Sulfites are added to wines to help stabilize them for shipping and storage, so it's pretty hard to find a wine that is "Organic." It's far more common to find a wine that is made "with organic grapes." If you look at the tiny type at the bottom of the Jeriko label, you will see that it indicates that organic grapes were used. Wines labeled in this fashion have been made with certified organic fruit, but do have sulfites added for stability. If you want to find out more about organic wine, visit the Organic Wine Company and read up on their notes regarding how wines are classified.
My latest recommendation for a white wine made with certified organic grapes is the 2005 Jeriko Estate Chardonnay. ($19.99, WineQ) Jeriko Estate now uses only certified, organically grown grapes in their wines, all of which are grown in vineyards in Mendocino County. This was a creamy chardonnay that gets its body from partial malolactic fermentation in oak, and its crispness from a majority of fermentation time spent in stainless steel tanks. It was a pleasant bright straw in color, and had aromas of summer orchard fruits like pear and apple, and some late summer hay. The flavors you will find in this wine are of apples and cream, with a faintly buttery aftertaste. All in all, I found this a nicely made example of a creamy, California Chardonnay with good QPR. It will appeal to anyone who likes a richer style of chardonnay, but one that is still fresh and crisp.
With a wine like this, there is nothing better (in my opinion) than oven-fried chicken and slaw. I like the recipe for buttermilk-dipped, pan-browned, and oven-fried chicken from Cooking Light which tastes every bit as decadent as the real thing but leads to only a fraction of the guilt afterwards. The creamy, tangy buttermilk and caramelized flour coating is a perfect pairing for a creamy Chardonnay like this one. And for the slaw, do yourself a favor and try this one with dried cherries, sweetly spicy pecans, apples, cabbage, and a vinegar-based dressing. I cheated and picked up a package of already sweet and spicy pecans from Trader Joe's, and only used green cabbage, by the way, and it was fine. The apples in the slaw really pick up the apple notes in the Chardonnay.
As I get older I'm finding I care more and more about the environment. I stopped drinking bottled water, I'm buying a hybrid car, and I'm eating more organic, locally produced food. It's a good thing to be able to extend this philosophy into my wine drinking, with such tasty results.
Using bargain wines is often preferable for occasions when it would be unwise to to invest a large amount of money in expensive wine.
Do you really want to use top-notch red wine for making sangria or for serving up at parties, when friends have already had enough to drink? No, I didn't think so!
Drinking Bargain Wines
Blended wine is usually cheaper and a reasonable bet in terms of drinkability. As a general rule, Chilean blends are the cheapest option, although it's often worth paying that little bit extra for Australian blends. In fact, a number of Australian producers market two excellent blends at the lower end of the price spectrum, one white and one red. The red is a blend of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz and the white consists of semillon and chardonnay. Keep an eye out for these grape combinations, if you're after a bargain!
Another winner at the cheaper end of the market is Spanish Rioja (both red and white). As Rioja is usually less fruity than the previously mentioned blends it is generally better for serving with food, rather than drinking on its own.
Other Uses of Bargain Wines
Sangria
If you're making sangria, you need red quaffing wine - and lots of it. As sangria is made from red wine, sugar, fruit juice and spirits, the quality of the red wine becomes largely secondary. This is where boxed wines come into their own. Buy large boxes that are relatively cheap - no one will notice! Be sure to purchase reasonable quality fruit juice and don't go for the absolute cheapest wine as you may live to regret it, the following morning!
Large Parties and Receptions
When serving wine to a large party, cost is obviously important. As a rule, boxed whites are generally more palatable than boxed reds, so if want to trim costs, anywhere, buying cheaper white wine may be a safer option.
A great way to improve boxed red wine is to add a reasonable quality bottle of red wine. Provided that you choose the correct bottle of red, this can make an impressive difference to the taste. Of course, you do need some suitable decanters or serving carafes and a little patience to pull this one off, successfully.
Finally, choose your nibbles wisely. Plain potato chips will do little to help you disguise a poor wine. Instead opt for a selection of cheeses, as they will enhance the flavor of even the cheapest of wines.
About the author: Since Neil Best first pondered the question, Who made the first wine anyway? he's been recording his findings at http://www.goodglug.comFind about your favorite wine regions, wine recipes, and speciality wines along with how it's made and how best to store it for maximum enjoyment
Following the theme of my last post about Americans? increasing awareness of the quality wines that many artisan producers of Argentina are exporting, I?m pleased to post the first installment of my interview with Ed Lehrman of Vine Connections. Along with his business partner, Nick Ramkowsky, they formed a company that not only imports the wines of artisan Mendoza producers, but selectively forges meaningful, long term relationships with them. As Ed Lehrman explains in the interview, this type of involvement encompasses much more than shipping and distribution, extending into representation, consulting, label design and many other crucial aspects which in the end, bring American consumers the types of genuine artisan wines that multinationals couldn?t even conceive of delivering.
