Wine Labels

We recently blogged about chain store wine labels and the tranquilizing effect the designs and colors have on the customer facing the display.  We concluded that the wine aisle had much in common with other store aisles where colors are used to soothe customers and perhaps to prime them for additional purchases.  

We also got a little critical of the stupid names or other text on labels that seemed to have nothing to do with what's actually in the bottle and that's what prompts this post now.

What the consumer should know is that the grocery store wine set is the result of incredible research done by the largest wine companies in the world.  Those wines are often amended and manipulated to appeal to everyone and offend no one.  Hence, they lack distinction.  So when I see Tribute Cabernet Sauvignon I know two things immediately: there is no Tribute winery and what's in the bottle is formulaic using bulk wine.  It is not the product of an individual vineyard and more likely the product of a laboratory.

The mass marketers do a good job, by the way.  Joe Six-pack probably gets a better bottle of wine at the end of the day than he would have gotten fifty years ago when we got into this business.  Like we said though, there is little in the way of distinction in this end of the business. 

Anyway, back to the offensive wine names and here's a surprise - You don't have to go to a chain store to see stupid labels.  We have them right here.  Leviathon, True Grit, Silver Spur, Blood Root and the inestimable Glup Glup are all currently in stock and they are all good wines.  With names like those, they've got to be good!  Oh, and we have the seductive colors and designs the chain store have too!  

So, who are we to be critical.

Barbaresco

Barbaresco, Barolo, Brunello, Barbera.  What's with all the B wines in Italy?  It gets confusing.  For me it seems like one out of these four always gets lost in the shuffle.  I figure, if I can remember three out four that ain't bad, is it?  Unfortunately the one that tends to get overlooked in my mind's eye is Barbaresco.  Barolo is always memorable.  It's the greatest wine in all of Italy.  Barbera is a memorable best buy in everyday wine.  Brunello is the great wine of Tuscany.  So where does that leave Barbaresco?

Barbaresco does, in fact, have an identity problem that may stem from its pedigree.  Both Barolo and Barbaresco are from Piedmont in the northwest corner of Italy, where the best Italian wines come from.  Barolos are huge red wines often requiring ten to twenty years to develop.  If tasted too young, their tannins will absolutely take the enamel off your teeth.  Barbarescos are sourced from ten miles to the northeast of Barolo in a region a third of the size of Barolo.  So you get the picture - The great wine next door in the larger domaine dwarfs what you do in your smaller venue.

One of the great grapes of the world is Nebbiolo and that single varietal is all that is allowed in both wines but the difference in growing conditions couldn't be more pronounced.  Both appellations are located in the foothills of the Alps but because of the lay of the land, Barbaresco gets a more maritime climate.  It's warmer and drier so the grapes ripen earlier meaning fewer tannins yet the wine remains age worthy.  It is an aromatic, rich and spicy red with flavors of cherry, truffles and anise; yet softer, rounder and more elegant than Barolo.

If that description of Barbaresco sounds pretty good that's because you are in step with what the modern wine loving public loves - rich red wines with soft tannins.  So here's the irony - All this time that Barbaresco has gotten short shrift next to Barolo, it turns out it has the winning formula.  Using modern winemaking technology, Barolos are now being made into that more approachable style.

Las Cartas

In 2004 wine importer Vino Del Sol collaborated with the great Chilean winery, Ventisquero, to form Las Cartas, a maker of two wines, a Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc.  We suspect the importer's contribution was monetary since the wine is made at the Ventisquero's Maipo winery and we wouldn't want that arrangement any other way.  Ventisquero is one of the best winemaking operations in that part of the world.  

Vino Del Sol is also a marketer of note.  All of the text in this post is drawn from their website which is refreshingly informative and not full of the self-apparent misdirection at the mass marketer sites.  All nineteen wineries represented by Vino Del Sol are family-owned, featuring sustainably grown estate fruit that make wines that over-deliver value in a terroir-driven format.  They want everyone to know that, as opposed to the mass marketers who usually concoct an enticing backstory to seduce the reader into purchasing the product.  

