Lamadrid Agrelo Cabernet Sauvignon

When wine lovers think of Argentina we automatically think Malbec.  Argentina has the best, after all, so perhaps other types from that incredible region don't get the respect they may deserve.  Well, guess what.  We think we found a gem in this little Argentine Cabernet.  

The key word on the label here is Agrelo.  If this was ordinary everyday red wine it would have just been labeled Mendoza Cabernet, which in all honesty would have been plenty prestigious enough.  But Agrelo means so much more.

Mendoza is a huge desert plateau that has become Mecca for large wine companies everywhere.  Everyone wants to have a piece of the prized Mendoza action.  But if you head west in Mendoza into the Andes and higher elevations you enter the Lujan da Cuyo province and within that province you find Agrelo, one of the finest venues for big complex Mendoza reds.

Malbec still rules in this region just like everywhere in Mendoza.  Half of the Agrelo production is Malbec with Cabernet Sauvignon making up a mere thirteen percent of the pie.  Argentine wine law says a varietal wine must be at least 85% of that type so it's reasonable to assume some of that prized Malbec has found its way into the Lamadrid blend.  

So what makes the Agrelo terroir so special?  At 1,000 meters above sea level Agrelo soils are erosion from higher Andes altitudes making them rocky enough for good drainage while also enabling tap roots to access nutrients and minerality below.  This region also has the diurnal temperature shift so essential for acidity to balance the fruit in rich red wines.  And it has a fortuitous rain shadow, a mountain providence of shelter from excessive rain.  Since there is plenty of water from runoff from above, water is not a problem.  

Think about a case of this one, folks.  It could go a long ways to getting you through the holidays. 

When Buying Red Wine

Datassential (whoever they are) surveyed 4,500 red wine buyers for what they are looking for when they purchase wine.  Here's what they found.

56% are concerned about the degree of sweetness/dryness.  

50% want to know what style the wine is made in.  (lighter, richer etc.)

49% want a description of the flavors.  (fruit, oak etc.)  

39% want to know the food affinities of the wine.  

34% want to know a brand name or producer.  

24% want to know the place of origin of the wine.  

22% want to know the alcohol content.  

16% are concerned about the wine's acidity.  

And 11% want to know nutritional information.  (organics vs additives)

Datassential says most red wine buyers enjoy their wine with the meal but entertaining is a close second.  They also like the fruit-forward style with a sweetness/dryness balance that works for them.

For us, food pairing is paramount so everything else must work to that end.  With that in mind, the wine style and place of origin should at least be considered as a factor for the enjoyment of a meal.  Thanksgiving is coming up and the traditional holiday dinner is a sweeter meal, so for that one, the wine doesn't need to be bone dry.  With regard to the last four considerations on the list; alcohol content, branding, the nutritional stuff and acidity; those are all really personal decisions that should be respected by all of us. 

4 Monos GR-10 Tinto

Here's where you find out just how ignorant I am.  This Spanish red has been on the shelf here for about a year with very little action on it because I frankly didn't know what it was.  Spanish red, I thinks.  That's all you need to know.  Spanish red.  So it's got to be good.  So I thinks.  

Svetlana writes her own orders so when I asked her to send me a couple cases of Spanish and Portuguese wines, more 4 Monos came in the door, which was fine since everything she sends me is good.  It just means I need to get off my butt and learn what the stuff is so I can sell it.

4 Monos is literally 4 Monkeys, the project of four winemakers who, while hiking the GR-10 trail from Lisbon to Valencia, found the vineyards for this wine around Madrid, the midpoint of the trek.  Being winemakers they recognized the worth of the high altitude granite soils of the Sierra de Gredos region within the Madrid DO and thus began their project.

This organic red is a blend of mostly Garnacha with Carenina and Syrah blended from vineyards up to eighty-five years old.  Those grapes are hand harvested and whole cluster pressed before fermenting with wild yeasts from the vineyard.  For aging, the wine sees nine months in oak with some time in foudres and concrete. (Foudres are larger oak vats commonly used in the Cotes du Rhone.)

The wine is a pale ruby color with floral aromatics of lilac and violets.  On the palate it shows fresh focused raspberry and cherry fruit with spice and soft tannins.  Being Spanish wine, its display is balanced and complex with typical Spanish earthiness and acidity.  Food affinities are wide open but definitely something with a meat sauce/gravy might be nice.

And there you have it...I thinks.

Bronco

George McConnon is an importer of fine estate bottled wines from Slovenia.  George is also a veteran of thirty years in the California wine industry, spending about six years with the Bronco Wine Company.  Bronco is one of the largest in the world so we asked him to share a little bit of what that experience was like.  But before we get into that, lets learn a little about Bronco since it's not exactly a household name.  

Bronco was established in 1973 by brothers Fred and Joseph Franzia along with their cousin John Franzia.  The Franzias were nephews of Ernest and Julio Gallo and probably got their start in the industry through them.  Like Gallo, Bronco has its headquarters near Modesto.  

The money to start Bronco came from an unlikely source, Coca-Cola, which purchased the existing Franzia winery of that time.  So the Franzias join the long list of wine industry families that have sold their name which means the Franzia boxed wines in the grocery stores have no relationship to the Franzia family.  They are now owned by The Wine Group which purchased them from Coke.

The selling of a winery name is actually all the buyer wants.  Usually these larger players don't need the vineyards or the actual winery.  They just want an existing profitable brand name.  It's just the way it is in the industry now.

George McConnon says Bronco now markets wines under 319 labels including notables like Rosenblum and Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck.)  They are the largest vineyard owner in the world with seventy thousand acres in vines.  Many of their wine labels weren't active at the time of their purchase or never were an entity before being created by the company.  

