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.