Las Cartas' Cabernet is sourced from twenty year old vines at Ventisquero's Trinidad Vineyard in the Maipo Valley.  After a low temperature maceration and fermentation in stainless steel, the wine is aged in French oak for six months and then in the bottle for three months before release.  It is a readily approachable, berry fruit-driven quaff that sells very well off the shelf.

Now here's what's interesting - Usually when a red and white are described the red gets more promotion and the white gets short shrift.  At the Vino Del Sole website the Sauvignon Blanc text is more expansive and detailed than the Cabernet, like they are prouder of that one.  The wine is 100% Casablanca Sauvignon Blanc cold macerated for 12-14 hours for skin contact before a slow cold fermentation.  Four months of a slow battonage (stirring in the barrel) follows that.  No oak is used at any point.  The result is a complex blend of citrus and tropical fruits with minerality at the finish.

Like most Chileans, these wines are moderately priced.

Maremma

Maremma is an Italian wine appellation on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Tuscany.  It is a hundred miles north of Rome saddled between the provinces of Livorno and Grosseto.  The meaning of the name Maremma is disputed.  It either means maritime or it's the Italian version of the Spanish word marismas meaning marshland, which the area was until Mussolini drained it in the 1930s.  Before making it big in the wine business the region was known for its ranches, cowboys and a wild west anything goes mentality.

We discovered Maremma twenty years or so ago when we discovered salinity in wine.  There really is no explanation for salinity in wine except that coastal vineyards have salinity in the air and Maremma has it in spades.  Not surprisingly Maremma has a Mediterranean climate of hot summers and warm winters.  The soils are a mixture of loam and clay and limestone and sand.    

Maremma is a fifteen percent carve out from the entire Tuscan wine appellation.  It includes the Bolgheri wine appellation we posted about a couple months ago.  Here's where things get interesting: This region with its cowboys and ranches felt free enough in the 1940s to break the existing wine laws by bringing in the Bordeaux grape varieties of France, a slap in the face of the domestic wine industry.  The Maremma growers were intent upon competing with Bordeaux and they prevailed with their own Italian version of Bordeaux.  The rest is history.

What were to become known internationally as Super Tuscans, were enjoyed locally for about twenty years before a ground swell of demand expanded their distribution.  In the 1960's they went international, finally hitting our shores around 1980.  It took ten years for the Italian regulators to amend the winemaking laws to allow for this new category and then ten more years before Maremma received its legal appellation DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata).

Maremma is home to Ornellia, Masseto, Sassicaia and many others that command prices comparable to most classified Bordeaux.  They are among the finest wines of Italy.  But if you need something to go with your pizza or pasta this weekend modestly priced Super Tuscans can be had here for under twenty dollars.

Nuts

We have the best mixed nuts in town and I'm not talking about the denizens of this store or even yours truly.  The mix I'm talking about is new here and it is sublime.  We've had chocolate covered nuts, Marcona Almonds, and little cutesy packs of nuts for gift baskets for years but nothing like this.  This mix puts Planters to shame.  

So what's the key selling point for our nuts?  They contain the amino acid, tryptophan, that produces seratonin, the neurotransmitter that modulates moods.  They make you feel good.  Moreover, nuts are anti-carcinogenic by modulating the gut microbiome and reducing pathogenic bacteria.  They are heart healthy.  They lower blood pressure and since cardiovascular health includes respiration, breathing issues are addressed.  Remember the mood altering seratotin?  In a UCLA study dieters who ate nuts were more satisfied with their diets and still lost weight!  

If you are of a certain age you remember buying a can of mixed nuts only to find that you got mostly peanuts.  We have nothing against peanuts.  We like peanuts.  But it was ridiculous.  Now, thanks to the FDA, if a mix has more than 50% of one variety (peanuts) it has to say so on the can.   Our mix has zero peanuts.