Bronco is vertically integrated owning five huge wineries with bottling and storage facilities across the state.  They turn sixty-one million gallons of grape juice into 125 cases of wine a day or sixty-five million cases a year.  George says if a grocery store wine label shows no wine appellation other than just California, it's probably from Bronco.  He said that with a smile so it's an overstatement but it also reflects his over all appreciation for the company.  He said the Franzias were nice folks and treated him well.

Allegro Moscato is a sweet white from California currently promoted by Bronco.  That one is in stock currently as are several other California appellation wines that may also be from Bronco AND George's fine Slovenians are also here.

Reggiano Parmesan

It's almost conspiratorial the way Covid, the supply chain doldrums and whatever else is behind food inflation have all together waylaid the cheese business for guys like me.  Maybe we just need to get out of that business entirely, but then I guess we'd have to change our store name and what a pain that would be.  Or else we can hit the reset button and start all over with it.

So after listening to several customers gripe about the quality of grocery store parmesan, we went ahead and brought back the "King of Cheeses" and you know what the good news is for you?   Price.  What?  Why?  Don't know.  But the price is reasonable again.

Parmigiano Reggiano has a uniquely sharp, complex, fruity/nutty savory flavor accompanied by a uniquely gritty granular (tyrosine crystals) texture.  No other cheese in the world puts all of those characteristics together in such a completely satisfying way.  And it's manufacturing is regulated by the Italian government...but more on that later.  American chain store parmesan can be anything from anywhere.  It may be a fine substitute for Parm-Reg or maybe not.  It is not regulated.  Not by a long shot.  So good luck with quality.

Parm-Reg is sourced from a confederation of cheese makers across five provinces in northern Italy.  The earliest written references to the cheese go back to the thirteenth century but historians believe that tradition goes back further.  If you want to know specifics about the making of the cheese we would refer you to the Wikipedia page which goes into great detail.  Suffice it to say here, the only additive to the cheese is salt. 

While the regulations referred to above are voluminous (bureaucrats, ya know), here are some of the biggies.  Five cattle breeds with specific diets are allowed for milking for Parm-Reg with the milking done at varying times resulting in a partially skimmed product.  The cheese is then aged a minimum of two years for basic Parm-Reg but further aging increases the value of the cheese which is then regulated again.

Reggiano Parmesan is meant for grating over pasta, soups, salads or whatever.  The natural rind may be used in soups, broths, sauces or once again, anything you might like.  A couple nights ago Parm-Reg  became my homemade pizza cheese.  And it was m-m-m m-m-m good!

So stop in and pick up some of the "King of Cheeses!"

Bertani, Part 2

Angelini is a Tuscan-based wine company established in 1994.  We currently have several of their decent moderately priced wines in the store at this time.  Angelini is also the name of the Rome-based drug company (est. 1919) that bought into the wine business with their purchase in 1994.  They have grown comfortably since that beginning thirty years ago.

Bertani is a family-owned Veneto-based wine company that has been one of the best in the business for a couple hundred years.  In 2011 the family made the decision to sell 70% of their company to Angelini.  They retained the best seventy-three acres of Valpolicella Classico vineyards along with their fifty-four acres of Tenuta Santa Maria vineyards purchased in the 1850s.  Those blocks are still in family hands and constitute some of the best vineyard land in the region.

The backstory here is that the family feared global warming was going to wreck the quality of much of what they had.  They retained Classico vineyards at higher altitudes where they believed both the atmospheric heat and microbial life in the soils would remain consistent with historic norms.  The goal was to maintain the wine quality going back a hundred years.

So the Bertani labeled wines on store shelves now are made by Angelini although some Bertani family is involved considering they still hold a thirty percent interest in the Veneto operation.  The 123 acres retained by the Bertani family and the wines marketed under the Tenuta Santa Maria label continue as some of the best of the region.

Bertani, Part 1

When we got into this business back in 1981 one of our suppliers was a wine distributor called MacKesson; yes, the pharmaceuticals company.  They had gotten into the wine business in a big way, owning the rights to sell exclusively in Georgia the wines of several premium California estate wineries.  And they failed miserably in the process.  America at large was not yet culturally ready for fine California wines.  So, for those of us savvy enough to pick up on what inevitably became regular dumps of fine wines at ridiculously discounted prices, it was manna from heaven.  

Earlier this year our Tenuta Santa Maria Italian wine vendor shared that his wine was actually the production of the historic brand, Bertani (est.1857), and that the actual Bertani brand on store shelves was now owned by an Italian drug company.  Weird.  

MacKesson quickly got out of the wine business, by the way, and those great labels of yore found new suppliers who knew how to market them effectively.  Here's the obvious backstory: Wine industry insiders know how to work with narrow profit margins.  Drug companies don't have the patience.  They're used to the H-U-G-E margins in their industry.

The Italian drug company has now owned Bertani for a dozen years and they've added parcels in Montepulciano, Montalcino, Chianti Classico and more recently, Marche and Friuli.  They appear to be quite successful.  How do they do it?

Three things:      

1. The wine culture in Italy is very mature so selling this product that is known to everyone should be relatively easy.

2. Georgia is a three tier state.  Maybe Italy doesn't have that extra expensive level of bureaucracy eating up profits.  AND the government over there is probably more supportive of the industry than over here.

3. The Bertani wines aren't what they used to be.  The drug company bought the Bertani name but not the best vineyards.  So there you go, they lowered their costs by sourcing from lesser vineyards to increase their margins.