Based out of Sausalito, CA, Vine Connections has been at the forefront of the changing of the guard, in terms of tastes, that I described in my last post. Their portfolio includes excellent California, New Zealand and Japanese Saké producers, alongside the wines of star Mendoza winemakers Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevsky, along with others to look out for, such as Mapema, Tikal and La Posta del Viñatero. If you really want to know what Argentines really like to have at the table and moreover, the breadth that Argentine wines are capable of achieving, I encourage you to explore the types of artisan producers that Vine Connections represents and whose work, over the coming years, will ultimately triumph over the characterless, corporate-backed South American wines saturating our shelves.
I would like to thank Ed Lehrman for taking the time to provide his in-depth responses concerning Vine Connections, its vision and inspiration. Our conversation unfolded over e-mail:
*What is the vision behind your company and what were some of the key experiences that led you and your business partner to get started?
- My partner, Nick Ramkowsky, and I have both been in the wine business since 1986 (we started very young), and we could have done any number of things together. Nick was a small California distributor at the time, and I had just sold my direct-to-consumer wine business where he had been one of my suppliers. A fateful trip together in May of 1999 launched us into the importing/national sale & marketing business. We spent about a week in Mendoza on that trip tasting wines from bottle, barrel, tanks?you name it?and we met some incredible winery owners and winemakers. By the end of the week, we were looking at each other and asking, ?How does the 5th largest wine producer in the world hide incredible wines like these from the US?? It seemed like this must be the opportunity of a lifetime for wine guys like us to lead the charge in introducing Argentine wine to the US, and in a way that they would be fully appreciated for their quality and authenticity, and not just their price. As an aside, of the first 12 wines we imported from Argentina, the LEAST EXPENSIVE wine was $22 retail! So in fact, Vine Connections was originally formed in order to be an Argentine wine importer. *Compared to other importers, what is the depth of Vine Connection's involvement with the producers its represents? (in terms of consulting, marketing, other assistance, etc.)
- It is hard to speak about other importers, since some do quite a lot and some just taste and buy. As for us, we take the approach that we are the winery?s own sales & marketing department and they can use us for as little or as much as they need. That may mean writing back label copy, helping with label design, or determining whether a new blended wine is even a good idea to add to their portfolio.
For all of our wineries, we do the copywriting for all printed materials since we can communicate their stories in English more effectively, and along the same lines, we handle most press relations since we are here and readily available. And I guess the most valuable thing we do would be called ?consulting? since we offer our advice on many topics based on our 40 years of working in the U.S. wine biz. *How does your company forge relationships with producers? In this vein, what is the process like for you when considering an addition to your portfolio? Do the producers come towards you in the way of trade events, do you travel to areas to scout, so to speak, or some combination thereof?
- We are very careful in this regard since our objective as an importer is to build brands and not just sell wine. That requires long-term relationships, so besides tasting backwards and forwards through a winery?s production, we spend as much as time as we can with the owners and the winemakers to see whether there is a good fit for working closely together. When we meet people who already think they know it all about winemaking, marketing, etc., we politely walk away no matter the wine quality. Our initial screen is the wines?they have to be particularly good since that is what we are known for importing. Then we start talking about their philosophies, their dreams, their business objectives, and where we should all eat dinner together (a meal with a potential supplier is always a good way to gain more insight).
This process means that while we have run into some wines that we like, we have sometimes been unwilling to take the winery on. The most common stumbling block for us seems to be that the winery lacks a strong winemaking philosophy, and often because they have abdicated this cornerstone to a consulting winemaker (and most often to foreign winemakers). As time has passed, we have pretty much settled into the idea of only representing wineries owned by Argentines and with Argentine winemakers since the winemaking vision is usually clearer and more grounded in expressing what makes Mendoza so special compared to other regions.
From the first moment that we meet a winery team, it usually takes about 18 months before we come to an agreement, do the ground work, and then start selling the wines in the U.S. It seems to work--we have never lost an Argentine winery and every brand that we represent has achieved a significant level of success.
I wish I could say that finding these producers followed a particular recipe, but in truth, all of our brands have come to us via different sources. The key is to have your radar on all the time so that the best ones don?t slip by accidentally.
*You represent Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevsky's Dominio del Plata Winery?how did that relationship come about and how far back do you go?
- Well, if it weren?t for the ?dynamic duo? of Mendoza, we may never have been Argentine wine importers. We met them on our first trip to Mendoza in 1999, and they were so obviously talented and knowledgeable that they got us thinking a lot about the possibilities. We also formed a trusting relationship so quickly tha
Tecnorati
What a difference just six months has made in the price grape growers in California?s San Joaquin Valley are now being offered compared to spot prices paid at harvest last year.
"In most films, the cast is comprised of seasoned actors who possess a vibrant screen presence and innate ability to charm the audience. But for a handful of movies in which wine itself plays a major role, we might as well add "mouthwatering" to the list of qualities a cast may claim. Encompassing major motion pictures, documentaries and even a mockumentary, our list of top films for wine lovers covers lots of territory - affording viewers plenty to digest when it comes to wine and the silver screen..."