So what kind of wine goes with nuts?  In our research we found recommendations of roses, champagnes and light dry unoaked whites.  But those recommendations came from the nut companies.  What do they know.  Drink anything you would like.

The Grocery Store Set

I was in Publix recently and took a gander at their wine department.  It never hurts to see what's selling at the competition and while it didn't look like much was going on there, I hung around for a few minutes anyway...because I had to.  I was paralyzed.  The brightly colored labels and whimsical names kind of perversely overwhelmed me for a minute before I got my bearings again.  Then I thought for a minute longer about what had just happened.

Here's the historical perspective: Fifty years ago wine labels were usually white with no nonsense information on the front like producer, type and vintage.  Usually the plainer the label, the better the wine.  At least that's the way it used to be.  Fancier labels evoked suspicion, like, Why are they trying so hard to sell this stuff?  Now I guess the MBA's and admen have transformed the industry into something sensational.  They've made that grocery store wine aisle into an adventureland.  And I get it.  The mass marketing of wine in grocery stores wasn't successful with the plain labels.  They needed to be dolled up.

What I don't get is the silliness in many of those labels.  The captivating colors I get.  You see something similar in other aisles; soups, frozen foods, breakfast cereals.  This is the way it is in the modern grocery biz.  Colors can be mesmerizing.  And I'm sure the appeal is dissected repeatedly in labs and boardrooms to get those color schemes just right.  It's just the way it is.

I remember a label from several years ago, Angry Housewife, or something like that.  I remember at the time thinking, What does that have to do with wine?  It's a distraction from what's in the bottle, which to my my way of thinking, probably means the wine isn't very good.  Like Yellowtail.  

If the silliness in wine labeling continues I'm left wondering how long before Tony the Tiger makes his appearance on a wine label.

Syrah

Back in the day we learned to appraise wines by recognizing the few grape types that were deemed to be noble by the experts and then, by default, seeing all of the others as ordinary types.  (Some were actually ignoble.  Ask me about Alicante Bouschet some time.)  That scheme has since fallen from favor once one acknowledges that most grapes are capable of producing superior wine in the right environs with the right winemaking hands.  But still, we maintain that some vinifera wine grapes are downright noble.   

Cabernet Sauvignon is a no-brainer.  It produces superior wine most everywhere.  Pinot Noir is also a for-sure winner even if it is only a select few acres that make the case, relatively speaking.  Syrah, on the other hand, has always been on the fence.  Some maintain its nobility while others just don't get it.  Its quality capabilities are more like Cabernet, forthright and deliberate, the inverse of the insipid Pinot Noir now populating chain store shelves everywhere.  You might say there is so much good Syrah out there we take it for granted.  It's just doesn't have the popularity of Cabernet.  

For as long as we've been in the business, the Cotes du Rhone as been the go-to region for any serious wine lover to find their affordable red meat dinner wine.  The southern Rhone is where Grenache dominates with a blending assist from Syrah and others.  The northern Rhone however, is where the Syrah grape shines.  These are the finest Syrah-based wines in the world.  They are refined, concentrated and elegant; structured and capable of improving for a minimum of ten years. Potency and finesse is the calling card.  But our all time favorite descriptor has to be violets and tar.   

In the nineteenth century the grape was exported to Australia.  Re-named Shiraz, the grape quickly became the signature grape of the continent.  In fact, like Cabernet, Syrah seems to do well in most places.  If it has soils of granite, schist or shale, that is, rocky, you get that intense northern Rhone black pepper and olive style.  If the soil is softer, sandy or clayey, you get a lighter aromatic, softer structured plum and chocolate wine.  In any event, it's all good.

History is fickle in this industry.  In the 1700s Syrah was esteemed in Europe and put on a par with Chateau Lafite in Bordeaux.  That estimation will probably come around again.  Syrah is a prolific vigorous vine, easy to cultivate and in need of regular pruning.  Those kinds usually get promoted by the industry, so we shall see.

By the way, we taste a lot of wines here.  The best we tasted last year was a Cornas from the northern Rhone.